Launch of Northrop Grumman’s 20th Cargo Mission to the Space Station (Official NASA Broadcast)
[Music] [Music] [Music] you're looking at a live view of Falcon 9 set to lift off from space launch complex 40 at Cape Nal space Forest Station in Florida in just under 17 minutes from now today's Mission marks spacex's 10th mission of 20124 and second mission headed to the International Space Station so far this year thanks for tuning in to today's coverage of ng20 North rep G's 20th resupply mission to the orbiting laboratory I'm Jesse Anderson a manufacturing engineering manager here at SpaceX since 2012 spacex's Falcon 9 rocket has supported operations on the International Space Station delivering critical science hardware and supplies to crew aboard the space station with the use of our Dragon crew and cargo vehicles and today the first start and today for the first time we have a new spacecraft on board Falcon 9 with the same purpose in mind we are excited to be launching signis to low earth orbit on its 20th resupply mission to the International Space Station this is the first Falcon 9 launch of signis this year as part of NASA's Commercial resupply Services contract SpaceX and Northrup Grumman offers safe reliable and cost effective transportation to and from the International Space Station now in fact dragon and signis are currently the only two operational us cargo Supply Vehicles capable of supporting Station activities and Falcon 9 is the only us launch vehicle in operation capable of delivering these spacecraft to low earth orbit the teams here at SpaceX are proud to provide these services with ultimately which ultimately further our goal of one day making life multiplanetary now at tus 15 minutes and 30 seconds all is looking good for an ontime launch the vehicle and payload are healthy the range is ready to support and weather looks great there in Florida as you might imagine the crew on board the space station is preparing for their upcoming delivery for more on those preparations NASA's Rob navius Rob well thank you Jesse and good day to everyone from Mission Control in Houston in the International Space Station flight control room here at the Johnson Space Center it's a full house aboard the International Space Station with 11 crew members representing eight nations in support of the axium 3 mission but the focus of attention today is the Falcon 9 launch of the SS Patricia Hillyard Robertson signis cargo craft Northrup grumman's resupply vehicle that is poised to deliver four tons of Science and supplies to The Outpost now a launch today for signis will bring the space b craft to the station in the we hours Thursday where NASA astronauts Jasmine mcbell and Laurel O'Hara will be poised in the KOA at the robotics workstation ready to extend the canid arm 2 robotic arm to Grapple signus for its installation to the earth-facing common birthing mechanism on the unity module for a stay of about 6 months originally signis was to have spent four months on the station but its stay has been extended to Mid July to accommodate stowage and and potential reboost capability so with you Jesse we're watching the countdown clocks ticking backward now back to you and Hawthorne awesome thanks Rob Falcon 9 is a reusable two-stage rocket designed and manufactured by SpaceX for the reliable and safe transport of people and payloads in Earth orbit and Beyond Today Mark spacex's 305th launch and for those of you following along you'll know that about onethird of those launches were in 2023 alone and represent 80% of the world's total mass to orbit we are currently launching about every 3 days and are looking to launch up to 150 missions in 2024 and reusability is what makes this all possible starting from the bottom of the rocket the first stage also referred to as the booster makes up over 60% of the entire length of the Falcon 9 vehicle it's also the part of the vehicle that gets reused over and over in fact the dark sit that see around the lower part of the first stage are remnants from its previous nine launches this booster is a well-versed veteran launch vehicle and is set to return back to land again today the white section above the black interner stage is the second stage after the first and second stages separate about 2 and a half minutes into flight the second stage will ignite its mbac engine to carry the signis spacecraft to orbit above the second stage is the payload fairing which is the nose cone structure at the very top of the rocket it protects the payload and in this case the sign spacecraft until we reach space around the around 3 minutes into flight once we've exited Earth atmosphere we will jettison the fairing halves and attempt to retrieve them once they return back down to earth this payload fairing was customized to accommodate late load operations on the pad and we'll talk more about these modifications a bit later in the program for now let's learn a bit more about the spacecraft itself Rob thanks Jesse as mentioned earlier north of grumman's signis cargo craft is about to deliver about four tons of Science and supplies to the International Space Station hitching a ride today for the first time on the venerable SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on the phone with us right now to discuss this unique marriage of rockets and resupply is a former veteran astronaut Dan Tony who flew two Supply and assembly missions to the International Space Station he is now northr grumman's program manager for human exploration and operations Dan it's been a while but it's great to have you with us today Rob it's great to hear your voice and to be uh working with you again uh thanks thanks for the call our pleasure Dan uh from your experience on board the station a few years ago what's involved in unloading a cash of cargo that a resupply vehicle brings to the complex in what amounts to its own complex operation yeah it is it is a complex operation