SpaceX Dragon To Launch From Cape Canaveral In February 2012: First Commercial Launch To Space Station

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A private California company will attempt the first-ever commercial cargo run to the International Space Station in February.

NASA announced the news Friday, one year and one day after Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, became the first private business to launch a capsule into orbit and return it safely to Earth.

On Feb. 7, SpaceX will attempt another orbital flight from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. This time, the unmanned Dragon capsule will fly to the space station and dock with a load of supplies.

NASA stressed it is a target date.

"Pending all the final safety reviews and testing, SpaceX will send its Dragon spacecraft to rendezvous with the International Space Station in less than two months," said NASA's No. 2, deputy administrator Lori Garver. "So it is the opening of that new commercial cargo delivery era."

NASA has turned to industry to help stock the space station now that the space shuttles are retired, investing hundreds of millions of dollars in this startup effort. The station currently is supplied by Russian, European and Japanese vessels.

SpaceX's Dragon capsule will fly within two miles of the space station, for a checkout of all its systems. Then it will close in, with station astronauts grabbing the capsule with a robotic arm. The Dragon ultimately will be released for a splashdown in the Pacific. None of the other cargo carriers come back intact; they burn up on re-entry.

If the rendezvous and docking fail, SpaceX will try again. That was the original plan: to wait until the third mission to actually hook up with the station and delivery supplies. SpaceX wanted to hurry it up.

None of the supplies on board the Dragon will be one-of-a-kind or crucial, in case of failure.

SpaceX – run by PayPal co-founder Elon Musk – is one of several companies vying for space station visiting privileges. It hopes to step up to astronaut ferry trips in perhaps three more years. In the meantime, Americans will be forced to continue buying seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

"Every decision that we make at SpaceX is focused on ... taking crew to space," SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said Friday at a forum in Seattle about NASA's future. She said the company is "thrilled" at the prospect of delivering cargo to the space station early next year, and noted that the company is shooting for 2014 with astronauts.

Congress has appropriated $406 million for the commercial crew effort for 2012, considerably less than NASA's requested $850 million.

"It is nevertheless a significant step," Garver said at the forum, televised by NASA. She said NASA is evaluating whether it can speed up when U.S. companies "deliver our precious astronauts to and from the space station."

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Comments

[mamacat]

04:34 PM on 12/13/2011

Cool.

[The Real McCoy]

03:50 PM on 12/12/2011

Just imagine where we would be if we, as a race, instead of individual nations worked to push the limits of space travel and the technology needed for expand the human presence. We would be on Mars by now alas we humans are greedy, corrupt and warmongers.

[IDriveACrapWagon]

02:29 PM on 12/12/2011

EARTH FIRST!!!!!!! We'll strip mine the other planets later!!!!

[pixeloid]

10:19 PM on 12/11/2011

I don't know. I've seen what happens when space is privatized: Aliens, Avatar, Total Recall, etc.

[FerrisValyn]

10:23 PM on 12/11/2011

Space has been privatized for years - this is about commercialization.

[wrwhiteal]

09:48 AM on 12/12/2011

No.
Ask the 18,000 NASA employees and 30,000+ NASA contractors if the US space program is 'privatized'.

If it was 'privatized, then the US taxpayer could/would pay for results.. not for massive, bloated, top-heavy Federal bureaucratic red-tape, Congressional pork.

[wrwhiteal]

01:33 AM on 12/12/2011

You've seen movies.. not reality...

Consider the difference in Aviation, invented and advanced/developed by private enterprise:
Private Enterprise went from first flight (1903) to flying the Atlantic (Lindbergh was motivated by a private x-prize)in 25 years... then a few years later, thousands of civilians flew commercially every day...

Contrast that with American manned spaceflight, which was grabbed by Government as a NASA monopoly.....
50 years after the first manned flights, only a relative few Govt selected astronauts have flown, and those costing $millions each.. and no advancement has been made in 40+ years despite govt blowing $500 billion of taxpayer funds..

If we want a progressive, efficient, affordable, advanced US space program, we need to get Govt/Nasa out of the way.

[Daniel Alman]

08:25 PM on 12/11/2011

If i were president we would have 100 american civilians on the moon by 2025....

[ThinkCreeps]

09:29 AM on 12/12/2011

That's not very impressive. There appear to be about 160 million in orbit at the moment.

