[Update (06:00 EDT / 10:00 UTC): Launch was a success. Dragon module separated cleanly and is on route to the ISS.]
CRS-15 Mission Overview (PDF)
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. An instantaneous backup launch opportunity is available on Sunday, July 1 at 4:54 a.m. EDT, or 8:54 UTC.
Both Falcon 9 and the Dragon spacecraft 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.
Follow along on the YouTube Live Stream.
SpaceX will fly the Falcon 9 Block 4 for the last time on its June 29, 2018 launch of cargo to the ISS:
Because SpaceX has no plans to fly Friday's booster again, it will be expended into the ocean. However, the rocket's second stage will make a much longer "coast" in space before de-orbiting after four revolutions around Earth. This is likely another test of the second-stage engine's ability to fire after a longer period of dormancy in space.
CRS-15 will deliver 2,697 kg of cargo, including ECOSTRESS and other equipment and experiments:
The equipment launching to the space station inside the Dragon's trunk includes a spare Canadian-built latching end effector for the research lab's robotic arm, plus a 1,213-pound (550-kilogram) instrument developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to be mounted outside the station's Japanese Kibo lab module to measure the temperature of plants from space.
The cargo will include CIMON, a "robot crew member":
The robot's name is CIMON — for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion — and it looks a bit like a volleyball with a computer screen on one side. The screen displays a simplified cartoon face that the bot will use to interact with the humans on the ISS. And to maneuver around, CIMON is equipped with 14 internal fans that propel the white ball, by sucking in the station's air and expelling it to move in whatever direction it needs. That means CIMON can "float" throughout the station, zooming up to astronauts that call its name and nodding in response to questions.
Airbus developed CIMON for Germany's national space agency, and the goal is to see whether intelligent bots can cooperate with astronauts to simplify work life in space. CIMON's already been tested out on a parabolic flight — an airplane that flies a special trajectory to create brief moments of weightlessness. And CIMON has trained a few times on Earth with German astronaut Alexander Gerst, who is already on board the ISS. So the bot's microphones and cameras are specially tuned to recognize his voice and face. However, CIMON's makers say the bot's voice-controlled AI capabilities, provided by IBM, allow the companion to interact with any astronaut that calls its name.
Related Stories
IBM Is Sending a Floating Robot Head to Space
[HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey] hasn't deterred Airbus and IBM from teaming up to develop CIMON (Crew Interactive MObile CompanioN), a floating robot the size of a medicine ball that is equipped with Watson AI technology.
Later this year, CIMON is set to become the first "flying brain" in space when it is deployed to the International Space Station (ISS) to work alongside astronauts.
CIMON will use its neural AI network, combined with its face and voice recognition technology, to assist astronauts during the European Space Agency's Horizons mission between June and October 2018.
Once the functional testing of the system has been completed, Gerst will work in Space with CIMON a total of three times: They will experiment with crystals, work together to solve the Rubik's cube and perform a complex medical experiment using CIMON as an 'intelligent' flying camera.
I → H
B → A
M → L
New NASA Mission to Detect Plant Water Use from Space
Doctors learn a lot about their patients' health by taking their temperature. An elevated temperature, or fever, can be a sign of illness. The same goes for plants, but their temperatures on a global scale are harder to measure than the temperatures of individual people.
That's about to change, thanks to a new NASA instrument that soon will be installed on the International Space Station called ECOSTRESS, or ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station. ECOSTRESS will measure the temperature of plants from space. This will enable researchers to determine plant water use and to study how drought conditions affect plant health.
[...] ECOSTRESS will hitch a ride to the space station on a NASA-contracted, SpaceX cargo resupply mission scheduled to launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on June 29. Once it arrives, it will be robotically installed on the exterior of the station's Japanese Experiment Module Exposed Facility Unit.
CIMON 2 (Crew Interactive MObile companioN 2) is a free-floating spherical robot designed to recognize emotions of astronauts, that strongly resembles an oversized Tamagotchi.
"The overall goal is to really create a true companion. The relationship between an astronaut and CIMON is really important," Matthias Biniok, the lead architect for CIMON 2, said.
"It's trying to understand if the astronaut is sad, is he angry, joyful and so on."
CIMON 2 is a successor to CIMON, launched in 2018, however "CIMON 2 will be more sociable with crew members."
In times of conflict or disagreement among astronauts, one of CIMON's most important purposes would be to serve as "an objective outsider that you can talk to if you're alone, or could actually help let the group collaborate again," he said.
The betazoid beach ball was included in SpaceX's 19th resupply mission to the space station which launched on December 5th.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 29 2018, @09:44AM (9 children)
Rocket looks good.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 29 2018, @09:46AM (8 children)
Stage separation successful.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 29 2018, @09:49AM (7 children)
I'm just here to marvel at the birther movement.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 29 2018, @09:50AM (6 children)
*berther
or dragon birther
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 29 2018, @10:00AM (5 children)
In space no one can hear you... berthing [google.com]
Why are they not recovering the first stage?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 29 2018, @10:03AM (3 children)
They wanted to expend Block 4 rockets now that they are switching over to Block 5 [wikipedia.org]. Block 5 is easier to reuse/refurbish and has higher thrust.
The remaining old Falcon 9 stages will be put in museums or down in a Florida rocket garden, etc.
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(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Friday June 29 2018, @03:51PM (2 children)
The rumor on /r/SpaceX is that this is the last orbital flight of a Block 4 first stage. The rumor is that a Block 4 will be used for the Crew Dragon in flight abort test, but that is firmly [citation needed].
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday June 29 2018, @04:10PM (1 child)
It's listed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Falcon_9_and_Falcon_Heavy_launches#Future_2018_launches [wikipedia.org] with Teslarati as a source
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Friday June 29 2018, @09:51PM
The running joke on /r/SpaceX is that's where the guys at SpaceX check to see what's happening next. :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 29 2018, @11:39AM
Now they are all garbage. Block 5 or nothing!
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Friday June 29 2018, @03:48PM (1 child)
My daughter and I drove down from Tennessee and watched this launch from the 405 highway just outside of the Space Center. It was more beautiful than I expected. The rocket engines are blindingly bright, far more than the live stream indicates. This launch was just before sunrise and as the rocket ascended it moved into the sunlight. In this light the rocket exhaust drew clouds across the sky that took on all of the colors of the sunrise. The over-expansion in the upper atmosphere created a blue-white glowing round aura around the rocket that covered a huge part of the sky. I could clearly see the two points of light drifting apart after stage separation too.
If you ever get a chance to watch a just-before sunrise launch, go. The engineer part of me found it remarkable, and the child-like part of me watched in awe.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday June 29 2018, @04:43PM
Saw a just-at-dusk launch from Vandenberg (one of the first Iridium next, we're 90 miles down the coast). We were already dark, but the rocket and the high-altitude plumes were in the sun. The lady who works next door was completely freaking out, ready for an alien invasion, until we told her what it was, and why that bright thing was falling back down while the other kept going up.
Looked both awesome and truly spooky.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Friday June 29 2018, @04:17PM
Hah! Now we find out where ED-E originated.