SpaceX CRS-2, also known as SpX-2, was the fourth 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 ...

, the fifth and final flight for the company's two-stage Falcon 9 v1.0

launch vehicle A launch vehicle is typically a rocket-powered vehicle designed to carry a payload (a crewed spacecraft or satellites) from Earth's surface or lower atmosphere to outer space. The most common form is the ballistic missile-shaped multistage ...

, and the second SpaceX operational mission 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 ...

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 ...

(CRS-1) contract. The launch occurred on 1 March 2013. A minor technical issue on the Dragon spacecraft involving the RCS thruster pods occurred upon reaching orbit, but it was recoverable. The vehicle was released from the station on 26 March 2013, at 10:56

UTC Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the primary time standard globally used to regulate clocks and time. It establishes a reference for the current time, forming the basis for civil time and time zones. UTC facilitates international communica ...

and splashed down in the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

at 16:34UTC.

History

The planned shipment of the Falcon 9 first stage from Texas to the Florida launch site was delayed due to the ongoing investigation of the engine failure that occurred on the previous flight. In late November 2012, it was reported that the CRS-2 Falcon 9 had been transported to

Cape Canaveral Cape Canaveral () is a cape (geography), cape in Brevard County, Florida, in the United States, near the center of the state's Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. Officially Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973, it lies east of Merritt Island, separated ...

(CCAFS). A static fire test occurred for the CRS-2 Falcon 9 on 25 February 2013.

Firsts

The Dragon unpressurized trunk section, which allows the transport of unpressurized cargo to the ISS, had its first use on this flight. This cargo consisted of two Heat Rejection Subsystem Grapple Fixtures (HRSGFs), which are essentially bars to be attached to the ISS radiators to allow for future movement work.

Payload

When launched the CRS-2 Dragon was filled with about of cargo, without packaging. Included is of crew supplies, of scientific experiments and experiment hardware, of hardware for the station and other miscellaneous items, among them a CD copy of the song " Up in the Air" by rock band

Thirty Seconds to Mars Thirty Seconds to Mars (commonly stylized as 30 Seconds to Mars) is an American Rock music, rock band from Los Angeles, California, formed in 1998. The band consists of brothers Jared Leto (lead vocals, guitar, bass, keyboards) and Shannon Let ...

, was premiered on board 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 ...

(ISS) on 18 March 2013, during a

NASA TV NASA TV (originally NASA Select) was the television service of the NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It was broadcast by satellite television, satellite with a simulcast over the Internet. Local cable television provid ...

broadcast from the station. The two Heat Rejection Subsystem Grapple Fixtures (HRSGFs) had a combined weight of and were transported to the ISS inside the unpressurized Dragon trunk as external cargo. The Dragon returned of cargo, without packaging. Included is of crew supplies, of scientific experiments and experiment hardware, of space station hardware, of

spacesuit A space suit (or spacesuit) is an environmental suit used for protection from the harsh Space environment, environment of outer space, mainly from its Vacuum (outer space), vacuum as a highly specialized pressure suit, but also its temperatu ...

equipment and other miscellaneous items.

Dragon thruster pods anomaly

Shortly after second stage separation, at 15:45UTC on 1 March 2013, the Dragon spacecraft encountered technical problems involving its propulsion system. "When priming its four Draco Thruster Pods, the vehicle detected insufficient pressurization on the

oxidizer An oxidizing agent (also known as an oxidant, oxidizer, electron recipient, or electron acceptor) is a substance in a redox chemical reaction that gains or " accepts"/"receives" an electron from a (called the , , or ''electron donor''). In ot ...

(

Nitrogen Tetroxide Dinitrogen tetroxide, commonly referred to as nitrogen tetroxide (NTO), and occasionally (usually among ex-USSR/Russian rocket engineers) as amyl, is the chemical compound N2O4. It is a useful reagent in chemical synthesis. It forms an equilibrium ...

) system" of three of the pods which "caused the Flight Computers to place the vehicle in Passive Abort Mode". In this mode, Dragon is not executing any more orbital operations. Its thruster system was disabled and the solar panels were not deployed since the vehicle had not achieved its proper solar panels deployment attitude. "Dragon is programmed not to open its solar panels outside its proper attitude configuration to avoid contact with the second stage. This rule is in place for scenarios in which Dragon is not properly separated from the Falcon 9 booster. As time progressed, teams working at SpaceX Mission Control, MCC-X in

Hawthorne, California Hawthorne is a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, California. It is part of a seventeen-city subregion of the Los Angeles metropolitan area commonly known as the South Bay (Los Angeles County), South Bay. As of the 2020 United States cens ...

