SpaceX Falcon 9 Full Thrust - CRS-11 - Launching June 3, 2017
Screenshot from SpaceX Webcast of CRS-11
Mission Rundown: SpaceX Falcon 9 FT - CRS-11
Written: January 27, 2021
Re-flying Dragons as well?
SpaceX is targeting the launch of its eleventh Commercial Resupply Services mission CRS-11 from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, Florida on Saturday, June 3 at 5:07 p.m. EDT or 21:07 UTC. Dragon will separate from Falcon 9’s second stage about 10 minutes after liftoff and attach to the station on June 4.
This CRS-11 mission will be the first reflight of a Dragon spacecraft. C106-2 was used on the CRS-4 mission and marked the 100th launch from historic LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center. After stage separation, the first stage of Falcon 9 will attempt to land at SpaceX’s Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.
The Dragon Payload
NASA has contracted for the CRS-11 mission from SpaceX and therefore determines the primary payload, date/time of launch, and orbital parameters for the Dragon space capsule. CRS-11 carried a total of 2 708 kg (5 970 lb) of material into orbit. This included 1 665 kg (3 671 lb) of pressurized cargo with packaging bound for the International Space Station, and 1 002 kg (2 209 lb) of unpressurised cargo composed of three external station experiments:
Roll Out Solar Array (ROSA): 325 kg (717 lb)
Neutron Star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER): 372 kg (820 lb)
Multiple User System for Earth Sensing (MUSES): 305 kg (672 lb)
A constellation of five CubeSats was also carried on the mission as part of Birds-1, one each from the countries of Japan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Ghana, and Mongolia. The satellites from Bangladesh (BRAC ONNESHA), Ghana (GhanaSat-1), and Mongolia (Mazaalai) were those countries' first satellites in space.
The Dragon Mission
CRS-11 launched aboard a Falcon 9 rocket on 3 June 2017 at 21:07 UTC from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A. The spacecraft rendezvoused with the station on 5 June and conducted a series of orbit adjustment burns to match speed, altitude, and orientation with the ISS. After arriving at the capture point at 13:37 UTC, the vehicle was snared at 13:52 UTC by the Canadarm2, operated by Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer. It was berthed to the Harmony module at 16:07 UTC.
The CRS-11 Dragon remained attached to the ISS for just over 27 days. Having been filled with around 1,900 kg (4,100 lb) of cargo, Dragon was unberthed from the station on 2 July 2017 at approximately 18:00 UTC. It was moved to its release position by Canadarm2, but poor sea below conditions forced a delay to the following day.
On 3 July at 06:41 UTC, crew members commanded Canadarm2 to release Dragon, and soon after the spacecraft began a series of thruster firings to move it away from the station. About five hours after departing from the ISS, Dragon closed its GNC bay door and conducted a 10-minute deorbit burn. Immediately after, the spacecraft jettisoned its cargo trunk and oriented itself for reentry.
Dragon C106-2 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean off Baja California at 12:12 UTC.
The Historic Launch Complex 39A
By this launch date June 3, 2017 and since the days of Apollo in the late sixties, Pad 39A and 39B have launched 159 times sending men, women and hardware into orbit. The 160th launch from Kennedy Space Center was a single air-launched Pegasus rocket that was dropped from a B-52 flying from the Shuttle Landing Facility.
Saturn V rocket is here launching Skylab in 1973
STS-135 Space Shuttle Atlantis launching in July 2011
Pad 39A has launched 12 of the Saturn V rockets into orbit and beyond to the Moon. Apollo 4 was the first Saturn V test flight, and the Saturn V with its converted 3rd stage “Skylab'' was the 12th and last from Pad 39A. The rest of the Saturn V rockets that were launched from 39B were the Apollo 10, three Saturn 1B that paid visits to Skylab and the last launch of the Saturn 1B went to do the Apollo Soyuz test program.
The Space Shuttle Era started in april 1981 with STS-1 Columbia from Pad 39A followed by 23 others before Pad 39B was ready to launch an ill fated STS-51-L Challenger on the cold freezing infamous day January 28, 1986.
I saw that happening sitting in my room. God. Those idiots always chose the cheapest contractor without looking at the best solution. You don’t look only at the bottom line, when people's lives are at stake.
Pad 39A and Pad 39B now shared the launches between them until STS-116 launched from Pad 39B, and it was converted to launch Ares I-X which was the 59th and last launch from Pad 39B. The Space Shuttle continued from Pad 39A until STS-135 Atlantis in April 2011 launched as the last and 82nd Shuttle from LC-39A.
The Vandenberg Pad 6E was made ready to launch Space Shuttles but never used as intended, which was a huge waste of money. Scott Manley, a web blogger, made a video about the design and development of the Space Shuttle, where it’s mentioned that the US Department of Defense design criteria was so far out there, that it got too expensive, too filled with special wishes and requests, that it became a flying “White Elephant”.
US Congress kept tightening the purse strings to NASA, keep’t choking the life of the space programs already halfway underway and forced NASA management to cut too many corners, so fatal disasters and serious accidents were bound to happen. Just do this:
Make something big happen in Space, that We can be proud of. COTS - CRS...
In 2017 SpaceX has now launched 6 Falcon 9 Full Thrust rockets from LC 39A since CRS-10 in February bringing the total launches to 100 from LC-39A. 12 Saturn V, 82 STS and 6 Falcon 9 launched from LC-39A. Coming close to 150 launches by august 2022.
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