This was the first time a SpaceX launch for NASA has not been preceded with a static fire test. For the first time, NASA and SpaceX agreed that B1067’s full-duration firing at McGregor earlier this year provided the needed data to clear the rocket for flight ahead of CRS-22.
However, all new Falcon 9 stages are first tested with full-duration firings at SpaceX’s Rocket Development Facility in McGregor, Texas. SpaceX also usually tests “fleet leader” boosters with more flights than the rest of the active Falcon 9 cores. While SpaceX has not conducted static fire tests for all missions, flights utilizing boosters with few or no previous flights, and thus less performance data available, were typically tested before use. Interestingly, no pre-launch static fire test of B1067 was completed at LC-39A prior to CRS-22 despite using an unflown Falcon 9 booster. Dragon C208 made its first flight on the CRS-21 mission, and a third Cargo Dragon 2 vehicle is under construction.
Like the new booster, the Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft, identified by its serial number C209, was also brand new, expanding the fleet of active Cargo Dragons to two vehicles. Following a successful recovery on the CRS-22 (Commercial Resupply Services 22) mission, B1067 will now support the Inspiration4 mission no earlier than September and the Crew-3 launch as early as October - which would mark the quickest turnaround time for a booster launching crew. The 45th Weather Squadron at Space Launch Delta 45 predicted a 60% chance of favorable weather for Thursday’s launch attempt, with primary concerns being cumulous clouds and precipitation.įor the first time since the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich mission in November 2020, SpaceX debuted a brand new Falcon 9 booster, B1067. The Cargo Dragon 2 spacecraft, carrying the first two of six new solar arrays to the station alongside other supplies as well as scientific experiments, departed from LC-39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and docked to the Harmony module of the ISS at 05:09 EDT/09:09 UTC on Saturday, June 5. It was selected in 2018 by NASA's CubeSat Launch Initiative (CSLI) to be launched as part of the ELaNa program.The CRS-22 cargo mission to the International Space Station lifted off right on time at 13:29 EDT (17:29 UTC) on Thursday, June 3. The satellite will be deployed from the ISS. a GPS Occultation receiver (Aerospace Corp.).will analyze the data and collaborate on individual studies. side, NASA is coordinating the launch and the instruments that will go on the CubeSat, including Aerospace’s sensor and five other instruments provided by NASA and university partners. SPORT ( Scintillation Prediction Observations Research Task) is joint Brazilian and US nanosatellite to study the formation and evolution of equatorial plasma bubbles which may, in turn, cause scintillation.īrazil will build and operate the 6U CubeSat as well as maintain the ground observation network of radars, imagers, and scintillation monitors.