, started assessments of the issue". During the early minutes and hours of the mission, the mission progress news came in bits, some of it over social media. An update from

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a businessman. He is known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, X (formerly Twitter), and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Musk has been considered the wealthiest person in th ...

on Twitter clarified:

Issue with Dragon thruster pods. System inhibiting three of four from initializing. About to command inhibit override.

At 16:12UTC, Elon Musk announced that a "command inhibit override" would be issued as the Dragon module was "about to pass over

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

ground station A ground station, Earth station, or Earth terminal is a terrestrial radio station designed for extraplanetary telecommunication with spacecraft (constituting part of the ground segment of the spacecraft system), or reception of radio waves fr ...

". Initially solar panels deployment was held "until at least two thruster pods are active". SpaceX Mission Control decided to proceed with solar deployment due to array temperatures while the spacecraft was not in active attitude control at 16:40UTC: "Thruster pod 3 tank pressure trending positive. Preparing to deploy solar arrays". At 16:50UTC, solar arrays had successfully been deployed on the Dragon spacecraft. Three of the four thruster pods on the Dragon spacecraft must be operational for berthing to be allowed with the International Space Station. After making corrections, SpaceX regained control of all four thruster pods and would be able to correct its course to the ISS. According to Elon Musk, "All systems green". NASA officials said that the spacecraft would not rendezvous with the ISS on 2 March 2013 as was originally planned. It would instead rendezvous on 3 March 2013. Dragon was grappled with

Canadarm2 The Mobile Servicing System (MSS) is a robotic system on board the International Space Station (ISS). Launched to the ISS in 2001, it plays a key role in station assembly and maintenance; it moves equipment and supplies around the station, suppo ...

by NASA Expedition 34 commander Kevin Ford and NASA flight engineer Tom Marshburn at 10:31UTC on 3 March 2013, and was berthed to the nadir (Earth-facing) docking port of the ''

Harmony In music, harmony is the concept of combining different sounds in order to create new, distinct musical ideas. Theories of harmony seek to describe or explain the effects created by distinct pitches or tones coinciding with one another; harm ...

'' module at 13:56UTC.

Remainder of mission (3 to 26 March 2013)

On 6 March 2013, the space station's Canadarm2 removed the grapple bars from Dragon's trunk. This event marked the first delivery of unpressurized cargo from a commercial spacecraft to the ISS. The spacecraft's return 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 ...

was postponed to 26 March 2013 from its originally scheduled date of 25 March 2013 due to inclement weather developing near its targeted splashdown site in the

. The additional day spent attached to the orbiting laboratory did not affect science samples scheduled to return aboard the spacecraft. On 26 March 2013, Dragon was unberthed from the Harmony node by the Canadarm2 at 08:10UTC by commands from ground controllers. Its release from Canadarm2 occurred at 10:56UTC; the Expedition 35 crew then commanded the spacecraft to slowly depart from the International Space Station. The SpaceX Dragon fired its engines for the last time at 15:42UTC sending it through the atmosphere of Earth for a splashdown in the

at 16:34UTC. A team of SpaceX engineers, technicians and divers recovered the vehicle and its scientific cargo off the coast of

Baja California Baja California, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California, is a state in Mexico. It is the northwesternmost of the 32 federal entities of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1952, the area was known as the North Territory of B ...

, for the journey back to shore which took about 30 hours.

Gallery

References

External links

NASA's SpaceX mission page

SpaceX CRS-2 Mission Press Kit (February 2013)

Video of Static Fire test - YouTube (spacexchannel)

Video of pre-launch press conference - YouTube (ReelNASA)

Video of launch - YouTube (ReelNASA)

Video of Dragon arriving at the ISS - YouTube (ReelNASA)

Video of Dragon leaving the ISS - YouTube (ReelNASA)

Video of the Dragon capsule arriving at shore and other post-flight activities - YouTube (NASAtelevision)
{{Orbital launches in 2013 SpaceX Dragon Spacecraft launched in 2013 Spacecraft which reentered in 2013 SpaceX payloads contracted by NASA Supply vehicles for the International Space Station