and uh from a crew member's point of view boy it's like Christmas uh or nowadays is like watching the Amazon truck show up and and unload a bunch of stuff uh you know we're bringing 8,000 lb over 8,000 lbs of stuff to the crew and uh and not only is it uh you know the scientific experiments and uh stuff that the space station itself needs but it's food it's clothes and uh really personally to the crew it's uh notes and momentos and stuff from their families and friends uh it's great to put a little personal stuff in there so it's an exciting day to receive a new cargo ship and uh but boy they've got a lot of of uh hours ahead unloading everything putting it someplace in the station and then uh filling it back up with trash and Dan this signus is named after astronaut Patty Hillyard Robertson a good friend of yours who tragically lost her life on a plane crash uh in 2001 you knew her very well so on this day a special day for you your thoughts about her and the fact that signis is named in her memory yeah you know one of the things we uh done on signis from their very first mission is name them after space uh Pioneers people that are very important to the human space program and uh this is very personal for many of us uh you know in my class we've been able to name a signis for Pure Sellers and and Laurel Clark was the last one and uh in this one we get to honor uh patty patty Robertson uh yeah you know we she was in the class of 98 we were in the class of uh 96 so we were sort of the sophomores to her to her freshman class and so we got the honor of of uh being with those guys when they were getting ready for their first 238 flight and their first Sim and their first uh NBL run and so got to know them very well Patty you know she lit up a room she was so wonderful to work with she's her attitude was great she was smiling you know everybody loved her and it's s such a tragedy uh when we lost her so it is certainly uh my pleasure and my honor uh to be part of uh the signis team that gets to uh honor Patty and her memory and get her uh into space uh sort of officially uh or get her namesake into uh space so it's really a fantastic honor uh and a pleasure for us to be able to do that Dan thank you so much for your time today appreciate your thoughts and good luck today Dan ton northr grumman's program manager for human exploration and operations with that Jesse back to you and Hawthorne in order to support signis missions SpaceX designed a custom fairing and payload transfer truck with a mobile clean room to support late load operations which happen while the rocket is horizontal and on the pad deck late load refers to loading Cargo in the final hours before launch and after the spacecraft has already been encapsulated inside the fairing the fairing modifications includes a new roughly 5ftx 4T fairing door that opens directly into the mobile clean room at tus 24 hours late load Ops began Tex removed the door and open signus's forward hatch to load time sensitive cargo right on the pad and then at tus 7 hours Falcon 9 went vertical now with T minus 8 minutes to go all is looking good for an ontime lift off today again the payload and fair and vehicle are healthy the range is ready to support and weather looks amazing over there in Florida for now let's head back to Rob for a closer look at the science on today's Mission Rob Jesse thanks we're at T-minus 7 minutes 30 seconds and counting to the launch of the Falcon 9 rocket and the north of Grumman signis cargo craft which as we said is delivering about four tons of Science and supplies to the space station you know science for every crew that lives and works on board the station is the main objective of activities up on orbit today's delivery is designed to improve robotic surgeries on Earth 3D printing techniques and the growth of cartilage in mic gravity so let's take a quick look at the science aboard [Music] [Music] [Music] signis [Music] it's team minus 6 minutes and 5 Seconds and the SpaceX team is working no significant issues weather is go range remains go for launch and at this point rp1 fuel is completely loaded on the second stage and nearly complete on first stage liquid oxygen loading is underway on both stages and will complete at T minus 2 minutes to launch we're also loading helium gas into both stages Falcon 9 uses helium as a pressurant to back fill the propellant tanks as liquid oxygen and rp1 are consumed by the Burnin engines during Ascent helium load began before the broadcast went live and will continue to top off until a minute and a half before launch Jesse to make sure engine startup gowell SpaceX performed what is called engine chill where a small amount of the super chilled liquid oxygen flowed into the Merlin engines turbo pumps this was done to avoid a thermal shock to the propulsion system when the full flow of super chill liquid oxygen is introduced into the Falcon 9 Plumbing signis is also undergoing final vehicle health checks at this moment as It prepares to go on internal battery power all of that being monitored by northr Grumman flight controllers in Dulles Virginia now the next event coming up will be the transporter erector retracting away from the vehicle now the transport erector or the te is that large Str structural structure next to Falcon 9 which you can see there on your screen there are some clamp arms that are around the second stage just below the fairing those will open up first and once they are fully open then the te started then the te can recline away from the vehicle and we did hear a call out that strong backward tract is starting now and it's a bit slow and slight but you can see on your screen those clamp arms that I mentioned just below the fairing there are opening up again in these last few minutes Falcon 9 is performing performing final health checks on its primary Communications avionics and propulsion systems in preparation for flight and it looks like the