[wrwhiteal]

08:12 PM on 12/11/2011

Government FAILS at all efficiency... always has, always will…. NASA has wasted the 40 years and spent $500 billion since Apollo… yet no American has left low earth orbit, and we are begging rides from Russians.
The US space program SHOULD BE about how to do the MOST Space Science/technology/exploration with the 1% or so of Fed budget allocated to space exploration.... not about Congressional pork, or enriching ‘big space’ legacy companies.
After 40 years since Apollo, big govt NASA has the US is FARTHER from Americans on Mars than ever...

Instead, taxpayers can set up taxpayer funded ‘X-prizes’ paid to US private enterprises which accomplish specific US goals...

For example, set aside $1 billion per year (from downsizing NASA's $20 billion budget), to accrue in escrow to be paid to the first US enterprise to put a human on mars....
Set aside another $billion per year for Lunar Colonies, explore asteroids, etc… spend a small part of what NASA wastes…
only pay for ACTUAL RESULTS in US manned space goals… not Fed agency waste/red-tape/incompetence/corruption/politics/pork……what a concept!!!

[ProudToBeVeryLiberal]

08:32 PM on 12/11/2011

I'm just about tired of your Republican rhetoric. You clearly don't have the foggiest idea about space technology. If you did, you'd know that truly cutting-edge technology is what allows MSL to land on Mars. SpaceX might be cheaper than other rockets, but it's still nothing really revolutionary, it's just another chemical rocket.

The private sector would never ever invest in purely scientific missions and would never ever take the risks that cutting-edge technology involves. The private sector should serve NASA to build what they design or to submit designs to NASA. Space can't be just another place where corporate greed trumps science.

[SoDoSomething]

09:16 PM on 12/11/2011

To be more exact, it is just another chemical rocket built with knowledge gained from 50 years of government research. If we had relied on the private sector to go the the moon, we never would have. There was no profit in it. Finally, the government doesn't actually build any of this, it is all built by private companies like Boeing and Lockheed.

[dave1111]

09:05 PM on 12/11/2011

$1 Billion a year?
Current estimates put the cost of a manned mars trip at $200-500 Billion.
So with your 'plan' we could make it there in about 200 years.

[FerrisValyn]

09:07 PM on 12/11/2011

Doing prized based very far exploration is probably a bad idea. But we should be embracing prize based development, particularly for technologies that are closer to commercialization. Prize based systems have historically produced some very interesting affects.

As for the price of going to mars - that assumes we do it a certain way, and its largely designed around the practices of how we did Apollo

[wrwhiteal]

01:15 AM on 12/12/2011

Your $200-$500 billion costs are based on typical Government/NASA bloated pork, waste, blundering project incompetence....

The same bloated, red-tape government waste which cost taxpayers $1.5 billion per launch for a Shuttle NASA promised at $7 million per launch....
The same bloated government waste which cost over $160 billion for a Space Station NASA promised a gullible Congress/taxpayers at $8 billion..

NASA wasted $20 billion and 10 years before it canceled it's failed Constellation booster/capsule (to replace the Saturn/Apollo NASA threw away 30 years ago)...

Yet private enterprise SpaceX produced 2 new rockets, and a new capsule for $500 million, in less than 5 years...

NASA manned space hasn't left low earth orbit in 40 years.. despite burning $500 billion...... and our Fed Govt has us $15 trillion in debt from such waste/incompetence..

What's the downside of setting up X-prizes, and letting private enterprise innovation/spirit do what Govt has failed at?

[Blodo]

08:05 PM on 12/11/2011

Really glad to see this happen. NASA has done, and will continue to do, outstanding primary exploration and research, but it makes sense for private enterprise to do the follow through and figure out how to make space economically viable.

[wrwhiteal]

06:33 PM on 12/11/2011

it is about 'privatization'...

NASA is unbelievably pork filled, inefficient, wasteful.... lacking all innovation/energy...

We have wasted 40 years and $500 billion on the American manned space program since Apollo... without a single american leaving low earth orbit..

We can spend half as much on American manned space, and accomplish 10 times more with private sector innovation, competition, energy..

[ProudToBeVeryLiberal]

06:40 PM on 12/11/2011

The private sector would never invest a dime in purely scientific missions like MSL, Kepler, JWST etc. Without NASA, Mars would still be a mystery and we wouldn't be finding a new exoplanet every other day.

