SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft began its next mission to the International Space Station Friday, with launch aboard a flight-proven Falcon 9 rocket – the final Block 4 vehicle – from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The mission, which will also use a previously-flown Dragon capsule, lifted off at 05:42 Eastern Daylight Time (09:42 UTC).



The second Dragon flight of 2018, the CRS-15 mission launched Friday is carrying 2,700 kilograms (5,900) of supplies, provisions and equipment to the space station. Dragon is one of two US cargo vehicles – along with Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus – that perform deliveries to the outpost under NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contracts.

Both Dragon and Cygnus were developed under NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program, aimed at maintaining the agency’s ability to get cargo to the International Space Station following the retirement of the Space Shuttle. The CRS contracts, which cover operational flights, were first awarded in 2008.

Dragon consists of a pressurized capsule and an unpressurized trunk section, with the trunk providing critical services such as power generation via its solar arrays, as well as space for externally-mounted cargo. Dragon’s capsule is designed to be recovered at the end of a mission and can be refurbished for subsequent missions, while the trunk burns up on reentry.

Other than Russia’s manned Soyuz spacecraft, Dragon is the only spacecraft currently capable of returning cargo to Earth from the space station.

SpaceX was originally awarded twelve resupply missions for Dragon, with this being extended to 15 and later 20 in 2015. SpaceX has also been awarded a contract under the second phase of Commercial Resupply Services, CRS2, for six cargo missions with its next-generation Dragon 2 spacecraft.

Orbital ATK – now Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems – and Sierra Nevada Corporation were also awarded cargo missions for their Cygnus and Dream Chaser spacecraft respectively.

Friday’s launch began Dragon’s seventeenth flight, which will use spacecraft C111. This capsule already has one round trip to the ISS under its belt – having performed the CRS-9 mission in 2016.

Lifting off from Cape Canaveral in mid-July, CRS-9 saw Dragon spend thirty-six days berthed at the space station’s Harmony module before returning to Earth in late August. CRS-9 ended with the capsule splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the west coast of Mexico.

It is the fourth time a previously-flown Dragon spacecraft has been used for a CRS mission. SpaceX intends to use refurbished spacecraft for its remaining Phase 1 CRS contracts, which has allowed the company to cease production in favor of the Dragon 2 vehicle that will support future manned and unmanned missions to the station.

The cargo aboard CRS-15 includes 205 kilograms (452 lb) of provisions for the crew, 178 kilograms (392 lb) of hardware for the US orbital segment of the outpost, 12 kilograms (26 lb) of hardware for the Russian part of the station, 21 kilograms (46 lb) of computer equipment and 63 kilograms (139 lb) of hardware to support future spacewalks.

There are 1,233 kilograms (2,718 lb) of scientific experiments and equipment aboard Dragon. One experiment is Chemical Gardens. These are inorganic silicon-based structures that form from the interaction of metal salts and silicate anions. The complex structures that grow can resemble plants, and the goal of growing chemical gardens aboard the space station is to see how they develop in microgravity conditions, without the effect of Earth’s gravity.

The BCAT-CS experiment will study cohesive and adhesive forces in sediments that are being transported aboard Dragon. These forces can cause particles to cluster together, but as they are much weaker than gravity they are hard to measure in laboratories on Earth. BCAT-CS will study quartz and clay sediments in microgravity, providing experimental results that can be used to validate existing scientific models of the forces.

Rodent Research 7 will study the effects of microgravity on microorganisms that live in the gastrointestinal tract, allowing for a better understanding of how to ensure the health of astronauts engaged in long-duration missions and to aid research into related conditions on Earth.

Angiex Cancer Therapy will test a new drug that has proven effective against cancer in microgravity conditions, where certain cultures of cells have been shown to exhibit similar properties to those in living organisms. The experiment will validate whether microgravity conditions can be used to model the performance of the drug within an organism, helping to develop new techniques for testing future drugs.

The European Space Agency’s Crew Interactive Mobile Companion (CIMON) will employ artificial intelligence (AI) to support astronauts aboard the station. Enclosed within a 3D-printed shell, CIMON will be able to maneuver autonomously, using onboard fans to control its flight in microgravity. The unit will be able to hover at eye level with the astronauts, with a screen displaying its face.

CIMON incorporates ultrasonic sensors for collision detection and an array of cameras and microphones that will help it in interactions with the crew and movements around the station.