clamp arms are now fully open and it's very slow and slight but you can see the te slowly moving away from the vehicle and that should conclude the te retraction now we may hear some call outs that engines are also sufficiently chilled as we get a little closer to liftoff we're coming up on the uh T-minus 3 minute Mark until launch checkouts of the second stage thrust vector control actuators will soon begin this is referred to as an engine gimbal or wiggle test when SpaceX moves the nozzles ever so slightly to make sure that the guidance Hardware is acceptable for flight SpaceX does the same checkouts on the first age engines that happens just a few seconds before engine ignition by the way at the time of launch the International Space Station will be flying some 260 statued miles over the South Pacific southeast of New Zealand the next Milestone coming up will be propellant loading completion on the vehicle at tus 3 minutes we wrapped up liquid oxygen loading on the first stage vehicle and coming up next will be liquid oxygen loading completion on the second stage once once that happens Falcon 9 will be fully loaded with 1 million pounds of kerosene fuel in liquid oxygen signus is also performing its final health checks to make sure that all of its primary syst systems are ready for its rendevu with the space station just waiting for the second stage liquid oxygen loading fall out stage two lock load complete and there it is that concludes propellant loading on Falcon 9 now that this is complete we will begin to vent out and you can see it there on your screen the liquid oxygen line on the transporter erector ground gas close out Falcon 9 is in startup here's the call Falcon 9 in startup signis now transitioning to internal power the Falcon 9 computers are in final pre-launch checks that instructs the rocket through the last seconds before liftoff both stages now being pressurized for launch the range remains go for launch a pristine day for a launch from the space coast T-minus 40 seconds in counting 30 seconds 15 seconds 2us 10 now 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 IGN full power and Falcon 9 and signus begin their flight taking aim on the International Space Station pitch and roll program are inal aring out to the Northeast press at t plus 40 seconds Falcon 9 has successfully lifted off from space launch comp nominal this is our 10th mission of the year and second to the International Space Station and we've throttled down our engines in preparation for Max Q which is coming up here in a few seconds this is the largest structural loic this is the largest structural load that the vehicle will see on Ascent Max q and great news we've passed through Max q and are throttling those engines back up next up will be five events in rapid succession that will be main engine cut off stage separation second engine start or scs1 the Boost back burn start up on the first stage and fairing separation main engine cut off or what we call Mo is where all nine m1d engines on the Falcon 9 first stage will shut down it's all those engines that you see there on your screen and this will be followed by stage separation or the separation of the first and second stages a few seconds later the Merlin vacuum engine on the second stage will ignite to boost to low earth orbit which is also known as scs1 then Falcon 9's first stage will ignite again to orient itself to head back to land with the Boost back burn shortly thereafter the fairing halves will separate and expose the spacecraft to the vacuum of space again those five events coming up in a few seconds Mo stage separation sces one the Boost back burn starting up as well as fairing separation go stage separation confirmed and back ignition stage one boost pack startup and there we've had Mo stage separation the M back engine on the second stage ignited as well as the Boost back burn starting up on the first stage vehicle and some awesome views there on your screen on your left hand side is a view of from the first stage on your right hand inside of you from the second stage fairing separation confirmed and excellent news we were able to see and hear the call out for confirmation of fairing separation you can actually see one of the fairing Hales falling back to Earth on your right hand screen stage one boost back shut down and we heard that call out and you can see on your left hand screen that the engines on the first stage vehicle have shut down and that concludes the Boost back burn for the first stage vehicle can also see that the grid fins are now deploying on the first stage both vehicles are following nominal trajectory and great call outs that both vehicles are on nomino trajectories some awesome views on your screen again on your left hand side is a view from the first stage on your right hand side is a view from the second stage looking at our mbac engine you're watching a live webcast for ng20 North rep grumman's 20th resupply mission to the orbiting laboratory this is spacex's 10th mission for 2024 and the second flight to the International Space Station just this year you might be interested to know in order to get to space the rocket has to do more than just go up it also has to go sideways and really really fast at liftoff gravity's pulling straight down on the vehicle as we Ascend we tilt the engines and the technical term for that is called gambling and that turns the rocket horizontally now we are still going up but we are now also heading horizontally away from the line pad and that's what we call a gravity turn an object typically needs to go 7.5 km/ second or 17,500 milph horizontally in order to avoid being pulled back down to earth and get into orbit that is exactly what this vehicle just performed and on your left hand side again is the first stage making its way back down to Earth today we do have a land Landing so we do require three Burns in order for it to make its way back to its Landing