[Varys]

06:52 PM on 12/11/2011

Indeed. Something the diehard "privatize everything" folks don't understand is that greedy, short-term thinking does not accomplish everything. To rationalize it, they say, "if short-term thinking doesn't accomplish it, it wasn't worth accomplishing anyway!"

/facepalm

[wrwhiteal]

08:06 PM on 12/11/2011

We're not talking about private sector investment (yet)...
as much as 'how can taxpayers get a rational, efficient, result oriented manned space program'????
The 'big govt' oriented, pork filled Federal Agency approach has failed miserably...

How can we 'reinvent' a taxpayer funded US space program which gets our bloated, corrupt, wasteful Federal Govt OUT OF THE WAY?

[ayisha]

07:42 PM on 12/11/2011

as with most branches technology, this company relies on basic science funded by the federal government through the network of national labs and grants to researchers working in traditional academic settings. your assumption that "privatization" instantly saves money does not take into consideration all of the work already done by NASA scientists. pick up a peer-reviewed journal in any area of the sciences, and you will see that even the most cutting edge "discovery" requires a firm foundation of established ideas. this company is not reinventing the wheel, simply picking up where NASA left off.

[wrwhiteal]

07:59 PM on 12/11/2011

Not really..... NASA innovation is a fiction..
NASA uses privately developed stuff like Tang, Transistors, Computers, velcro, etc...

Then the overheated NASA public relations dept, and NASA apologists, try to imply that NASA invented them.. when they did not...
Giving NASA credit for the private sector technology it uses is like giving a rooster credit for the sunrise.

[wrwhiteal]

08:01 PM on 12/11/2011

If it were publicly (or NASA generated) technology which enabled SpaceX...

They how do you explain the complete $20 billion/10 year failure of NASA's Constellation booster/capsule project?

The fact is that NASA is just as inefficient, slow, pork oriented as any other parasitic, wasteful Federal Govt agency..

[Passenger57]

02:30 PM on 12/11/2011

"SpaceX" reminds me of "FedEx". I'm surprised they haven't said anything...

[FerrisValyn]

02:32 PM on 12/11/2011

SpaceX is shorthand for Space Exploration Technologies.

Besides, its capitalizing the X, not the E

[Passenger57]

05:34 AM on 12/14/2011

Well, I wrote it REMINDS me of "FedEx", regardless of its meaning or spelling : "SpaceX", "FedEx". I'm probably not the only one...

[ThinkCreeps]

05:25 PM on 12/11/2011

It could well be that the USPS-style status-quo guys in the launcher business are in line for a sharp introduction to competition.

[Passenger57]

05:36 AM on 12/14/2011

Oh, yeah...!

[flashfyre]

02:04 PM on 12/11/2011

Some of these stories are a little nonsensical. Private industry has been in aerospace for ages -- in fact, the US government is generally forbidden by law from building things. They have management and cost oversight, and technical reviews. Who built Apollo? Companies like Boeing and Grumman with taxpayer dollars and government oversight. SpaceX also gets a lot of taxpayer money and oversight. It's not as clean of a split as these stories claim, but I am generally for more company control and less government interference, as long as quality work is done.

[wrwhiteal]

05:48 PM on 12/11/2011

The difference is that Apollo was built to Govt/NASA specifications, with NASA micro-managing design/construction...
Resulting in costs 10-50 times commercial rates... and less than optimum designs..

SpaceX developed it's boosters/capsule itself, with it's own design..

In about 1/10 the time, and 1/20th the cost of what NASA has done..

SpaceX designed, built, tested it's Falcon launcher and Dragon capsule for less than $500 million, in under 5 years...

Nasa spent $20 billion and 10 years on Constellation before it failed/was cancelled..

[realorpretend]

01:06 PM on 12/11/2011

Commercial space exploration and tourism is so exciting. It'll really be interesting to watch once major companies really start competing for private passengers ticket prices.

It may be 100k today, but give it 5 years? Just think about how quickly we'll be having hotels in orbit, on the moon, and soon we'll be having entire industries extracting minerals from other planets.

It's an exciting time to be human.

[wrwhiteal]

05:52 PM on 12/11/2011

The key is the cost per pound of payload to low earth orbit...

Traditional commercial boosters (Delta, Atlas) have cost about $5k per pound to low earth orbit..
NASA's space shuttle cost over $28,000 per lb to LEO..

SpaceX cost $1k-$2k per lb to LEO.... a game changer.