CIMON’s AI is based around IBM’s Watson system, which can run locally aboard the unit or be downlinked for cloud processing when the space station is in range of NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS). The mobile companion is designed to interact with the crew, assisting with experiments and operations through a voice interface that allows the astronauts to keep their hands free for other tasks.

This will allow them to ask for instructions and run through checklists. CIMON can also be used as a floating camera platform, to provide early warning of problems aboard the station and to monitor the psychological condition of its human crewmates.

CIMON’s interactions with the crew are intended to be natural, with the AI able to display emotions and appear to nod when processing its response to a question. Astronaut Alexander Gerst, currently aboard the ISS, contributed to the design of CIMON helping to pick out a face and voice to aid bonding with the crew.

Gerst will perform three experiments to test out CIMON during his time aboard the space station, including growing crystals, solving a Rubik’s Cube and a medical experiment. The ESA project – which is led by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) – is seen as a precursor to the inclusion of AI assistants on future long-duration deep space missions.

NASA’s Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment (ECOSTRESS) is an ecological research payload that will be mounted outside the space station to monitor the temperature of plant life on Earth’s surface. The experiment will help to study how the planet’s ecosystems respond to the amount of water available and the resultant impact on the carbon cycle. ECOSTRESS will also be used to evaluate how monitoring water consumption and forecasting drought conditions can help protect agriculture.

ECOSTRESS uses the Prototype HyspIRI Thermal Infrared Radiometer (PHyTIR), a prototype instrument developed as a technology risk reduction exercise for a future mission named HyspIRI. PHyTIR contains a shortwave infrared pushbroom spectrometer and a whiskbroom thermal infrared multispectral imager. Operating in six spectral bands, PHyTIR will provide a resolution of up to 38 meters (125 feet). The 490-kilogram (1,080 lb) instrument draws 516 watts of power from the space station and will be mounted on the exposed facility of the Japanese Kibo module.

Dragon’s Trunk is also transporting a replacement Latching End Effector (LEE) for the space station’s CanadArm2 robotic arm. The robotic arm has two end effectors, one at each end of the arm, which allow it to move between different base points around the outside of the space station and to grapple other hardware – including Dragon, Cygnus and Kounotori spacecraft.

After performance issues related to their age, both LEEs were replaced during spacewalks late last year and early this. The new end effector, which was built as a ground spare, will be stored outside the station ready to be installed if needed.

The Latching End Effector that was removed during last October’s spacewalk has been brought aboard the space station. This will be packaged up and returned to Earth within Dragon’s pressurized capsule, allowing it to be refurbished and become the new ground spare.

Six CubeSats are aboard Friday’s launch. Carried aboard Dragon as pressurized cargo, these will be released from the space station at a future date. These miniaturized satellites include Biarri-Squad, a constellation of three CubeSats that will be used by the multinational Biarri project to study potential military applications for constellations of small spacecraft. A partnership between the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada, Biarri-Squad uses three-unit CubeSat buses built by Boeing under the US National Reconnaissance Office’s Colony-2 program.

Building on the flight of Biarri-Point, a risk-reduction satellite that was deployed from the ISS last May, Biarri-Squad will use L1 GPS receivers and laser ranging to make precise measurements of the satellites’ relative positions. Australia’s Electro-Optic Systems (EOS) will perform the laser ranging experiments – relying upon retroreflectors aboard each CubeSat.

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The other three CubeSats aboard Dragon for Friday’s launch form part of the Japanese-led multinational Birds-2 project, consisting of small satellites with Earth imaging, radio and technology demonstration payloads. The original Birds constellation, consisting of five satellites, was previously deployed from the International Space Station early last July after launching aboard Dragon’s CRS-11 mission the previous month.

Each Bird satellite is a single-unit CubeSat. Built by Japan’s Kyushu Institute of Technology (KIT), in partnership with other universities and organizations around the world, the satellites will return images of the Earth, be used by amateur radio enthusiasts and test new microcontroller systems in orbit. Birds-2 consists of spacecraft built in partnership with universities in Bhutan, the Philippines and Malaysia.

The Bhutan-1 CubeSat, also known as Bird BTN, will be the Kingdom of Bhutan’s first satellite. Maya-1, or Bird PHL, was constructed for the University of the Philippines Diliman and will be the first Filipino CubeSat in orbit – although the country has previously operated larger satellites. Malaysia’s contribution is the Universiti Teknologi MARA Sat 1 (UiTMSAT-1) – or Bird MYS – which was built in conjunction with the Shah Alam-based MARA University of Technology.

