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A SpaceX Dragon commercial capsule packed with a robot assistant for the International Space Station crew, extra strong coffee bags and a NASA science instrument designed to track the health of plants on Earth left Cape Canaveral aboard a Falcon 9 rocket Friday on a three-day pursuit of the research laboratory in orbit.
On an orange rocket escape plume, the Falcon 9 climbed into clear skies before sunrise after takeoff from Cape Canaveral launch pad 40. 42:42 EDT (0942: 42 GMT), about the time the Earth's rotation carried the spaceport under the orbital trajectory of the International Space Station
The first leg of the Falcon 9, for the second time in April , he spun his engines to steer the rocket northeast of Cape Canaveral with a push of 1.7 million pounds.
The rocket dropped the first-stage propeller to fall into the Atlantic Ocean. was not intended to be recovered – while the Falcon 9's second-stage was lighting up for a five-and-a-half-minute shot to give the Dragon cargo ship enough speed to reach the orbit around of the Earth
. reached the rarefied upper atmosphere, creating a twilit effect when the Falcon 9's expanding escape cloud captured the early rays of the morning sun
The imagery of the ascent of the Falcon 9 showed the illuminated escape plume, resembling a growing nebula. The second stage of the rocket stopped about eight and a half minutes after the start of the flight, and then the Dragon Vessel was deployed about 90 seconds later. Two energy-producing solar panels deployed for a distance of about 16.5 meters (54 feet), and the ship's rockets were fired for the space station's three-day pursuit.
Meanwhile, the second leg was scheduled Earth for a long-lasting coastal demonstration, collecting data to verify that the rocket can operate in space until six o'clock, allowing future missions Falcon 9 rocket to send payloads into higher and more difficult to reach orbits.
The 57th flight of a Falcon 9 rocket and the 12th SpaceX launch of the year. It was the 14th time that SpaceX launched a reused first-stage booster, and the fourth-time flight of a Dragon capsule used previously.
The first step launched on Friday was the last one made by SpaceX using the abandoned "Block 4" configuration. . SpaceX launched the improved "Block 5" version of the Falcon 9 rocket on May 11, and Friday's flight used a second step containing improvements to Block 5.
The Falcon 9 Block 5 is optimized for the reuse of the first and general manager Elon Musk said that the improved boosters of Block 5 could be launched, landed and transported again in just 24 hours, requiring only a little more than the cost of new thrusters and cost of
treatment such quick recoveries, requiring disassembly of its landing legs, inspections, refurbishment and installation of new thermal shield material and grid fins used downhill. The job took a long time and cost millions of dollars, but SpaceX officials said the cost of refurbishing block 4 boosters was lower than the cost of manufacturing a brand new vehicle. said Jessica Jensen, Director of Dragon Mission Management at SpaceX
SpaceX's mission for the 15th Space Station, as part of a resupply commercial contract with NASA valued at more than $ 3 billion, is expected to arrive at about 7 am (1100 GMT) on Monday.
Canadian-built robotic arm control to capture the free floating Dragon capsule. The robot's arm will dock the spacecraft on the station's Harmony module a few hours later, starting a month's stay.
The astronauts will manually unpack the contents of the Dragon Pressurized Cargo Module, which SpaceX is reusing from a previous refueling mission launched in July 2016.
The Mission is expected to deliver 5,946 pounds (2,697 kilograms) of Equipment, experiments and supplies to the research laboratory in orbit. Approximately 3,774 pounds (1,712 kilograms) are carried within the interior of Dragon's Cabin, including:
- 2,718 pounds (1,243 kilograms) of scientific research
- 452 pounds (205 kilograms) kilograms) of vehicle equipment
- 139 pounds (63 kilograms) of equipment output in space
- 46 pounds (21 kilograms) of computer resources
- 27 pounds (12 kilograms) of Russian material
Mouse to be examined by scientists when returning to Earth. Researchers will study the effects of microgravity on microorganisms in the gastrointestinal tract of animals.
There is also an experience aboard the Dragon cargo capsule that will help scientists study the growth of algae in space. Algae could provide basic nutrition and help absorb carbon dioxide in future space missions, and algae oils could reduce the harmful effects of cosmic radiation on humans.
Alexander Gerst, astronaut of the European Space Agency on the space station, also gets a talking assistant activated by artificial intelligence.
Known as CIMON – abbreviation of Crew Interactive Mobile Companion – the robot will help Gerst perform tasks, conduct experiments, repair and improve components inside the space station. "CIMON a floating artificial intelligence, and when it will be activated, it's a bit of a historic moment," said Christian Karrasch, CIMON Project Manager at DLR, the German Aerospace Center. "We are very pleased that CIMON is the first artificial intelligence in space."
