kuhla Posted January 15, 2016 Report Share Posted January 15, 2016 source - http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/14/spacex-orbital-sierra-nevada-iss-resupply/ NASA will fund the International Space Station at least through 2024, so keeping the astronauts on it fed and experimenting is a big deal. That's why the nation's top space agency announced new resupply contracts for Orbital ATK and Elon Musk's SpaceX, two major incumbents that were joined by newcomer Sierra Nevada and its resumable, mini-spaceplane. Each company will get at least six resupply missions, but it's "likely" that NASA will buy more than 18 flights — NASA will grant additional missions based on what they and the station's spacefaring crew need at the time.Speaking of needs, these three companies were chosen in part for their different approaches to transport. Orbital ATK (which used to be known as Orbital Sciences) has its non-recoverable Cygnus capsule, which typically houses waste from the Space Station and burns up in the atmosphere upon re-entry. SpaceX's Dragon capsule can be used to both ferry cargo to the station and bring things back down, though the capsule has to be fished out of the ocean. Then there's Sierra Nevada, whose Dream Chaser shuttle can land on traditional runways — that means samples returning to earth can be offloaded and studied that much sooner. Recovery of cargo could take as little as three hours, though that all depends on whether the Dream Chaser passes its test flights later this year. Cool. I like that they added that 3rd option to get some development in that direction since I would like to see some application of the lessons learned from the X-37. Dream Chaser wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_Chaser Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malaphax Posted January 18, 2016 Report Share Posted January 18, 2016 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kuhla Posted January 18, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 18, 2016 It seems like if it had not been for that leg, it would have landed just fine even in the rough conditions (so they say). Small fix. I imagine the next one will be good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malaphax Posted January 18, 2016 Report Share Posted January 18, 2016 Yea, the leg lockout is what the issue was. They mentioned it was a harder landing than the previous one, but even this looked pretty decent. I would imagine that if they keep up their progress we might really see reusable rockets with a success rate around the current satellite launch success rate (roughly 90%). I still have some trepidation about doing this type of recovery with people inside it, but I would imagine that's still a decent way off and they'll probably have an escape tower or something similar in case of emergency. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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