SpaceX Dragon CRS-5 ISS resupply


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Dragon CRS-5 is on track,

Launch: Jan. 6 2015 0620 Local

Backup: Jan. 7 2015 0556 Local

Weather forecast is 60%

Landing sea forecast is 25 kph winds and 2.5 meter seas.

The info on ASDS is that she's stable to 4 meter seas.

NASA TV: 0500 Local

SpaceX: spacex.com/webcast and Livestream, usually 20-30 minutes before launch.

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Those are pretty moderate seas....especially for a barge balancing to land a 14 story booster on. Will the seas be added to the weather criteria, or will they proceed even if seas are too heavy?

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flyingskippy, on 03 Jan 2015 - 13:11, said:flyingskippy, on 03 Jan 2015 - 13:11, said:

Those are pretty moderate seas....especially for a barge balancing to land a 14 story booster on. Will the seas be added to the weather criteria, or will they proceed even if seas are too heavy?

I was going to ask the same thing except I assume they will launch regardless of what the seas look like (since it's kind of expected to fail anyways).  I'm just curious if they will attempted to land on the barge or just do another "landing" in the ocean...

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If the sea state is within their self-imposed liners you bet they'll try to land on ASDS. We just don't know what those limits are. Odds are they're higher than Sea State 4 given the addition of the Thrustmasters.

One of the guys at NSF has a short time lapse video of what's steaming from Carnival Fascination's wheelhouse webcam, a frame every 7 seconds. Lots of activity around ASDS, Go Quest and Elsbeth III - the latter two being the tender ships. Looks like they're prepping to sail.

If past practice holds the tenders will turn off their transponders soon after leaving US waters.

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They're off!!

Go Quest, Elsbeth III and ASDS have left port and on their way to the recovery zone. Go Quest is loaded with telemetry, communications and radar gear.

Go Quest

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Elsbeth III

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ASDS (from Carnival Fascination)

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From todaysNASA/SpaceX pre-launch news conference,

Backup launch date now the 9th.

4-10 foot waves in landing area for Tuesday, 14 feet on Friday, and neither is a problem for ASDS.

The grid fins will deploy very early, while still in a vacuum

NASA: proud to have a partner trying to further space flight in general. This is an exciting time.

Telemetry and video will be recorded it may take a while to teansmit back to Hawthorne. If it's successful, video in 1-2 days and we'll hear quickly (Twitter?)

The stage safes itself, with tender ship backup if needed. The RP-1 stays in the rocket and the rocket stays on ASDS. Tender crew will board and tie it down in 1-2 hours. Tenders stay ~10 miles away from ASDS.

Stage will be checked out to see if they need to make modifications to support reusability. They plan to get as many stages down as possible.

ASDS on station, Thrustmasters thrusting, floodlights floodlighting. Given the aerial view I think we can assume quadcopters are on the scene

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It is towed most of the way to save fuel, but once near her station she's self-piloting. Full local beacons for other traffic and watched over by the tender ships of course.

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