SpaceX
A video view shows SpaceX's Dragon capsule atop a Falcon 9 rocket during preparations for today's static fire test at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40.
SpaceX is set for today's test firing of a Falcon 9 rocket's nine engines on its Cape Canaveral launch pad, one week before its precedent-setting launch to the International Space Station — and you should be able to watch the two-second blast online. SpaceX is providing a webcast of the test via the company's website, with the engines set to fire at 3 p.m. ET.
This is a full dress rehearsal for SpaceX's second official demonstration flight for NASA. The company has received more than $375 million so far from the space agency for the development of its Falcon 9 rocket and a gumdrop-shaped Dragon space capsule that's designed to carry up to six tons of cargo to the space station. SpaceX and another company, Orbital Sciences Corp., are getting the money to help NASA fill the gap in payload transportation capability left by last year's retirement of the space shuttle fleet.
In addition, SpaceX is receiving tens of millions of dollars from NASA under a separate program to make the Falcon/Dragon launch system suitable for carrying astronauts as well as cargo. The company was founded in 2002 by dot-com millionaire Elon Musk with the long-range aim of flying people to Mars.
The Falcon 9 won't be flying anywhere during today's test at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station's Launch Complex 40, but if SpaceX and NASA stick to the current timeline, the rocket will send the robotically controlled Dragon capsule into orbit on May 7. A couple of days later, the spacecraft will catch up with the space station and go through a sequence of rendezvous maneuvers.
If the Dragon does those maneuvers correctly, NASA would give the go-ahead for the Dragon to approach a station docking port. The station's robotic arm would grab onto it and bring it in for berthing. There'll be some cargo riding aboard the Dragon — water, clothing, scientific gear and the like — and the astronauts would take a couple of weeks to take on those payloads and load up the Dragon with Earth-bound cargo. Then the Dragon would be unberthed and sent back down to a Pacific splashdown, marking the successful end of the first flight of a private-sector spaceship to the International Space Station..
SpaceX founder Elon Musk links the aims of his various companies together and explains why he'd rather be engineering than lobbying in Washington.
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