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OUT OF THIS WORLD | What's Up In Space - a weekly look at the biggest news coming down to Earth from space

SpaceX Dragon launches cool science into orbit Friday


Scott Sutherland
Meteorologist/Science Writer

Friday, December 15, 2017, 9:52 AM - SpaceX's Dragon cargo ship is scheduled to lift off this morning from Cape Canaveral, carrying some amazing science up to the International Space Station, and you can watch the launch, live, right from here!

At 10:35 a.m. ET, SpaceX's Dragon CRS-13 cargo mission launched into space from NASA's Launch Complex 40, at Cape Canaveral, atop a Falcon 9 booster rocket. Now in space, the Dragon spacecraft is set for arrival at the International Space Station on Sunday morning. 

The Dragon CRS-13 capsule making this flight is the same capsule that flew as CRS-6, which launched to the ISS back on April 14, 2015 and was recovered after it splashed down a little over a month later. This is the second flight of a re-used Dragon capsule for SpaceX. The Falcon 9 booster rocket that will propel CRS-13 into orbit is the same booster that was used for the CRS-11 launch, back on June 3, 2017. While there have been previous flights that have either reused the capsule or booster from previous missions, this is the first time SpaceX will be flying a reused Dragon atop a reused Falcon 9.


SpaceX CRS-13 lifts off from LC-40, at 10:35 a.m. ET, Friday, December 15, 2018. Credit: SpaceX

Eight minutes after launch, at roughly 10:43 a.m. ET, the Falcon 9 booster made a pin-point touchdown back at Landing Zone 1, roughly 10 km south of the launch pad.

This is the third scheduled launch window for CRS-13, as SpaceX had originally planned for liftoff to happen at 11:46 a.m. ET on Tuesday, December 12. In a Tweet, late Monday night, the company said that it was delaying until Wednesday, "to allow for additional time for pre-launch ground systems checks." Then, on Tuesday, the company once again delayed the launch, to allow them more time to clear particles found in the fuel system of the second stage of the rocket.

This will be the first use the LC-40 launch pad since September 1, 2016, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster rocket exploded during a static fire test, destroying the Amos-6 satellite it was to carry, and heavily damaging the pad's hardware. Since the incident, SpaceX had moved its launches to Pad 39A, which is where the Apollo missions to the Moon had blasted off. With LC-40 now repaired, the company is moving its Falcon 9 launches back there, while Pad 39A is refitted for the upcoming Falcon Heavy launch, sometime in early 2018.

Watch below as the Falcon 9 carrying the Amos-6 satellite explodes, September 1, 2016



This cargo flight is carrying nearly 2,200 kg of equipment, supplies and science experiments to the International Space Station, where it is expected to arrive for berthing early in the morning on Sunday, December 17. On that same day, at 2:21 a.m. ET, NASA astronaut Scott Tingle, Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov and Japanese astronaut Norishige Kanai are also scheduled to launch to the ISS from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

Included in the payload of CRS-13 are experiments to examine how plants grow in microgravity and how cancer cells respond to these conditions, as well as testing drug delivery systems that may help to combat muscle atrophy, and microsensors that can monitor blood glucose levels in diabetics.

Travelling to the ISS in the "trunk" of the Dragon capsule are two new instruments for the space station. The Total and Spectral Solar Irradiance Sensor (TSIS-1) will measure the total light energy from the Sun that arrives at the top of Earth's atmosphere, to give us a better insight into the ozone-destroying chemistry that is taking place in the stratosphere. The Space Debris Sensor (SDS) will monitor small impacts on the space station's exterior, to help track some of the smaller pieces of space debris that orbit our planet.

Space debris is a growing concern for operations in orbit. According to NASA, the space station has made a total of 23 "avoidance maneuvers", specifically to avoid any possibility of colliding with larger pieces of debris, which could potentially cause significant damage to the station. Debris larger than 10 cm across is currently tracked by ground sensors, and anything less than 2.5 cm wide is easily handled by the station's shielding. The objects in between represent an unknown hazard, not only to the ISS, but to future space planes that are expected to carry passengers on sub-orbital flights in the years ahead.

Sources: NASA | SpaceX

Watch Below: NASA TSIS-1 measures total output from Sun at Earth



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