SpaceX CRS-6, also known as SpX-6, was a Commercial Resupply Service mission to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is a large space station that was Assembly of the International Space Station, assembled and is maintained in low Earth orbit by a collaboration of five space agencies and their contractors: NASA (United ...

, contracted to

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

. It was the eighth flight for

SpaceX Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the compa ...

's uncrewed

Dragon A dragon is a Magic (supernatural), magical legendary creature that appears in the folklore of multiple cultures worldwide. Beliefs about dragons vary considerably through regions, but European dragon, dragons in Western cultures since the Hi ...

cargo spacecraft Uncrewed spacecraft or robotic spacecraft are spacecraft without people on board. Uncrewed spacecraft may have varying levels of autonomy from human input, such as remote control, or remote guidance. They may also be autonomous, in which the ...

and the sixth SpaceX operational mission contracted to

under a

Commercial Resupply Services Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) are a series of flights awarded by NASA for the delivery of cargo and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) on commercially operated spacecraft. The first phase of CRS contracts (CRS-1) were sign ...

contract. It was docked to the International Space Station from 17 April to 21 May 2015.

Launch history

In July 2014, the launch was scheduled by NASA for February 2015, with berthing to the station occurring two days later. However, as a result of delays in the launch of the previous SpaceX CRS-5 mission, SpaceX CRS-6 launched on 14 April 2015. In late March, 2015, the launch was scheduled for 13 April 2015, but was later postponed to 14 April 2015 due to weather conditions. A

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

(FCC) application submitted for temporary communication frequency authority noted the launch planning date as no earlier than 8 April 2015. The application also confirmed communication uplinks for use with the first stage of this mission as it attempted to conduct a first-ever propulsive landing on the

Autonomous spaceport drone ship An autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS) is a modified ocean-going barge developed by SpaceX and equipped with propulsion systems to maintain precise position and a large floating landing platform, landing platform. They were developed to re ...

after staging.

Payload

Primary payload

NASA has contracted for the CRS-6 mission from SpaceX and therefore determines the primary payload, date/time of launch, and

orbital parameters Orbital elements are the parameters required to uniquely identify a specific orbit. In celestial mechanics these elements are considered in two-body systems using a Kepler orbit. There are many different ways to mathematically describe the same o ...

for the Dragon

space capsule A space capsule is a spacecraft designed to transport cargo, scientific experiments, and/or astronauts to and from space. Capsules are distinguished from other spacecraft by the ability to survive reentry and return a payload to the Earth's surfa ...

. The Dragon spacecraft was filled with of supplies and payloads, including critical materials to directly support about 40 of the more than 250 science and research investigations that will occur during

Expedition 43 Expedition 43 was the 43rd expedition to the International Space Station. It commenced on 11 March 2015 with the undocking of Soyuz TMA-14M, returning the crew of Expedition 42 to Earth and ended with the departure of Soyuz TMA-15M on 11 June 2 ...

and Expedition 44. Among other items on board: *

Planetary Resources Planetary Resources, Inc., formerly known as Arkyd Astronautics, was an American company that was formed on 1 January 2009,ARKYD Astronautics Founded http://www.planetaryresources.com/2009/01/draft-arkyd-astronautics-founded/ and reorganized an ...

will transport an Arkyd 3 — known as ''Arkyd 3 Reflight'' — to the ISS aboard Dragon on CRS-6. Planetary plans to deploy the smallsat from the ISS via a

Nanoracks Nanoracks LLC is an American private in-space services company which builds space hardware and in-space repurposing tools. The company also facilitates experiments and launches of CubeSats to Low Earth Orbit. Nanoracks's main office is in H ...

-provided service, in an attempt to

validate Validation may refer to: * Data validation, in computer science, ensuring that data inserted into an application satisfies defined formats and other input criteria * Emotional validation, in interpersonal communication is the Emotion recognition, ...

and mature the technology of its Arkyd series of spacecraft. This is the second Arkyd 3 satellite; in October 2014, the first Arkyd 3 satellite was destroyed on launch in the explosion of the

Orbital Sciences Corporation Orbital Sciences Corporation (commonly referred to as Orbital) was an American company specializing in the design, manufacture, and launch of small- and medium- class space and launch vehicle systems for commercial, military and other governmen ...

Antares launch vehicle carrying it aboard the third Cygnus cargo resupply flight to the ISS. *

Planet Labs Planet Labs PBC (formerly Planet Labs, Inc. and Cosmogia, Inc.) is a publicly traded American Earth imaging company based in San Francisco, California. Their goal is to image the entirety of the Earth daily to monitor changes and pinpoint tren ...

will transport 14

Flock-1 Flock-1 is a CubeSat satellite constellation launched on 9 January 2014. The satellite is built in a CubeSat bus, and each constellation consists of 28 satellites. All instruments are powered by solar cells mounted on the spacecraft body, alon ...