SpaceX launched Dragon on its way to the space station via a Falcon 9 rocket. First flown in June 2010, Falcon 9 is the only rocket currently flying that is – in part – reusable. Falcon 9’s first stage is designed to be able to make a powered landing after boosting the rocket’s second stage and payload on their way towards orbit, allowing the stage to be refurbished and reflown on subsequent missions.

The Falcon 9 design has undergone several revisions since the type’s introduction, including the v1.1 and v1.2 configurations that debuted in 2013 and 2015 and incremental block upgrades within each of these configurations. Following the first flight of the Block 5 Falcon 9 v1.2 last month, intended to be the definitive version of the rocket, SpaceX is phasing out their remaining hardware from previous generations.

While SpaceX expects the Block 5 first stages to be capable of many flights, earlier versions have been used for a maximum of two launches. The first stage for Friday’s launch is Core 1045.2, a Block 4 first stage that will be making its second and final flight. Core 1045 was previously used in the launch of NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) on 18 April – making its second flight, just seventy-two days later, the fastest turnaround to date for a recovered first stage.

Because the first stage cannot be used for any further launches, SpaceX did not attempt to recover it following Friday’s launch. Although SpaceX does have one remaining Block 4 first stage – Core 1042 which was used last October to deploy Koreasat 5A – this is not expected to fly again making the CRS-15 launch the last to use a Block 4 vehicle, or any version of Falcon 9 other than the Block 5.

Falcon lifted off from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. This launch pad – which previously supported Titan III and Titan IV rockets – was leased by SpaceX in 2007 and was used for all East Coast Falcon 9 missions until it was damaged in a pre-launch accident in September 2016.

While SLC-40 was repaired, SpaceX performed launches from Launch Complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center – which had already been undergoing conversion for Falcon 9 at the time of the accident – with SLC-40 returning to service last December.

Falcon is assembled horizontally in a hangar close to the launch pad. Once the first and second stages have been integrated the rocket is rolled out for a static fire – giving the first stage engines a short test run to shake down any potential issues with the vehicle.

The static fire for Friday’s mission was performed last Saturday, after which Falcon returned to the hangar to allow the Dragon spacecraft to be fitted to the top of the stack. Falcon was rolled back out to the launch pad – this time with Dragon – on Thursday and following the addition of late-load payloads to the Dragon capsule, the rocket was raised to the vertical position.

Fuelling of the Falcon 9 takes place in the last seventy minutes of the countdown. Loading of RP-1 propellant – a refined petroleum commonly used in rockets – begins at the T-70-minute mark in the countdown while oxidizer – supercooled liquid oxygen – is pumped into the rocket’s tanks from the thirty-five-minute mark onwards.

Friday’s launch sequence began with ignition of the Falcon’s nine Merlin-1D first-stage engines about three seconds ahead of the planned liftoff. The three-second holddown gives the engines enough time to build up to full thrust while the rocket’s onboard computers can verify their performance is nominal and abort the launch if the engines are not healthy.

Once Falcon 9 lifted off, the rocket climbed away from SLC-40 before maneuvering to the required trajectory to put Dragon on course for the International Space Station. Heading to the northeast over the Atlantic Ocean, Falcon passed through the area of maximum dynamic pressure – Max-Q – seventy-nine seconds into flight.

The first stage, Core 1045.2, powered Falcon’s ascent for the first two minutes and 45 seconds of the mission. Since the core was not going to be recovered, it did not need to save propellant for the entry and landing burns so can burn for longer than on missions with a landing attempt. This reduces the amount of work the second stage has to do to reach orbit.

The first stage shutdown event is designated main engine cutoff (MECO). Three seconds later, the spent first stage was jettisoned and allowed to fall back to Earth. Falcon’s second stage ignited its single Merlin Vacuum (MVac) engine eight seconds after stage separation.

For Friday’s mission the second stage only needed to make one burn to place Dragon into its planned deployment orbit, with this burn lasting five minutes and 35 seconds. Dragon separated from Falcon 9 one minute after the end of the second stage burn, at nine minutes and 31 seconds mission elapsed time.

After separation, Dragon will make a series of burns to set up its rendezvous with the International Space Station. Arrival is expected at around 11:00 UTC on 2 July – when the spacecraft will be grappled by the CanadArm2 robotic arm and berthed at the nadir – Earth-facing – port of the Harmony module. Dragon will remain at the space station for one month before it is unberthed and released to begin the journey back to Earth.

