The Dragon Spacecraft Qualification Unit was a boilerplate version of the Dragon spacecraft. After using it for ground tests to rate Dragon's shape and mass in various tests, SpaceX launched it into low Earth orbit on the maiden flight of the Falcon 9 rocket. SpaceX used the launch to evaluate the aerodynamic conditions on the spacecraft and performance of the carrier rocket in a real-world launch scenario, ahead of Dragon flights for NASA under the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services program.
The Falcon 9 v1.0 first stage was used on the first five Falcon 9 launches, and powered by nine SpaceX Merlin 1C rocket engines arranged in a 3x3 pattern.
See DetailsNo parachutes were observed during descent. Apparently the Falcon 9 first stage hit the water rather hard.Observation airfcraft confirmed the debris field.
Result: B0003 did not land successfully.Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX, is an American aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company headquartered in Hawthorne, California. It was founded in 2002 by entrepreneur Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs and enabling the colonization of Mars. SpaceX operates from many pads, on the East Coast of the US they operate from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and historic LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center. They also operate from SLC-4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, usually for polar launches. Another launch site is being developed at Boca Chica, Texas.
INFO WIKIA batch of 20 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
3 weather satellites performing atmospheric measurements using GNSS Radio Occultation for a Tianjin based company. Constellation is planned to have a…
Maiden Flight of the Ariane 62 launch vehicle, carrying ten cubesats, two deployers, five experiments, and two reentry capsules.
Türksat 6A is Turkey's first domestically manufactured geostationary communications satellite. It is to reside in 42° East orbital slot, providing se…
A pair of satellites officially described as for cartographic surveying purposes, details TBD.
Fifth flight of the Firefly Alpha small sat launcher, carrying eight cubesats for NASA's ELaNa 43 (Educational Launch of a Nanosatellite) mission.
A batch of 20 satellites for the Starlink mega-constellation - SpaceX's project for space-based Internet communication system.
The Advanced Land Observing Satellite-4 (ALOS-4) is a Japanese satellite designed to observe the Earth's surface using a phased array type L-band syn…
Chinese communication geostationary satellite for unknown purposes.
Second batch of satellites for a reconnaissance satellite constellation built by SpaceX and Northrop Grumman for the National Reconnaissance Office t…