• SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket passes test in advance of space station launch

    SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket completed a two-second ignition of its first stage while being held down onto its Florida launch pad on Monday, in preparation for Friday's launch to the International Space Station. This view of the test was taken by a remote video camera, which makes it difficult to see the flare of the rocket.

    By Alan Boyle, Science Editor, NBC News


    SpaceX said it completed a successful test of the engines on its Falcon 9 rocket on Monday, in preparation for Friday's planned cargo launch to the International Space Station.

    The California-based rocket company's unmanned Dragon capsule is due to deliver about 1,200 pounds (550 kilograms) of supplies to the space station and bring back 2,300 pounds (1,050 kilograms) of cargo, including scientific samples and space station hardware.

    Monday's static-fire test was aimed at checking the performance of the Falcon 9 first stage's nine engines before they're called upon to loft the second stage and the Dragon capsule toward orbit on Friday. The rocket was held down onto its launch pad at Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida for the engine firing, which came at the end of a dress rehearsal for Friday's countdown.

    "SpaceX engineers ran through all countdown processes as though it were launch day," the company said in a statement issued after the 1:30 p.m. ET firing. "All nine engines fired at full power for two seconds, while the Falcon 9 was held down to the pad. SpaceX will now conduct a thorough review of all data and continue preparations for Friday's targeted launch."

    In a Twitter update, SpaceX's billionaire founder, Elon Musk, reported that the static-fire test looked good: "Engines generated 433 tons of thrust, parameters nominal."

    SpaceX said the first opportunity for launch will come at 10:10 a.m. ET on Friday. This is the third Dragon to be sent to the space station, and the second flight under the terms of a $1.6 billion, 12-flight cargo resupply contract with NASA.

    Another company, Virginia-based Orbital Sciences Corp., has a separate $1.9 billion contract to deliver supplies to the space station but has not yet begun flying its Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo capsule. On Friday, Orbital completed a successful static-fire test of Antares' engines in preparation for the rocket's first flight, which is expected to take place later this year.

    NASA's contracts with SpaceX and Orbital are meant to help fill the gap left by the retirement of the space shuttle fleet in 2011. Russian, European and Japanese unmanned spacecraft are also used to send supplies to the space station, but Russia's Soyuz capsule is the only spacecraft currently cleared to transport astronauts to and from orbit. NASA is providing more than $1 billion to SpaceX, the Boeing Co. and Sierra Nevada Corp. to support the development of new crew-capable spacecraft for low Earth orbit.

    More about SpaceX's mission:

    Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.

  • These Dragon and Cygnus space capsules fit on your desk

    Papa Foxtrot

    Toymaker Papa Foxtrot's complete space series includes Dragon, Spektr-R, ORS-1, GEOTAIL and Cygnus satellite models. The series is being shown at the 110th American International Toy Fair in New York City.

    By Robert Z. Pearlman
    Space.com

    A small toy company with a penchant for design has reinterpreted the new commercial resupply spacecraft flying for NASA as desktop ornaments.

    London-based Papa Foxtrot has crafted wooden models of the Dragon capsule built by Space Exploration Technologies' (or SpaceX), and Orbital Science Corp.'s Cygnus cargo capsules. The simplified 4-inch (11-centimeter) scale models, along with other miniature satellites in the series, are on display this week at the 110th American International Toy Fair in New York City.

    SpaceX and Orbital Sciences were each awarded multimillion-dollars contracts under NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program to deliver supplies and equipment to — and in the case of the gumdrop-shaped Dragon, from — the International Space Station. SpaceX has already flown to the orbiting complex twice and has another mission targeted to launch on March 1. Orbital is planning to fly its first Cygnus module later this year.

    The Papa Foxtrot models are the first third-party products to capture the spacecraft in toy form. (SpaceX previously released its own flying model rocket of its Falcon launch vehicle that was topped with a miniature Dragon capsule).

    "Our toys are for anyone who has ever swooned over a satellite," Papa Foxtrot wrote on its website. [Buzz Lightyear in Space: A Toy Story in Photos ]

    The wood and aluminum Dragon and Cygnus toys are part of the company's line of space models that replicate real life satellites. The series' other sets are based on Earth-orbiting spacecraft, each dedicated to different purposes.

    The Spektr-R model is based on Russia's radio telescope launched in July 2011. The orbiting observatory, with its 33-foot (10-meter), 27 petal dish, is used in conjunction with ground-based radio telescopes to offer an effective resolution that is more than 1,000 times that of the Hubble Space Telescope.

    GEOTAIL, with its protruding booms, launched in 1992 as part of a collaboration between the U.S. and Japan. The satellite was sent up to observe the turbulent wake that Earth's magnetosphere pulls behind it and how the solar wind penetrates through.

    The last spacecraft in Papa Foxtrot's model fleet is the ORS-1, a U.S. reconnaissance satellite launched in 2011 from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, the same spaceport from which Cygnus will launch to the station. ORS-1, also known as USA-231, was designed to provide orbital imagery to enhance battlespace awareness.

    The toy version of ORS-1 has already been adopted by the squad responsible for the real satellite's operation, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Papa Foxtrot models are used as training aides and presented as parting gifts for officers.

    Follow collectSpace on Facebook and Twitter @collectSpace and editor Robert Pearlman @robertpearlman. Copyright 2012 collectSpace.com. All rights reserved.

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