I have been following this for the last few days, they launched the Falcon 9 rocket with the Dragon capsule on Tuesday, then Thursday had to perform a series of tests to make sure the Dragon spacecraft was working fine, now they are docking. They had to perform multiple tests on it to make sure everything was working okay, and as it turns out, there was apparently a flaw on the space station ITSELF which threw off the Dragon in its approach, so they had to move it back away fro mthe ISS make some changes, and re-approach. At 9:56 AM EST, the ISS crew reached out with the space station's robotic arm and grabbed the capsule. Now they are in the process of berthing it. Provided everything is successful, this will mark the first time in history that a private company has launched a spacecraft up to the International Space Station. The Falcon 9 and Dragon are both capable of carrying humans, so this is a big deal. The Dragon right now has a load of supplies for the ISS to use.
What's really cool is how all the naysayers said Elon Musk didn't know what he was doing and would never succeed. He has thus far proven them wrong with goal after goal met, but this is the first really big-deal mission. It really seems like he is going to seriously reduce the cost of launching satellites, cargo, and astronauts into outer space. SpaceX's rockets are re-usable, more reliable, and cheaper. Here is the link to watch the (rest of) the docking live: http://mashable.com/2012/05/25/dragon-docking-video/)
EDIT: Okay, the docking has been completed, but tomorrow, they will show at 5:30 AM EST, the opening of the space capsule).
I have great respect for NASA's accomplishments, but as of late, they blew through billions and still failed to develop a booster/capsule, while SpaceX has done so for $300 million. SpaceX's Falcon Heavy Lift rocket will be capable of lifting about twice the payload of the Space Shuttle and for less than 1/10 the price per pound as well, and more than twice the payload of the Boeing Delta IV Heavy. This is a historic moment, as it proves the viability of commercial spacecraft. The only other entities to accomplish such spacecraft are NASA, the Russian Space Agency, the European Space Agency, and the Japanese Space Agency.
As a side note, James Cameron recently made a record-breaking dive to the bottom of the Marianna Trench (in a submersible which he designed too, he also has worked at designing special camera, both for movies and space exploration), making it the fourth time any craft has successfully dived down that far. He spent three hours down there, the longest ever (the last time any person went to the Challenger Deep (deepest part) was the U.S. Navy in 1960, two men for twenty minutes). Cameron was the first solo dive and the longest manned dive. The dive was the culmination of seven years of planning and the design and construction of a special submersible (Cameron is very big on ocean exploration, hence the movies The Abyss, Titanic and also the aquatic-based world of Avatar). This dive was really big-time as well in that not only is his craft revolutionary in design as far as submersibles go, but it is also private-sector, not government. And the deep sea is harder to explore than outer space (more humans have walked on the Moon, and for far longer, than have explored the bottom of the ocean), so that was also a big deal.
Great times for human exploration, and in the case of SpaceX, it's being advanced by Americans.
What's really cool is how all the naysayers said Elon Musk didn't know what he was doing and would never succeed. He has thus far proven them wrong with goal after goal met, but this is the first really big-deal mission. It really seems like he is going to seriously reduce the cost of launching satellites, cargo, and astronauts into outer space. SpaceX's rockets are re-usable, more reliable, and cheaper. Here is the link to watch the (rest of) the docking live: http://mashable.com/2012/05/25/dragon-docking-video/)
EDIT: Okay, the docking has been completed, but tomorrow, they will show at 5:30 AM EST, the opening of the space capsule).
I have great respect for NASA's accomplishments, but as of late, they blew through billions and still failed to develop a booster/capsule, while SpaceX has done so for $300 million. SpaceX's Falcon Heavy Lift rocket will be capable of lifting about twice the payload of the Space Shuttle and for less than 1/10 the price per pound as well, and more than twice the payload of the Boeing Delta IV Heavy. This is a historic moment, as it proves the viability of commercial spacecraft. The only other entities to accomplish such spacecraft are NASA, the Russian Space Agency, the European Space Agency, and the Japanese Space Agency.
As a side note, James Cameron recently made a record-breaking dive to the bottom of the Marianna Trench (in a submersible which he designed too, he also has worked at designing special camera, both for movies and space exploration), making it the fourth time any craft has successfully dived down that far. He spent three hours down there, the longest ever (the last time any person went to the Challenger Deep (deepest part) was the U.S. Navy in 1960, two men for twenty minutes). Cameron was the first solo dive and the longest manned dive. The dive was the culmination of seven years of planning and the design and construction of a special submersible (Cameron is very big on ocean exploration, hence the movies The Abyss, Titanic and also the aquatic-based world of Avatar). This dive was really big-time as well in that not only is his craft revolutionary in design as far as submersibles go, but it is also private-sector, not government. And the deep sea is harder to explore than outer space (more humans have walked on the Moon, and for far longer, than have explored the bottom of the ocean), so that was also a big deal.
Great times for human exploration, and in the case of SpaceX, it's being advanced by Americans.
