SpaceX Makes History by Reaching the ISS

Aeronautic history is not always about streaking rockets and speeding airplanes. Sometimes it's done in?near silence at a plodding pace. But this morning the tension slowly grew as the Dragon space capsule, exterior floodlights glowing, inched towards humanity's only functional space station.

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) just became the first private company to design, build, launch, and operate a spacecraft to approach the International space station. Before today, only governments did such things?and for a lot more money.? SpaceX had plenty of support from their experienced customer, but where it counts this mission was privatized, and game-changing.

Following its Tuesday morning launch into space aboard the Falcon 9 rocket, Dragon's pace was slow?and that makes sense. ISS is a wonder of the world, a feat of engineering that is irreplaceable for a slew of political and scientific reasons. Approaching the station with a bullet-shaped capsule means constantly checking to make sure the spacecraft is under complete control.

The plan had some wrinkles, and the capsule has some bugs. The biggest one seems to be the laser radar (LIDAR) sensors. These are used to help guide the capsule into its target. During Dragon's approach to the ISS, sunlight glinting off a Japanese laboratory was throwing off the LIDAR readings. SpaceX 's team uploaded commands that limited the LIDAR view so that these reflections were unseen. That worked just fine ... until, just before the station's crew operated the robotic arm to snatch the capsule, the flight director mentioned that one of the capsules two laser radars was not working. ?If the other fails it will mean an automatic abort,? she said.

The worry proved unfounded. Slowly, patiently, and silently, the robotic arm (build with pride by Canada) reached out the final 10 feet to grasp the SpaceX capsule. It took minutes for the end to slip into the appropriate port, securing the free-drifting capsule. ?Looks like we got a Dragon by its tail,? quipped Don Pettit, who was operating the arm.

The capture was confirmed; the job was done. The follow-up was routine space work?examining the capsule with binoculars for any foreign debris in the O ring that seals the capsule to the station, testing the air inside the capsule to make sure it was free of contaminants, and so on. But the centerpiece, the history part, is done.

Dragon will spend about two weeks at the ISS before detaching. The deorbit burn will last seven minutes and then the heat-seared capsule will splash down for recovery in the Pacific. It will be in a museum someday.

The future of private space is not certain. This mission is just a first step in what could be a new way to explore space. But companies like SpaceX are still facing pushback from Congress, who is leery over allowing private space companies to launch astronauts and wants to limit NASA's commercial space program to just one vendor. In satellite launches, private companies are competing against government-backed launch companies from across the globe. And, with any hardware, the reliability needs to be proven over time.

But it's hard not to admire how far private space company like SpaceX has come. The sun rises and sets every 45 minutes in space; emotional comments of new dawns come easy. Today, with the two spacecraft mated and circling overhead, the analogy seems appropriate.?

aaron carter black history month did groundhog see his shadow soul train don cornelius rod parsley barry sanders jr nick carter sister