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SpaceX Dragon returns year-in-space samples

SpaceX splashdown
SpaceX’s Dragon capsule descends toward the Pacific at the end of its parachutes. (Credit: SpaceX)

A month after delivering an expandable prototype habitat and other goodies to the International Space Station, SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean today  with tons of equipment and scientific samples.

Among the roughly 3,700 pounds of cargo are freezers containing blood, saliva, urine and stool samples from astronaut Scott Kelly, who served as an experimental subject during a nearly yearlong stint on the station. Those samples will be studied to see how long-term spaceflight affected Kelly’s metabolic functions, including the function of the gut bacteria in his bowels.

The results could affect how NASA plans for even longer journeys to Mars and other deep-space destinations.

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Obama hails rocket landing in tweetfest

Image: President Obama and Elon Musk
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shows President Barack Obama around the company’s Cape Canaveral rocket processing site in 2010. (Credit: Bill Ingalls / NASA)

SpaceX’s first-ever at-sea rocket landing was cause for a Twitter celebration that drew in President Barack Obama as well as other space-loving luminaries.

SpaceX used its two-stage Falcon 9 rocket on Friday to send a Dragon cargo capsule on its way to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Minutes later, the rocket’s first stage guided itself back from the edge of space and settled onto an autonomous drone ship, hundreds of miles out in the Atlantic Ocean.

Today the Dragon is heading toward a rendezvous with the space station, with a robotic-arm grapple maneuver scheduled for about 7 a.m. ET (4 a.m. PT) Sunday. You can watch the operation starting at 5:30 a.m. ET (2:30 a.m. PT) via NASA TV. Meanwhile, the drone ship is making its way back to Port Canaveral, where the rocket stage will be offloaded for testing and probable reuse.

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Wow! SpaceX lands rocket at sea after launch

Image: SpaceX Falcon 9 booster
The first stage of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket stands erect on a drone ship after landing. (Credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX launched a Dragon cargo capsule today with an expandable module for the International Space Station, and then successfully landed the first stage of its Falcon 9 rocket on an oceangoing platform.

The Atlantic Ocean landing, accomplished after four not-quite-successful attempts, was greeted by wild cheering at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. “USA! USA!” they chanted.

“This is a really good milestone for the future of spaceflight,” SpaceX’s billionaire CEO, Elon Musk, told reporters afterward at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. “It’s another step toward the stars.”

It was also the capper for a remarkable comeback.

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SpaceX to deliver pop-up room to space station

Image: BEAM module
An artist’s conception shows the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module attached to the International Space Station. (Credit: Bigelow Aerospace)

For the first time, SpaceX is due to launch an entire room to the International Space Station – a room that can go into orbit folded up, and then be expanded like an accordion once it’s hooked up to the station.

The 3,100-pound Bigelow Expandable Activity Module, or BEAM, is the primary payload for a cargo resupply mission. BEAM will be packed in the “trunk” of SpaceX’s uncrewed Dragon cargo capsule when it’s lofted into space by a Falcon 9 rocket.

Liftoff from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida is set for 4:43 p.m. ET (1:43 p.m. PT) April 8. Forecaster Kathy Winters said there’s a 90 percent chance of acceptable weather. “It’ll be a great day to launch a rocket,” she told reporters at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

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SpaceX shows how its Dragon spaceship hovers

A newly released video shows SpaceX’s Dragon 2 capsule pulling off a valuable trick: firing its thrusters to hover above a landing pad.

The Nov. 24 test was part of Project DragonFly, the California-based company’s effort to develop a Dragon that can touch down on land rather than splashing down in the ocean. The trick is likely to come into play when future Dragons come back from the International Space Station — or land on Mars.

This test was conducted at SpaceX’s rocket development facility in Texas. The Dragon was suspended from a tether, and then engineers fired up its eight SuperDraco thrusters for five seconds. SpaceX said the firing generated about 33,000 pounds of thrust before the craft was returned to its resting position.

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NASA hails SpaceX’s taxi for future crew

SpaceX Crew Dragon
An artist’s conception shows SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule en route to the International Space Station. (Credit: SpaceX)

NASA has ordered its first mission from SpaceX to carry astronauts to the International Space Station, six months after placing a similar order with Boeing.

“It’s really exciting to see SpaceX and Boeing with hardware in flow for their first crew rotation missions,” Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said today in a news release. “It is important to have at least two healthy and robust capabilities from U.S. companies to deliver crew and critical scientific experiments from American soil to the space station throughout its lifespan.”

Both companies are developing space taxis for NASA’s use as early as 2017, under the terms of multibillion-dollar contracts that were awarded last year.

Even though the first order went to Boeing, it has not yet been determined whether Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner capsule or SpaceX’s Crew Dragon capsule will go first. The contracts required NASA to put in its orders early, but the scheduling decisions and required certifications will be made at a later time.

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