Dragon Success and Atlantis Engines - SpacePod 2010.12.13

The end is in sight for the Space Shuttle while the future of SpaceX is looking bright. I'm Benjamin Higginbotham and this is your SpacePod for December 13th, 2010.

The big news this last week was that Space Exploration Technologies or SpaceX has become the first company in the world to have a spacecraft launch, orbit the Earth, re-enter our atmosphere and be safely recovered. Until now only 3 countries have been able to accomplish this: the US, Russia and China. Here's a quick review of the launch itself just in case you missed it

And while watching a Falcon 9 lifoff from SLC-40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, I think watching the Dragon module separate from the upper stage was even more exciting!

This is just the beginning. The Dragon capsule still needs to have the photovoltaic cells, or solar panels added for energy generation and additional maneuvering/docking tests need to be completed before SpaceX will be able to start officially carrying out its cargo transportation contract with NASA under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services or COTS contract.

Just as SpaceX is starting to spin up production, NASA is winding down the Space Shuttle program. Last week the final 3 Space Shuttle Main Engines or SSMEs were installed in Atlantis for the Launch on Need Mission and potential final flight of the Space Shuttle Program: STS-135. Each engine is 14 feet long, weighs 6,700 pounds and is 7.5 feet in diameter at the end of the nozzle.

Now that things have settled down a bit over here, it is our hope that we will resume our live show this Friday at 0200 UTC. We'll have our Roku HD giveaway where you can win a FREE Roku box allowing you to watch Spacevidcast live on your HDTV! The only way to win is to watch live. For those of you in the US that would be Thursday night at 6:00pm pacific standard time or 9:00pm eastern standard time. We'll see you there!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• nasa
• cots
• dragon
• falcon 9
• spacex
• rocket
• ssme
• atlantis
• ov-104
• spacevidcast

[roguemale57]

Doesn't Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic qualify for the first commercial craft ? I remain hopeful that commercial space travel will have a more co-operative approach to possibly intergrating systems from other countries. The chinese for example, luanched a capsule with half the electronics (& at half the cost!) of say a NASA one.

[spacevidcast]

@roguemale57 Scaled Composite's SS1 was sub-orbital and as such did not go around the Earth and is not capable of going to the ISS. What makes this awesome is that it is a fully qualified orbital spacecraft. Virgin Galactic has yet to put anything in to space, and even when SS2 does make it up there it will still be sub-orbital only.

[dreammaker182]

Beautiful! It's sad that a lot of people don't even know this is going on...

[spacevidcast]

@dreammaker182 We're trying to change that... Get people excited about space again. It takes time to make that happen though, but we're getting better at telling the story of space and companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic are creating waves that makes space interesting again.

[SpaceOz08]

GOOD WORK SPACEX TEAM!

[ti994apc]

@roguemale57 Scaled Composites only went into space by definition (which was defined after the fact) by saying 50 miles up is the edge of space. They will need to go about 6 times higher and a lot faster to achieve a Low orbit. SpaceX is the real deal.

[tobigforyou]

THE END IS IN SIGHT! :)

[Buttmunch5000]

is it just me or are there ties within the government with spaceX i mean using the air forces' launch pad, somehow i would doubt they would just anyone use that , and with the cots contract they are just throwing money at private companies , i thought private space was supposed to be different stand on its own two feet, not being propped up by the government with some nifty marketing making it seem like their a private company when they are not. government = big business , WE pay

[NIK4EVA]

@spacevidcast Unless Rihanna or Miley Cirus endorse this, I dont think the new generation will notice this at all.

[nak807]

Fuck the space Shuttle!

[imcmurtrie]

Please use metric at all times. Thank you.

[dreammaker182]

@hantonr I think that the greatest thing about the space shuttle was that it has a full laboratory on board and room for more via SpaceLab. It can also fly without a space station... It's cargo capacity was also unmatched for a reusable vehicle.