Zone we've already completed the Boost back burn for the vehicle as it oriented itself heading back towards land next up will be the entry burn and that's where three of the Merlin engines will reignite this helps to slow the vehicle down as it re-enters the upper parts of the earth atmosphere and then we'll be followed by the last burn which is the landing burn that's a single engine burn that begins that brings the vehicle speed down rapidly in order to touch down back on Earth and a really cool view of that first stage vehicle from our Ground tracking camera that looks amazing and that entry burn is coming up here in just about 30 seconds or so views look amazing today again you can see on your left hand screen the view of Earth in the background of the first stage as it's coming back down to earth to land on our Landing zone right hand screen again is of the second stage looking after at our M back engine stage one entry burn startup we just heard that call out and you can see on your left hand screen that the engines on the first stage vehicle have reignited just about a 17 second burn stage one entry burn shut down stage one FTS has safed awesome tracking view of our first stage vehicle as you can see that the entry burn has concluded and the first St vehicle continues to make its way way back down to earth both vehicles continuing on a nominal trajectory and this is an incredible view that we are getting of the first St vehicle heading back to land right now it's using its four grid fins to guide stage one transonic to guide the vehicle during its descent and this is amazing you can see those four grid fins deployed what a view that we have Landing burn and you can see that the landing burn has begun for the vehicle let's watch as Falcon 9 touches back down on land stage two fds has saved stage one Landing leg deploy B One landing a what a sight to see Falcon has touched down this booster just completed its 10th flight and the 268th successful Landing of an orbital class rocket including both Falcon 9 and Falcon heavy boosters that was such an such an incredible view to watch now next up is SEO for the second stage that's where we will shut down this MC engine nominal orbit insertion and great news we heard that call out for seo1 as well as confirmation of good orbit at t plus 9 minutes and 15 seconds into the mission the second stage has one last major task commanding separation of the sign spacecap just a few minutes from now for those of you just tuning in you're watching a live webcast for ng20 North rep grumman's 20th resupply mission to the International Space Station this is spacex's 10th mission for 2024 and second flight to the International Space Station this year and for those of you following along you'll know that signis will be joining two SpaceX Dragon spacecraft that are already docked at station as part of the Cru 7 and axium 3 missions crew 7 docked with the space station in August of last year and axium 3 arrived earlier this month on January 20th we are getting some incredible views again what you're seeing on your screen is a view from the second stage looking after at our MC engine and you can see today that we are flying a shorter nozzle and there you can see that shorter nozzle there on your screen both Northrup Grumman and SpaceX have a long history of supporting the International Space Station with cargo missions like today's spacex's first commercial resupply services or CRS Mission crs1 launched in 2012 and made history by restoring America's capability to deliver and return cargo to the station the signis spacecraft has been visiting the International Space Station since 2013 and the first signis CRS Mission orb one launched in 2014 signis has delivered more than 138,000 pounds of equipment science experiments and supplies to sustain the International Space Station's astronauts under NASA's Commercial resupply Services contract the most recent cargo resupply mission was spacex's CRS 29 and that was at the end of 2023 delivering more than 6,500 pounds of scientific research crew Supplies and Hardware to the orbiting laboratory and today dragon is the only spacecraft currently flying that is capable of returning significant amounts of cargo back down to earth the CRS partnership has helped build a strong american commercial space industry that will soon take us to destinations Beyond low earth orbit now in fact these missions provide critical learnings that will help us develop a human presence on the moon and Mars which will require a steady supply of cargo missions to grow and Thrive again if you're just now tuning in we've had an ontime liftoff from Cape Canaveral at 12:07 p.m. eastern time we had the we had a good stage separation Falcon 99's first stage return back to land and touch down for landing now right now what you're seeing on your screen is a view from the second stage vehicle looking after our mbac engine but the signis spacecraft is still attached and we are just waiting for signis separation from the second stage in just about a couple minutes from now again getting some awesome views here and you can see that the vehicle is coasting on your bottom right hand corner of your screen you can see the speed as well as the altitude of the vehicle with the payload attached as a reminder this is the first SpaceX launch of signis this year signis refers to the constellation that is visible in the northern night sky it's the company's tradition to name each sign spacecraft in honor of an individual who has made substantial contributions to human space flight northw Grumman named the ng20 Signa spacecraft in remembrance and celebration of the life of NASA astronaut Dr Patricia Patty hilard Robertson following separation signis will have a nearly 40-hour transit to the space station where the station's Canada arm 2 will grapple signis and the spacecraft will attach to the unity module Earth facing port for cargo unloading by