CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A SpaceX supply ship rocketed toward the International Space Station on Friday, setting the stage for an Easter-morning delivery.
After its midday launch through cloudy skies, the Dragon cargo carrier was shown drifting away in the blackness of space, against the blue backdrop of Earth.
It’s transporting 2½ tons of goods, including a new spacesuit, spacesuit-replacement parts, much-needed food, legs for NASA’s humanoid Robonaut, a bevy of mating flies, and germs gathered from sports arenas and historic sites across the U.S.
The Dragon will reach the orbiting lab Sunday. That pushes urgent spacewalking repairs to Wednesday; NASA wants a bad backup computer replaced before something else breaks.
This was the second launch attempt this week for SpaceX. NASA’s commercial supplier was foiled by a leaky rocket valve Monday. The valve was replaced, and storms cleared out of Cape Canaveral just in time for Friday’s liftoff.
The SpaceX shipment is close to five weeks late. Initially set for mid-March, the launch was delayed by extra prepping, then damage to an Air Force radar and then the rocket leak.
A critical backup computer failed outside the space station April 11, and NASA considered postponing the SpaceX flight. The primary computer is working fine, but numerous systems would be seriously compromised if it broke, too. A double failure also would hinder visits by the Dragon and other vessels.
“It’s imperative that we maintain” backups for these external command-routing computer boxes, also called multiplexer-demultiplexers, or MDMs, said flight director Brian Smith on Friday. “Right now, we don’t have that.”
The space station’s six-man crew watched Friday’s launch via a live TV hookup. The outpost was soaring 260 miles above Turkey at the time of ignition. Video beamed down from Dragon showed the solar wings unfurling.
Earlier, as the countdown entered its final few hours, NASA’s space station program manager Mike Suffredini said an investigation continues into the reason for last summer’s spacesuit failure. The helmet worn by an Italian astronaut filled with water from the suit’s cooling system, and he nearly drowned during a spacewalk.
Routine U.S. spacewalks are on hold until engineers are certain what caused the water leak. The coming spacewalk by the two Americans on board is considered an exception because of its urgent nature. It will include no unnecessary tasks, just the 2½-hour computer swap.
NASA is paying the California-based SpaceX - Space Exploration Technologies Corp. - and Virginia’s Orbital Sciences Corp. to keep the orbiting lab well stocked. It was SpaceX’s fourth trip to the space station. Russia, Japan and Europe also make periodic deliveries.
Unlike the other cargo carriers, the Dragon can bring items back to Earth for analysis.
Among the science samples going up on the Dragon and slated to return with it in a month are 200 fruit flies and their expected progeny, as well as germs collected from stadiums, sports arenas, and such notables as America’s Liberty Bell and Sue, the T. rex fossil skeleton at Chicago’s Field Museum.
Scientists will study the hearts of the returning flies - as many as 3,000 are expected for the trip home. The germ samples, once back on Earth, will be compared with duplicate cultures on the ground.
Staying up there will be new legs for NASA’s humanoid, Robonaut.
The indoor robot has been in orbit for three years, but only from the waist up.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 04/19/2014