The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft has just been captured by the International Space Station’s robotic arm. It was the culmination of a very slow and cautious approach maneuver, considering that some hours the Dragon approached a few feet at a time to verify each time that everything was as expected.
Meanwhile, new information arrived about the problem suffered by one of the Falcon 9 rocket’s Merlin engines shortly after its lift off. The problem was caused by a loss of pressure and some panels were ejected to relieve the low pressure on the engine. This is the reason why the pictures gave the impression that there was even an explosion.
The Falcon 9 rocket managed to launch the Dragon spacecraft using its other 8 engines but the fault caused a big problem in its secondary mission. The second stage of the rocket was carrying a prototype of the Orbcomm OG2 satellites but there are strict flight rules dictated by NASA along with its international partners. Although the Falcon 9 was still far from the International Space Station, the failure of one of the engines led to the activation of a security protocol that prevented the ignition of the second stage.
The consequence is that the OG2 satellite was positioned in an orbit much lower than the scheduled one and much more circular. According to the plans, the OG2 satellite was to be placed in a highly elliptical 350×750 km orbit then use its propulsion system to adjust the orbit to 750×750 km. There are no official data but according to third-party observations now the satellite is in a 203×303 km orbit.
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Orbcomm’s engineers are working to assess whether it’s possible to move the OG2 satellite in an orbit high enough to allow it to perform at least part of its mission. 17 more OG2 satellites are scheduled to be put into orbit between 2013 and 2014 by SpaceX and in that case they’re scheduled to be the primary payload. For those launches the new version of the Falcon 9 rocket will be used, which in addition to having a different shape will also use an updated version of the Merlin engines.
Now the International Space Station’s robotic arm is slowly bringing the Dragon spacecraft to the docking position. It’s another very long maneuver but it’s relatively simple because now everything is under the control of the Station’s crew. Tomorrow the Dragon’s hatch will be opened and the cargo unloading will start. For two and a half weeks the unloading and the loading of the stuff to be brought back will go on and at that point the Dragon will return to Earth.
The secondary mission is unfortunately gone wrong and certainly at SpaceX they’re already working to analyze the problem. The CRS-1 (Cargo Resupply Service 1) mission instead is successfully going on opening the way for private space travel.
