A new era of space travel is about to begin.
SpaceX’s Dragon capsule is set to make a historic flight just before dawn on May 19. Dragon is expected to launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida, to rendezvous and possibly dock with the International Space Station.
The brain-child of PayPal founder Elon Musk, SpaceX has mounted several successful space flights into low Earth orbit with its Falcon 9 rocket, including the maiden voyage of the Dragon capsule in 2010. SpaceX seeks to eventually provide manned access to space as well.
The launch was set for May 7th but it was pushed back so the engineers could reassess the flight software. That places the launch of a Soyuz with the second half of Expedition 31 in line for the next launch to the International Space Station (ISS) from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on May 15.
This will once again bring the crew compliment of the ISS up to its standard six. The ISS has been continuously occupied since November 2001 and has provided an on-site orbiting laboratory for zero-g experiments and studies into the effects of long term space flight on human physiology.
If all goes well, the launch of the Falcon 9 should be a dramatic pre-dawn spectacle visible for hundreds of miles up the U.S. eastern seaboard. The chase will then be on as the Dragon capsule is set to rendezvous with the ISS on May 21, and approach and dock with the station on May 22 delivering 520 kilograms of food, fuel and cargo. As of this writing, May 22 is set as the backup launch date.
The good news is that YOU can spot the ISS and approaching Dragon capsule, using nothing more sophisticated than your eyes. About the size of a football field, the ISS can be as bright as Venus as it drifts overhead in the dawn or dusk skies.
With an orbital inclination of 51.6 degrees, anyone from between latitude on 55 degrees north to 55 degrees south can see the ISS. In fact, high latitudes around 50 degrees from the equator may see several illuminated passes in one night!
This flight is vital to demonstrate that commercial space can “bring home the goods” and be a viable alternative for space access. Several startup companies exist ready to jump into the business, at a time when the Space Shuttle has been decommissioned and the NASA budget is at low ebb for the foreseeable future.
The failure of an unmanned Progress vehicle in 2011 demonstrates the current tenuous link that nations have to the orbiting outpost, and suspension of Soyuz flights would mean the abandonment of the ISS, only years after construction.
While manned Dragon flights may be some years off, this month’s launch represents a new era in commercial spaceflight access, the likes of which we were promised in movies such as Kubrick’s 2001: Space Odyssey.
Pan Am may now be defunct, but here’s to hoping for commercial lunar flights in our lifetime!
Read more posts by David Dickinson at AstroGuyz.com.
Watch a video of the SpaceX Rocket Test: