SpaceX COTS Demo Flight 1 was the first

orbital spaceflight An orbital spaceflight (or orbital flight) is a spaceflight in which a spacecraft is placed on a trajectory where it could remain in space for at least one orbit. To do this around the Earth, it must be on a free trajectory which has an altit ...

of the Dragon cargo spacecraft, and the second overall flight of the

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 manufactured by SpaceX. It was also the first demonstration flight for

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 ...

Commercial Orbital Transportation Services Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) was a NASA program to coordinate the development of vehicles for the delivery of crew and cargo to the International Space Station by private companies. The program was announced on January 18, 200 ...

(COTS) program. The primary mission objectives were to test the orbital maneuvering and

reentry Atmospheric entry is the movement of an object from outer space into and through the gases of an atmosphere of a planet, dwarf planet, or natural satellite. There are two main types of atmospheric entry: ''uncontrolled entry'', such as the ...

of the Dragon capsule. The mission also aimed to test fixes to the Falcon 9 rocket, particularly the unplanned roll of the first stage that occurred during flight 1. Liftoff occurred on 8 December 2010 at 15:43 UTC. The success of the mission allowed SpaceX to advance its vehicle testing plan. With two back-to-back "near-perfect" Falcon 9 launches and satisfactory tests of the first Dragon capsule, SpaceX "asked NASA to combine objectives laid out for the remaining two COTS missions... and permit a berthing at the ISS during its next flight". This combined test mission was completed in May 2012, and achieved its objectives, opening the path to regular cargo deliveries by Dragon 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) 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 ...

(CRS) contract. Commercial flights started in October 2012 with CRS-1.

COTS contract

On 18 August 2006, NASA announced that SpaceX had won a

(COTS) contract to demonstrate cargo delivery to the

with a possible option for crew transport. This contract, designed by NASA to provide "seed money" for development of new boosters, paid SpaceX $278 million to develop the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, with incentive payments paid at milestones culminating in three demonstration launches. COTS Demo Flight 1 was the first of the launches under this contract. The original agreement with NASA called for the COTS Demo Flight 1 to occur in the second quarter of 2008; this flight was delayed several times, actually occurring in December 2010. Separately from the NASA COTS contract, SpaceX was also awarded a NASA contract for commercial resupply services (CRS) to the ISS. The firm contracted value is $1.6 billion, and NASA could elect to order additional missions for a total contract value of up to $3.1 billion.

Preparations

The two stages and Dragon capsule for the second Falcon 9 were built at SpaceX's manufacturing facility at

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, and were delivered to SpaceX's facilities at Cape Canaveral in July and August 2010. The target launch date was rescheduled from its original 2008 date to the end of 2010, with COTS Demo 2 and 3 being rescheduled to 2011. A full

wet dress rehearsal Launch vehicle system tests assess the readiness of a launch system to safely reach orbit. Launch vehicles undergo system tests before they launch. A wet dress rehearsal (WDR) and a more extensive static fire tests a fully assembled launch vehicl ...

was conducted on 15 September 2010, and the launch was targeted for no earlier than 7 December 2010. On 22 November 2010, SpaceX announced that it had received a license for spacecraft re-entry from the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic ...

's Office of Commercial Space Transportation for the flight. It is the first such license issued to a private enterprise. A successful static test fire was performed by SpaceX on 4 December 2010. This was the third attempt to do so, as the first two attempts were automatically aborted. The first attempt was on 3 December 2010, but the test was automatically aborted one second before ignition due to a high-pressure reading. The flight was to proceed on 7 December 2010. However, several cracks were noted on the outer portions of the niobium extension of the second stage Merlin vacuum nozzle. The decision was made to trim the un-needed six inches off the nozzle, since the resulting performance loss was not critical.

Launch events

The launch was ultimately scheduled for 8 December 2010, with launch windows available from 14:00 to 14:06, 15:38 to 15:43, and 17:16 to 17:24 UTC based on the availability of the NASA tracking and data relay satellite (TDRS) network used to track and communicate with the spacecraft. The first attempt was originally scheduled for the middle of the first launch window, at 14:03 UTC, but was moved to the end of the window at 14:06 UTC. This attempt was aborted at T-02:48 on the countdown clock because of false telemetry data. The launch was re-targeted for 15:43 UTC, and was successful. First stage engines cut off at T+02:56, nose cone separated at T+03:47, second stage engines cut off at T+08:56, all as planned. The Dragon vehicle separated at T+09:30 and achieved a near circular orbit, with a perigee of , an apogee of and an inclination of 34.53°. These were close to targeted marks of a circular orbit at an inclination of 34.5°.

Additional payloads

The Falcon 9 carried a small number of nanosatellites to orbit as well. Included were a total of eight cubesats including the first

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nanosatellite, Space and Missile Defense Command — Operational Nanosatellite Effect, or SMDC-ONE, for a 30-day mission, and two 3U buses, the

CubeSat A CubeSat is a class of miniaturized satellite based around a form factor consisting of cubes. CubeSats have a mass of no more than per unit, and often use commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components for their electronics and structure. CubeSats ...

Experiment (QbX), provided by the

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, also expected to remain in orbit for only 30 days. One of the weight ballasts inside the Dragon spacecraft was a metal barrel containing a wheel of French Le Brouère cheese. This cheese is produced in

Bulgnéville Bulgnéville () is a commune in the Vosges department in Grand Est in northeastern France. History The Battle of Bulgnéville took place there on 2 July 1431. A major employer is the cheese factory of the Hermitage, which makes Le Brouère. ...

, Vosges. It was packed as a joke, and references the

Cheese Shop sketch The Cheese Shop is a well-known sketch from ''Monty Python's Flying Circus''. It originally appeared in episode 33, "List of Monty Python's Flying Circus episodes#Series_3_(1972–73), Salad Days" on 30 November, 1972. The script for the sketch i ...

from '' Monty Python's Flying Circus''. The barrel's lid was pasted with an image from the poster for the 1984 spoof film '' Top Secret!''. SpaceX's CEO did not reveal the identity of the cargo during the post-splashdown news conference, for fear of the joke overshadowing the company's accomplishments.

Orbit and landing

Dragon

While in orbit, a battery of automated tests were performed including thermal control and attitude control to maintain uninterrupted TDRS data links. At 16:15 UTC, SpaceX announced that it had achieved contact with the Dragon module through the TDRS system. After the two planned orbits, the spacecraft was manually commanded to begin a deorbit burn, resulting in it splashing down in the Pacific Ocean at 19:02 UTC approximately west of

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after all three parachutes successfully deployed. SpaceX reported that all test objectives were completed, and the recovery craft arrived to retrieve the spacecraft within 20 minutes of splashdown. The craft landed within of the targeted location, well within the recovery zone. From launch to splashdown, the demonstration flight lasted for 3 hours, 19 minutes, 52 seconds.

Second stage

The second stage engine was reignited in orbit after separation from the Dragon capsule. This allowed SpaceX to work on a secondary mission objective of expanding the launch capability envelope by testing in-space engine reignition and ability of the vehicle to achieve a beyond-LEO (Low Earth Orbit). Even though the nozzle of the Merlin Vacuum second-stage engine had been substantially trimmed—due to two cracks discovered only a few days before the scheduled launch—the second stage reached an altitude of .

References

External links

DRAGON C1 – Orbit (Pre-Decay)

Falcon 9 Rocket Body (Second Stage) – Orbit
{{DEFAULTSORT:COTS Demo Flight 1 SpaceX Dragon SpaceX payloads contracted by NASA Spacecraft launched in 2010 Spacecraft which reentered in 2010 Articles containing video clips Test spaceflights