Earth observation Earth observation (EO) is the gathering of information about the physical, chemical, and biosphere, biological systems of the planet Earth. It can be performed via remote sensing, remote-sensing technologies (Earth observation satellites) or throu ...

CubeSat A CubeSat is a class of small satellite with a form factor of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit,, url=https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5418c831e4b0fa4ecac1bacd/t/5f24997b6deea10cc52bb016/1596234122437/CDS+REV14+2020-07-3 ...

satellites A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scientif ...

for later deployment from the space station via an agreement with Nanoracks, operator of the

Center for the Advancement of Science in Space The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), a non-profit organization, is the manager of the International Space Station United States National Laboratory, a US government-funded laboratory with principal research facilities locate ...

(CASIS).

Secondary payload

SpaceX has the primary control over manifesting, scheduling and loading

secondary payload Secondary payload, also known as rideshare payload, is a smaller-sized Payload (air and space craft), payload space transport, transported to orbital spaceflight, orbit on a launch vehicle that is mostly paid for—and with the date and time of l ...

s. However, there are certain restrictions included in their contract with NASA that preclude specified hazards on the secondary payloads, and also require contract-specified probabilities of success and safety margins for any SpaceX reboosts of the secondary satellites once the Falcon 9 second stage has achieved its initial

low Earth orbit A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial object ...

(LEO). SpaceX CRS-6 included science payloads for studying new ways to possibly counteract the microgravity-induced cell damage seen during spaceflight, the effects of microgravity on the most common cells in bones, gather new insight that could lead to treatments for osteoporosis and muscle wasting conditions, continue studies into astronaut vision changes and test a new material that could one day be used as a synthetic muscle for robotics explorers of the future. Also making the trip was a new espresso machine for space station crews. A part of this payload includes science experiments from high schools, such as a project from Ambassador High School in

Torrance, California Torrance is a coastal city in the Los Angeles metropolitan area located in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States. The city is part of what is known as the South Bay (Los Angeles County), South Bay region of the metropolitan ...

Return payload

Dragon returned of cargo to

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

Post-launch flight test

After the separation of the second stage, SpaceX conducted a flight test and attempted to return the nearly-empty

first stage First stage or First Stage may refer to: * First Stage Children's Theater, a professional American children's theater based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin * First stage (rocketry), the first stage of a multistage rocket * the first reading of a bill in t ...

of the Falcon 9 through the atmosphere and land it on a floating platform called the ''

autonomous spaceport drone ship An autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS) is a modified ocean-going barge developed by SpaceX and equipped with propulsion systems to maintain precise position and a large floating landing platform, landing platform. They were developed to re ...

''. The unmanned launch vehicle technically landed on the floating platform, however it came down with too much lateral velocity, tipped over, and was destroyed. Elon Musk later explained that the bipropellant valve was stuck, and therefore the control system could not react rapidly enough for a successful landing. This was SpaceX's second attempt to land the booster on a floating platform after an earlier test landing attempt in January 2015 had to be abandoned due to weather conditions. The booster was fitted with a variety of technologies to facilitate the flight test, including grid fins and

landing legs Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft that is used for taxiing, takeoff or landing. For aircraft, it is generally needed for all three of these. It was also formerly called ''alighting gear'' by some manufacturers, s ...

to facilitate the post-mission test. If successful, this would have been the first time in history that a launch vehicle booster was returned to a

vertical landing Vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) is a form of takeoff and landing for rockets. Multiple VTVL craft have flown. A notable VTVL vehicle was the Apollo Lunar Module which delivered the first humans to the Moon. Building on the decades of ...

. On 15 April 2015, SpaceX released a video of the terminal phase of the descent, the landing, the tip over, and a small

deflagration Deflagration (Lat: ''de + flagrare'', 'to burn down') is subsonic combustion in which a pre-mixed flame propagates through an explosive or a mixture of fuel and oxidizer. Deflagrations in high and low explosives or fuel–oxidizer mixtures ma ...

as the stage broke up on the deck of the ASDS.CRS-6 First Stage Landing
SpaceX, 15 April 2015

Capsule reflight

The Dragon capsule used for this mission was successfully flown a second time in December 2017 with

SpaceX CRS-13 SpaceX CRS-13, also known as SpX-13, was a Commercial Resupply Services, Commercial Resupply Service mission to the International Space Station launched on 15 December 2017. The mission was contracted by NASA and is flown by SpaceX. It was the s ...

. The capsule made its third and final flight as part of the

SpaceX CRS-18 SpaceX CRS-18, also known as SpX-18, was SpaceX's 18th flight to the International Space Station under the Commercial Resupply Services program for NASA. It was launched on 25 July 2019 aboard a Falcon 9 rocket. The same Dragon capsule has prev ...

mission on 25 July 2019.

Gallery

References

External links

NASA

SpaceX/NASA CRS-6 press kit
April 2015 {{Orbital launches in 2015 SpaceX Dragon Spacecraft launched in 2015 Spacecraft which reentered in 2015 SpaceX payloads contracted by NASA Supply vehicles for the International Space Station