SpaceX Falcon 9 V1.0 - COTS C2+ - Launching May 22, 2012
Screenshot from SpaceX Webcast of the launch of COTS-2+
Mission Rundown: SpaceX Falcon 9 V1.0 - COTS C2+
Written: February 6, 2021
Getting close to catch a Dragon’s tooth?
The third SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket successfully orbited the company's first fully functional Dragon spacecraft on the COTS C2+ Demonstration Mission for NASA on May 22, 2012. The two stage, kerosene fueled rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 40 at 07:44 UTC, beginning an ambitious mission that, if fully implemented, would see the spacecraft docked to the International Space Station for two weeks.
It was Falcon 9's first night launch. The liftoff ended a 17 month hiatus for the launch vehicle as SpaceX worked to prepare Dragon for the C2+ mission.
Red flight path of Falcon 9 first stage - It’s a nighttime launch 51,6 degree along the east coast
Falcon 9's first stage burned for three minutes, its second stage for an additional 6 minutes 14 seconds, to inject Dragon into a 297 x 346 km x 51.6 deg phasing orbit. Dragon's twin solar arrays, on their inaugural flight, deployed shortly after spacecraft separation. The arrays were attached to Dragon's "trunk", an aft module attached to the cone shaped spacecraft that was also on its first fully configured flight.
The launch occurred three days after a last launch abort that was caused by a faulty helium purge check valve on the launcher's center Merlin 1C engine no. 5.
Crews identified the problem and replaced the valve while Falcon 9 remained vertical on the pad. Which means there is room enough between the engines for minor repairs, but it’s suspected that this is a two man repair job with no propellant loaded.
The Dragon Payload
Dragon carried 525 kg of demonstration cargo for ISS. Plans call for it to return 620 kg of cargo when it reenters and splashes down in the Pacific Ocean. But the ISS docking is contingent on Dragon successfully completing a series of demonstration maneuvers for NASA during the first two days of its mission, before it will be allowed to approach ISS for a capture and the following berthing.
It is the first visit by a commercial spacecraft to the International Space Station. At this point in the flight, Dragon C2 had begun to demonstrate objectives originally intended for the following standalone "C3" mission. It was now COTS C2+.
ISS crew successfully captured the SpaceX Dragon C2+ spacecraft at 13:56 UTC on May 25, 2012, after a slight delay due to a LIDAR issue. The 5-7 tonne spacecraft (SpaceX had not revealed its dry mass) was subsequently berthed to the ISS Harmony module earth facing Nadir airlock at 16:02 UTC.
The pressurized section carried 525 kg (1,157 lb) of cargo to the ISS, which included food, water, clothing, cargo bags, computer hardware, the NanoRacks Module 9 (student experiments and scientific gear) and other miscellaneous cargo. No unpressurized cargo was delivered on this mission.
An unannounced addition to the cargo manifest, made public after the launch, was a small canister, affixed to the second stage's top, containing the 1-gram ash remains of over 300 people including Project Mercury Astronaut Gordon Cooper, and James Doohan, the actor who played Scotty on the television show Star Trek in the 1960s.
The remains were flown semi-secretly by Celestis, a company that has flown burial canisters in the past on SpaceX's Falcon 1 launch vehicle. The second stage and the burial canister remained in the initial orbit Dragon C2+ was inserted to, and burned up in the Earth's atmosphere a month later.
On its return to Earth, Dragon brought back 665 kg (1,466 lb) worth of pressurized cargo back to Earth; the cargo included experiment samples, experiment hardware, ISS' systems hardware and Extravehicular Mobility Unit hardware.
One of the experiments returned by Dragon was the Shear History Extensional Rheology Experiment (SHERE) administered by NASA's Glenn Research Center.
Another experiment returning with Dragon was the Multi-user Droplet Combustion Apparatus (MDCA), and the Combustion Integrated Rack-Fluids and Combustion Facility (CIR). The return flight was planned to carry 660 kg (1,460 lb).
Another experiment returning on this mission was the Material Science Research Rack (MSRR), which investigated microgravity experiments on aluminum-alloy rods.
Four hours after Dragon left the station, it began to conduct its nine-minute-long deorbit burn. The Dragon capsule jettisoned its trunk and re-enter Earth's atmosphere. Its heat shield protected it during most of the re-entry and when low enough in altitude its two drogue parachutes were deployed, followed by its three main parachutes.
Screenshot of an recovered Dragon CRS-6 on the deck of Go Searcher in the Pacific Ocean
The Dragon capsule splashed down into the Pacific Ocean about 900 km (560 mi) from the Baja Peninsula at approximately 11:42 EDT (15:42 UTC) on May 31, 2012 and was recovered by a small fleet of recovery vessels from the contractor hired by SpaceX, American Marine.
Dragon had departed the International Space Station about 5.5 hours earlier, at 08:07 UTC. The reentry and splashdown ended Dragon's COTS C2+ demonstration mission for NASA, opening the way for official commercial cargo flights for NASA.