the Expedition 70 crew if you're just now joining us you are watching the ng20 mission carrying the signis spacecraft currently attached to our Falcon 9 second stage awaiting separation in just about under 30 seconds seconds from now that view that you see there on your screen is looking forward at the payload and separation coming up here in few second deploy confirmed and an incredible view you can see the signis spacecraft drifting away from Falcon 99's second stage confirming successful spacecraft separation the signis spacecraft is now on its way to the International Space Station expected to arrive in just under 40 hours at 3:20 a.m. Central Time and that's going to wrap it up for me here in Hawthorne be sure to check out spacex.com launches for schedule of our upcoming missions in the meantime Rob what's next for signis Jesse thanks very much great ride uh into orbit for signis and I must tell you that the flight controllers here in the International Space Station flight control room were simply mesmerized by that great video of the first stage Landing uh following uh its job to deliver signis on its way to orbit joining me now on the phone here in uh Mission Control in Houston is Jeff Aon the manager for the systems and integration office for the International Space Station program Jeff welcome in with us today yeah Rob thanks for having me yeah it's always good to talk with you Jeff uh a pretty significant day how significant for the program was today's launch as SpaceX and northr Grumman collaborated to send signis on its way to the station yeah I guess I'd start by uh by kind of echoing what you just said that that both of our commercial Partners but for cargo and science delivery as you said northr Grumman and SpaceX you know they've each done an amazing job in all aspects of of the service that they provide ISS and um and as you kind of alluded to they they've stepped up their game even more this time around with the uh basically a seamless arrangement to launch signis for the first time on a on a falcon 9 um so yeah I can't can't say enough there um and as you know the plan going forward is to continue this arrangement for at least a couple more signis flights um and given the overall importance of cargo and science to our mission you know the significance of this partnership can't be emphasized enough it's it's really hats off to these guys Jeff if you would uh pretty busy up on the station 11 crew members eight Nations being representative in the midst of axium 3 so over the next 48 hours outline for us the upcoming activities for the crew on board as they prepare for signus's arrival Thursday yeah happy to um I'm actually going to start I'm going to start a little bit earlier because um it's good to remind folks that uh because this is a a a a vehicle that we capture with the ssrm there is some some study time and training time that the onboard crew goes through um actually in the week leading up to this event so Laurel and Jaws have been doing some work together and they actually get some Hands-On activity with the actual arm we actually back away from a grapple fix and and then reapo the grapple fixture similar to what they'll do for a capture so they get a feel for how the arm actually performs in orbit um they also have to do a little house C house cleaning there's um you know the port that signis is going to usually has stowage in front of it so they need to clear the port both for hatch opening and uh and entering the signis um and the other thing that that that serves for is uh we install a camera an alignment camera that the crew will then check check out and uh it actually looks out the node one hatch window and that helps the the ground team to actually uh with their alignment when they actually bir the uh signus to node one nater and then the final thing is uh um tomorrow morning actually before before the actual um signus comes to station they'll they'll set up the robotics workstation that they use they use that for monitoring signus as I as it approaches ISS um they use it to ensure that that the vehicle stays within the expected Corridor and remains safe um and then of course they perform the capture op operations of signis uh when it gets to what we call um its capture point so um yeah they got a lot of they got a lot on their plate but it starts even before the week before the actual launch of the vehicle Jeff thanks very much we appreciate your time today as always yep thank you Rob appreciate it Jeff Aaron the manager for the systems and integration office for the International Space Station next up will be the deployment of signus's solar array scheduled to begin around an hour and 40 minutes from now that critical Milestone will take about 30 minutes to complete and once the arrays are deployed we'll provide an update on the station blog with the latest news from this point on northr Grumman flight controllers at their mission operations center in dullas Virginia will be monitoring signus's flight to the International Space Station along with flight controllers here in Houston they'll work in tandem early Thursday as signis arrives in the neighborhood of the orbital Outpost with that we're going to wrap up our coverage of the launch of northr grumman's 20th Commercial resupply Services Mission sign is now on course to be captured at about 3:20 a.m. Central Time 4:20 a.m. eastern time
Thursday morning live coverage of rendevu and capture will begin at 1:45 a.m. Central Time 2:45 a.m. eastern time followed by coverage of signus's installation to the station at 4:45 a.m. Central 5:45 a.m. eastern time in the meantime you can learn even more about this mission on the web at nasa.gov commmercial resupply so on behalf of my colleague Jesse Anderson of SpaceX and Hawthorne and our colleagues at northr Grumman thank you for joining us today we'll see you back here early Thursday morning this is Mission Control Houston
2024-02-01 05:40