[Trekkinbob]

12:27 PM on 12/11/2011

This is an exciting new era. I'd like to see more public interest in space exploration as it really is the final frontier and the only place left for the human species to advance or face possible extinction. Besides, humans have always been curious and have gone to great lengths despite the risks to discovery and pursuit of knowledge. As for the naysayers, you will always find parallels for them from every generation reaching back from those who were against manned flight stating that "if men were meant to fly God would have given us wings," to those who thought sending ships across the Atlantic was a waste of money, all the way back to the Paleolithic and those who probably thought fire was sent by demonic gods to punish people. If we'd listened to them we would never have left the trees to venture onto the open savannah muchless the dark caves that came later.

[realorpretend]

01:08 PM on 12/11/2011

I truly believe that the fundamental difference between us and most other species is that within our genetic code we are pushed to not desire an equilibrium and this is how we've survived so long, no-dominated, and this is how we'll conquer the stars.

[Blodo]

08:11 PM on 12/11/2011

I agree with everything you said. Let the new era begin. Gleise 581, here we come.

And F&F for your bio as well!

[tazmodious]

12:16 PM on 12/11/2011

To all of ther pooh-poohing going on in this dicussion thread; it was thought not very long ago by many in human history that we wouldn't be able fly. Now it's an everyday occurance, essentially taken for granted.

Go DragonX! Go! I want to go into space before I die. In fact, if you need a test subject, I'm your man.

[ProudToBeVeryLiberal]

06:49 PM on 12/11/2011

"I want to go into space before I_die."

Sorry, this is something reserved to the world's 1% elite. Incidentally, space tourism is a really bad idea because it equals space pollution (as if the earth's orbit weren't already polluted enough...) and there will NEVER be mass space tourism.

[realorpretend]

07:18 PM on 12/11/2011

I already know two people who have prepaid their virgin galactic flights.

[tazmodious]

10:28 PM on 12/11/2011

Never is a long time.

[Hellz Angel]

12:03 PM on 12/11/2011

I'm stoked to see private enterprises open up space to civilians. Eventually it will be easy enough for any of us to rise above the petty squabbling and see the unity of life.

[mlfertig]

10:01 AM on 12/11/2011

While this is all quite exciting..as is most anything to do with space exploration..but the pitiful thing is that " Americans will be forced to continue buying seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft" to get to our "Joint" Space Station..It goes something like this.."Dear Russian leaders.You cant join our endeavor but please dont point your nukes at the installations in Europe..and can we please get reservations for the January 2012 Shuttle flight..we need to bring some supplies to "our" space station." Regards..The USA Leaders P.S. We need to talk about Cuba one of these days"

[jsarets]

12:17 PM on 12/11/2011

NASA astronauts have been flying to the ISS on the Russian Soyuz since the very beginning of the ISS program. In fact, the first commander of the ISS, NASA astronaut Bill Shepard, arrived and returned by Soyuz, and 52 of the 73 ISS crew members traveled by Soyuz.

Only Expeditions 2 through 5 were completely rotated by the Space Shuttle. Expedition 6 launched on Endeavour but returned on Soyuz TMA-1, since the Columbia disaster occurred during their time on orbit and grounded the Shuttle fleet for the next 3 years.

We relied completely on Soyuz for crew transport until the Shuttle fleet returned to flight in 2006, but we never again carried three ISS crew members per flight. We only carried one ISS crew member per flight, the other two being transported by Soyuz with an empty third seat reserved for the Shuttle rider in case an emergency departure should be required. This scheme never really made much sense and was abandoned in 2009 when the ISS crew was expanded from three to six.

The final seven Shuttle missions launched with zero ISS crew members.

[ThinkCreeps]

12:51 PM on 12/11/2011

If you had a choice of ride, which launcher had the reassuring safety record?

[mlfertig]

01:03 PM on 12/11/2011

Thats all fine and dandy but you missed the point that without our own Space Shuttle, we are now without choices and subject to whatever political games the Russian Gov't could decide to play..

[realorpretend]

01:09 PM on 12/11/2011

Americans won't be forced into using russian spacecrafts as soon as we get some real corporate movement up there. It'll just be like every other airline.

[ProudToBeVeryLiberal]

06:51 PM on 12/11/2011

"It'll just be like every other airline."

Crappy service, infinite delays and drunken_pilots?

[Aladdin Sane1]

07:14 PM on 12/11/2011

"It'll just be like every other airline."

Hmm. That means TSA lines at the space ports?