"For us, this is a part of the future of manned spaceflight.If you go to the Moon or Mars, you can not take all humans and engineers with you, but with artificial intelligence, you have, instantly, all the knowledge of humanity, "said Karrasch. partnership between DLR, Airbus Defense and Space, and IBM, CIMON is a spherical device on the size of a medicine ball. According to Airbus, the entire structure of CIMON, mainly metal and plastic, was printed in 3D
. Robots like CIMON could help space crews work more efficiently, improve safety, reduce stress and help the public better understand spaceflight. , according to project leaders.
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CIMON's "neural" AI network and its ability to learn, as well as human characteristics such as a face and a voice, make it more a companion than any other person. a simple experience Members of the Gerst team and other members of the station team said:
The AI-enabled assistant was paired with Gerst, an astronaut of German origin, using voice samples before his flight. This means that CIMON will communicate better with him, but the officials said that anyone could work with the robot.
"If Alexander Gerst has any questions about the experience he is working on, CIMON is fully aware of this experience, within the experience, and he can ask questions that are beyond the procedure, "said Philipp Schulien, an engineer on CIMON of Airbus.
CIMON learns with the help of IBM Watson AI technology
C & # 39; connectivity, all communications back through the cloud, "said Bret Greenstein, global vice president of Watson's offerings and IBM's Internet of Things." All the AI work is being processed on the cloud, the current language, all the training and customization we have done is happening in the cloud, which means we can improve it at any time. Kirk Shireman, NASA's Space Station Program Manager, said that astronaut crews traveling deeper into the solar system will have to be more autonomous because of the communication delays inherent in such trips.
can think of all the human knowledge, you might need to access some parts of that, "said Shireman." Have the AI, and have this knowledge base and the ability to & # 39; Taking advantage of it in a way that is useful for the task you are doing, is really critical for getting humans further and further away from the planet. "
According to David Brady, the program's assistant scientist of the International Space Station at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, the cargo mission will help to allow 27 scientific experiments on the space station.
Fresh food including crab, lobster and maple from Salmon, strong coffee bags of Death Wish Coffee, an iPad Air and combination gloves are also among the items stored in the Dragon spaceship.
The equipment launched at the space station inside the Dragon's trunk included a spare Canadian spare effector for the robotic arm of the research lab, plus a 1213-pound instrument ( 550 kilograms) developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. be mounted outside the Japanese Kibo laboratory module of the station to measure the temperature of plants from the space.
The robotic arm emergency effector will be stored outside the space station, ready to replace one of the arms. two final effectors with the help of astronauts in the space, if necessary.
The astronauts replaced both hands of the robotic arm in a series of exits in space at the end of last year and earlier this year. Both locking effectors showed signs of aging and wear after nearly 17 years on the space station, and replacements left the station without a spare hand for the arm, also known as Canadarm 2.
"said Ken Podwalski, program manager of the space station of the Canadian Space Agency. "We always want to be able to protect for failure."
The robotic arm is vital for the space station to receive cargo shipments from SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, Northrop Grumman's cargo ship Cygnus and Japanese supply ship HTV. It is also used to move astronauts around the space station on spacewalks and to transfer experiments and other equipment around the scientific outpost of nearly one million books [19659003] Canadarm 2 is Canada's main contribution to the space station. It uses locking effectors to deworm between multiple host adapters outside the space station module and on the backbone of the station, and the arm's hands are capable of carrying data, video and video. of electrical energy. We have achieved exceptional performances from our space robotics, just because (we are) 17 years in the game for a system that was designed for a 10-year operational life – and 15 years in orbit – with the very few problems that we have "I had it," said Podwalski
"I think our biggest problems have really focused on cameras.We have changed a number of cameras.We have new cameras in the process of realization, and these are really great because we can change them robotically, "he said." So this is a case where we use our own robots to repair our own robots. This is a bit of the ideal scenario. "
The space thermal space radiometer experiment on the space station ecosystem, or ECOSTRESS, will measure thermal energy from the Earth's surface. The temperature measurements will indicate to scientists the plant health, the amount of water used and the resistance of crops to extreme conditions such as heat waves and droughts.
"When a plant is so stressed that it becomes brown, It is often too late to recover, "said Simon Hook, ECOSTRESS senior researcher at JPL. "But measuring the temperature of the plant allows you to see that a plant is stressed before it reaches that point."
Developed with a cost cap of $ 30 million, the ECOSTRESS instrument is a tool for future missions and will collect data. "ECOSTRESS will allow us to monitor rapid changes in crop stress in the field, thus enabling earlier and more accurate estimates of the impact on yields," said Martha Anderson. , member of the ECOSTRESS Scientific Team at the United States Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Maryland. Even short-term water stress, if it occurs at a critical stage of crop growth, can have a significant impact on productivity.
The thermal sensitivity of ECOSTRESS will also make it useful for detecting and studying hot spots such as forest fires and volcanoes.
The Dragon spacecraft will leave the space station on Aug. 2 and return to the Pacific Ocean with nearly two tons of equipment, cargo and specimens researched for analysis by engineers and scientists on the ground.
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