SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 4 - CRS-15 - Launching June 29, 2018
Screenshot of CRS-15 from SpaceX Webcast on Youtube
Mission rundown: SpaceX Falcon 9 Block 4 - CRS-15
Written: Januar 10, 2021
Last dance on the last wave
NASA is paying SpaceX to launch a Dragon on a resupply mission to the International Space Station. The Falcon 9 booster B1045-2 is on its second launch into orbit.
SpaceX is targeting Friday, June 29 for an instantaneous launch of its fifteenth Commercial Resupply Services mission (CRS-15) at 5:42 a.m. EDT, or 9:42 UTC, from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Dragon will separate from Falcon 9’s second stage about nine minutes and thirty seconds after liftoff and attach to the space station on Monday, July 2.
Both Falcon 9 B1045-2 and the Dragon spacecraft C111-2 for the CRS-15 mission are flight-proven. Falcon 9’s first stage previously supported the TESS mission in April 2018, and Dragon previously supported the CRS-9 mission in July 2016. SpaceX will not attempt to recover Falcon 9’s first stage after launch. Falcon 9 Block 5 are the future.
The Dragon Payload
NASA contracted for the CRS-15 mission from SpaceX and therefore determined the primary payload, date/time of launch, and orbital parameters for the Dragon space capsule. According to a NASA mission overview, CRS-15 carried a total of 2 697 kg (5 946 lb) of total cargo, divided between 1 712 kg (3 774 lb) of pressurized material and 985 kg (2 172 lb) of unpressurized cargo.
The external payloads manifested for this flight were ECOSTRESS and a Latching End Effector for Canadarm2. CubeSats included on this flight were three Biarri-Squad satellites built by Boeing for a multinational partnership led by the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office, and three satellites making up the Japanese-sponsored Birds-2 program: BHUTAN-1 from Bhutan, Maya-1 from the Philippines, and UiTMSAT-1 from Malaysia.
Furthermore, it contained an interactive artwork by artist Nahum entitled The Contour of Presence, a collaboration with the International Space University - ISU, Space Application Services and the European Space Agency - ESA.
In early 2015, NASA awarded a contract extension to SpaceX for three additional CRS missions (CRS-13 to CRS-15). In June 2016, a NASA Inspector General report had this mission manifested for April 2018, but this was pushed back, first to 6 June, to 9 June, to 28 June and finally to 29 June 2018. CRS 15 is the last of those.
The Cargo Dragon is expected to arrive at the station ISS on Monday, July 2. Once it navigates into position, it will be captured by the Canadarm, and then berthed to the station a few hours later. NASA TV will provide coverage of the arrival, capture and berthing. After about 30 days Dragon will depart ISS, ditch it’s trunk, reenter the atmosphere and splash down in the Pacific Ocean.
SpaceX technicians open the side hatch of the Dragon vehicle and retrieve the time critical refrigerated items. The critical cargo was placed on a fast-boat for the 450 kilometers (280 miles) trip back to California for eventual direct return flight to the NASA laboratories that then took care of the precious science cargo and handled the post-flight analysis of the samples.
The rest of the cargo was unloaded once the Dragon capsule reached SpaceX's test facility in McGregor, Texas.
The Last Block 4 Flight
This is the 3rd and final Block 4 first stage with a Block 5 second stage put together in a Falcon 9 test configuration. It’s also the first time NASA is flying a Block 4 booster with a Block 5 second stage in this Falcon 9 configuration. Two heavier satellites, one bound for a GEO the other bound for unknown military duties were launched in this configuration.
The extra performance of the Block 5 second Stage today results in a 32 second shorter ascent for orbital insertion of Dragon. In comparison CRS-14 took 9 mins 03 sec to reach orbit on an all-Block 4 Falcon 9. This Dragon will take only 8 mins 31 secs to reach orbit in a Block 5 Stage 2 powered by the new Vacuum Merlin 1D#.
Because the first stage cannot be used for any further launches, SpaceX did not attempt to recover it following Friday’s launch. Although SpaceX does have one remaining Block 4 first stage left in storage – Core 1042 which was used last October to deploy Koreasat 5A – being fire damaged this is not expected to fly again making the CRS-15 launch the last to use a Block 4 booster vehicle, or any version of Falcon 9 other than the new Block 5.
Seven Block 4 boosters were built as a test object to check out the later Block 5 iteration, which will be the final human rated Falcon 9 designed to carry American Astronauts from American soil into orbit, so they can go to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
Falcon 9 Block 4 has conducted 12 flights with this CRS-15 launch, a few were fire damaged on landings and scrapped but five were reflown and three of them were spent.
Two of the five reflown could have been recovered if the Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ships were deployed, while the pair of Block 4 boosters conducted landing maneuvers on the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans respectively.
Arrgh. Matey. Davy Jones locker got them all by now.
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