SpaceX CRS-8, also known as SpX-8, was a Commercial Resupply Service mission to the

International Space Station The International Space Station (ISS) is the largest modular space station currently in low Earth orbit. It is a multinational collaborative project involving five participating space agencies: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA ( ...

(ISS) which was launched on April 8, 2016, at 20:43 UTC. It was the 23rd flight of a

Falcon 9 Falcon 9 is a partially reusable medium lift launch vehicle that can carry cargo and crew into Earth orbit, produced by American aerospace company SpaceX. The rocket has two stages. The first (booster) stage carries the second stage and pay ...

rocket, the tenth flight of a Dragon cargo spacecraft and the eighth operational mission contracted to SpaceX by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

under the

Commercial Resupply Services Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) are a series of flights awarded by NASA for the delivery of cargo and supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) on commercially operated spacecraft. The first CRS contracts were signed in 2008 and awarde ...

program. The capsule carried over of cargo to the ISS including the

Bigelow Expandable Activity Module The Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) is an experimental expandable space station module developed by Bigelow Aerospace, under contract to NASA, for testing as a temporary module on the International Space Station (ISS) from 2016 to ...

(BEAM), a prototype

inflatable space habitat Inflatable habitats or expandable habitats are pressurized tent-like structures capable of supporting life in outer space whose internal volume increases after launch. They have frequently been proposed for use in space applications to provide ...

delivered in the vehicle's trunk, which was attached to the station and, as of May 2022, is expected to remain so for five more full years of in-orbit viability tests. After boosting the payload on its orbital trajectory, the rocket's first stage re-entered the denser layers of the atmosphere and landed vertically on the ocean landing platform '' Of Course I Still Love You'' nine minutes after liftoff, achieving a long-sought-after milestone in

SpaceX reusable launch system development program SpaceX is privately funding the development of orbital launch systems that can be reused many times, in a manner similar to the reusability of aircraft. SpaceX has been developing the technologies over several years to facilitate full and ...

. The recovered Falcon 9 first stage (SN: B1021) from this mission became the first one to be flown again, launching the

SES-10 SES-10, is a geostationary orbit, geostationary communications satellite awarded in February 2014, owned and operated by SES S.A. and designed and manufactured by Airbus Defence and Space on the Eurostar E3000, Eurostar-3000 satellite bus. It i ...

satellite on March 30, 2017.

Launch schedule history

The launch was initially scheduled by NASA to occur no earlier than September 2, 2015. The launch date went under review pending the outcome of the analysis of the failure of the

launch vehicle in

SpaceX CRS-7 SpaceX CRS-7, also known as SpX-7, was a private American Commercial Resupply Service mission to the International Space Station, contracted to NASA, which launched and failed on June 28, 2015. It disintegrated 139 seconds into the flight aft ...

, a June 2015 flight. The return-to-flight (RTF) project included additional improvements. With additional manifest changes announced by SpaceX in mid-October, CRS-8 was scheduled to be the third launch of the upgraded

Falcon 9 Full Thrust Falcon 9 Full Thrust (also known as Falcon 9 v1.2, with variants Block 1 to Block 5) is a partially reusable medium-lift launch vehicle, designed and manufactured by SpaceX. Designed in 2014–2015, Falcon 9 Full Thrust began launch operations ...

rocket. By March 2016, the launch date was set to April 8, 2016, with a backup launch window the next day. The spacecraft was finally launched on schedule, at 20:43 UTC on April 8, 2016. The rocket first stage separated around 2 minutes 40 seconds after liftoff, and the second stage separated around ten minutes 30 seconds after liftoff.

Primary payload

NASA has contracted for the CRS-8 mission from SpaceX and therefore determines the

orbital parameters Orbital elements are the parameters required to uniquely identify a specific orbit. In celestial mechanics these elements are considered in two-body systems using a Kepler orbit. There are many different ways to mathematically describe the same ...

for the primary payload – the Dragon

space capsule A space capsule is an often-crewed spacecraft that uses a blunt-body reentry capsule to reenter the Earth's atmosphere without wings. Capsules are distinguished from other satellites primarily by the ability to survive reentry and return a payl ...

. The mission delivered of supplies, experiments, and hardware to the ISS. These include the station's first expandable module, called the

(BEAM), which is expected to remain on the station for at least five more full years of observation and testing. Also delivered in the Dragon were sixteen Flock 2d 3U CubeSats for the Earth-observing Flock constellation, built and operated by Planet Labs, which will be deployed by the

NanoRacks CubeSat Deployer The Nanoracks CubeSat Deployer (NRCSD) is a device to deploy CubeSats into orbit from the International Space Station (ISS). In 2014, two CubeSat deployers were on board the International Space Station (ISS): the Japanese Experiment Module ...

. After splashdown, the mission returned more than of cargo from the station back to Earth.

First stage landing

After placing the CRS-8 cargo on its way to the

, the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket conducted an

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a ...

boostback and re-entry maneuver over the Atlantic Ocean. Nine minutes after liftoff, at 20:52:10 UTC, the booster landed vertically on the

autonomous spaceport drone ship An autonomous spaceport drone ship (ASDS) is an ocean-going vessel derived from a deck barge, outfitted with station-keeping engines and a large landing platform and is autonomously controlled when on station for a landing. Construction of ...

''Of Course I Still Love You'', from the Florida coastline, achieving a long-sought-after milestone for the

. This was the second successful landing achieved by a SpaceX orbital launch vehicle and the first vertical landing by any organization on a floating platform. SpaceX first landed a

on solid ground at Cape Canaveral with flight 20 on December 22, 2015.

Port arrival

The drone ship carried the stage to

Port Canaveral Port Canaveral is a cruise, cargo, and naval port in Brevard County, Florida, United States. It is one of the busiest cruise ports in the world with 4.5 million cruise passengers passing through during 2016. Over 5.4 million tonnes of bulk car ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, arriving on April 12, 2016 (UTC), where it was offloaded. SpaceX plans to keep this first stage in Cape Canaveral and conduct a series of test fires to ensure that the vehicle is ready for a future operational mission. According to SpaceX CEO

Elon Musk Elon Reeve Musk ( ; born June 28, 1971) is a business magnate and investor. He is the founder, CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO and product architect of Tesla, Inc.; owner and CEO of Twitter, Inc.; founder of The ...

, the rocket will likely be test-fired at Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39. Musk noted that assuming the test fires went well, the stage would likely be reflown for a mission in June 2016.

First stage reflight

The first stage of the CRS-8 launch was selected to be reflown first, in early 2017. Additional tests were conducted prior to SpaceX certifying the stage's suitability for reuse on subsequent launch. On January 31, 2017, SpaceX posted a photo of a static fire test of this stage in Texas. It was launched again on March 30, 2017, as part of Falcon 9 Flight 32 carrying the

communications satellite. The stage was also recovered a second time after landing on the drone ship ''Of Course I Still Love You''. As part of a multi-month multi-vehicle test process to reuse Falcon 9 boosters, another first stage — from flight 24 which carried JCSAT-14 — was designated a "reference vehicle" for further testing, because it encountered "extreme temperatures during its reentry into Earth atmosphere" in May 2016 from a more energetic GTO trajectory. This booster underwent a series of tests, including a 150-second full-duration engine firing which was completed on July 28, 2016.

References

External links

CRS-8 Mission Overview
at NASA.gov
CRS-8 Press Kit
at SpaceX.com {{DEFAULTSORT:CRS 008 SpaceX Dragon Spacecraft launched in 2016 Spacecraft which reentered in 2016 SpaceX payloads contracted by NASA Supply vehicles for the International Space Station