Supplies, ISS-RapidScat, 3D Printer En Route To ISS Following Sunday Morning Launch

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

After weather forced Saturday’s originally scheduled liftoff to be temporarily postponed, the SpaceX Dragon resupply craft successfully launched on-time early Sunday morning and is now en route to the International Space Station (ISS), NASA officials have confirmed.
[ Watch the Video: Liftoff Of SpaceX-4 ]
The Dragon craft, which is carrying 2.5 tons of supplies and science experiments to the orbiting laboratory, separated from its Falcon 9 booster following a successful climb to orbit that began at 1:52 am EDT at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station’s Launch Complex 40. It is expected to reach the ISS at 7:04 am EDT on Tuesday, September 23.
As the Falcon 9 and Dragon flew along a path mostly parallel to the East Coast of the US, the nine Merlin 1D engines of the first stage shut down as planned less than three minutes into the flight, allowing the lone engine of the second stage to ignite and propel the spacecraft the rest of the way into space before detaching from the orbiter.
“From what I can tell, everything went perfectly,” Hans Koenigsman, vice president of Mission Assurance for SpaceX, said in a statement. Once Dragon arrives at the ISS, ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst and NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman will reach out to the uncrewed Dragon with the station’s robot arm and maneuver the capsule to latch onto a port of the station.
Later, the crew will unload the equipment and supplies inside the Dragon, as well as materials which NASA said are essential for 255 science and research investigations during the station’s Expeditions 41 and 42. The spacecraft also contains a small habitat that holds 20 mice which will be used for microgravity research into bone density.
Also on board is the ISS-Rapid Scatterometer (ISS-RapidScat), a new Earth science navigation that NASA said will be used to monitor ocean winds from the high vantage point of the space station. ISS-RapidScat is a remote sensing instrument that will calculate surface wind speed and direction using radar pulses reflected from the surface of the ocean at different angles – information that will improve weather forecasting and hurricane monitoring.
“We’ll be able to see how wind speed changes with the time of day,” explained Ernesto Rodríguez, principal investigator for ISS-RapidScat at NASA’s California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). “ISS-RapidScat will link together all previous and current scatterometer missions, providing us with a more complete picture of how ocean winds change. Combined with data from the European ASCAT scatterometer mission, we’ll be able to observe 90 percent of Earth’s surface at least once a day, and in many places, several times a day.”
The Dragon’s cargo also includes the first ever 3D printer to be sent to outer space, known as 3D Printing In Zero-G Technology Demonstration (3D Printing In Zero-G). The Made In Space-developed technology could allow ISS crew members to use additive manufacturing to quickly and cheaply fabricate parts themselves instead of waiting for the arrival of the next cargo resupply mission, NASA officials explained.
“Testing this on the station is the first step toward creating a working ‘machine shop’ in space,” Jessica Eagan of the International Space Station Program Science Office at Marshall Space Flight Center, where the technology was tested and certified, said earlier this month. “This capability may decrease cost and risk on the station, will be critical when space explorers venture far from Earth and will create an on-demand supply chain for needed tools and parts.”
“If the printer is successful, it will not only serve as the first demonstration of additive manufacturing in microgravity, but it also will bring NASA… a big step closer to evolving in-space manufacturing for future missions to destinations such as an asteroid and Mars,” she added. Likewise, Ken Cooper, principal investigator for 3D printing at Marshall, called the project “the first step in sustaining longer missions beyond low-Earth orbit.”
In addition, the Dragon cargo includes a plant-based study designed to analyze the growth and development of a small flowering cabbage-like plant seedling in a microgravity environment, and the a 22-inch satellite that will test how small probes move and position themselves in space using advanced thruster technology that relies on a new class of non-pyrotechnic materials (Electrically-Controlled Solid Propellants) that are ignited only by electric current.
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FOR THE KINDLE: The History of 3D Printing: redOrbit Press