Friday’s launch was the fifty-seventh flight of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and its eleventh mission of 2018. The next Falcon 9 launch is currently slated to be from Vandenberg Air Force Base on 20 July, with a payload of ten Iridium-NEXT communications satellites. Another launch from Cape Canaveral with the Telstar 19V satellite is currently scheduled for the next day. Dragon’s next CRS mission, CRS-16, is targeting a launch in mid-November.</s>IMB and Airbus are sending an AI robot named CIMON to the International Space Station, to help out the astronauts with their science experiments and keep them company on their long missions away from home.

From now on, the astronauts on board the International Space Station (ISS) will have a new addition to the merry group living and working some 250 miles (400 kilometers) away from our planet.

That’s because IBM is sending an AI robot to assist the ISS crew in their scientific endeavors and also to keep them company, reports FOX News.

Named CIMON (Crew Interactive Mobile Companion), the AI robot is traveling to its new home in space later today and will be shipped off to the ISS on SpaceX’s 15th resupply mission (CRS-15) launching on June 29 from Cape Canaveral.

According to Spaceflight Now, SpaceX is slated to send nearly 6,000 pounds (about 2,700 kilograms) of supplies and science gear to the ISS later today, making another commercial delivery with the same Dragon cargo capsule that made a trip to the space station in July 2016.

The spacecraft will be blasting off from Complex 40 launch pad at 5:42 a.m. EDT (09:42 GMT), atop the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that launched NASA’s TESS planet-hunting satellite a mere two months ago.

As NASA points out, the CIMON project, developed by IBM and Airbus for the European Space Agency (ESA) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR), “explores the use of AI as a way to mitigate crew stress and workload during long-term spaceflight.”

The Verge describes CIMON as something that resembles “a volleyball with a computer screen on one side,” while FOX News has likened it to HAL-9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey movie.

But IBM’s Matthias Biniok points out that the 11-pound (five kilograms) AI robot is actually inspired by a character from the Captain Future comic book dating back to the 1940s and early 1950s.

“CIMON is similar to Professor Simon [a character that trained Captain Future] and that became the base for CIMON, a TV show from years ago,” said Biniok, who led the development of CIMON’s artificial intelligence technology at IBM Watson.

So, what does CIMON do? Well, Airbus explains it best.

In a recent news release, the German space company states that this is the first European project of its kind, revealing that CIMON is “a kind of flying brain” tasked with assisting the ISS crew and with helping to “increase efficiency” by making their job easier.

But there’s more to CIMON than just doing science work on board Earth’s orbiting lab. The floating AI robot, which is built to move around the space station with a unique air propulsion system that uses 14 fans to suck and expel the air inside the ISS, is also there to offer moral support.

The ball-shaped robot has microphones and cameras that allow it to interact with the astronauts, who can talk to CIMON about whatever’s on their mind. The robot also has a digital “mouth” and is designed to “imitate a human,” being able to express emotions and even offer compassion (as seen in the demonstration video below), says Biniok.

Once aboard the ISS, the AI robot will be first tested by German astronaut Alexander Gerst, who has already trained with CIMON before heading to the space station in early June. But while the floating bot is programed to recognize Gerst’s face and voice, it can also interact with everyone who calls out its name and can follow the astronauts around engaging in small talk.

Another feature of the AI robot is that it can act as a flying webcam, which keeps all the recorded data secure and private, as well as an “early warning system” that points out possible technical problems, reveals Biniok.

“In short, CIMON will be the first AI-based mission and flight assistance system,” said Airbus’ Manfred Jaumann, who leads the company’s Microgravity Payloads department.</s>A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The rocket is carrying cargo to the International Space Station.

Nearly 6,000 pounds of supplies and experiments, including the first test of artificial intelligence in space, are on their way to the International Space Station after a stunning pre-dawn Friday launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon cargo capsule blasted off at 5:42 a.m. from Launch Complex 40.

The 210-foot rocket climbed from darkness into the day’s first rays of sun, which enveloped the rocket in a soft glow and illuminated its curling plume of exhaust in multi-colored hues reflecting the horizon.

Less than 10 minutes after liftoff, the Dragon capsule separated from the rocket’s upper stage to begin a three-day chase of the ISS.

The cargo ship is expected to arrive at the orbiting research complex Monday morning. NASA astronauts Ricky Arnold and Drew Feustal will capture it with a robotic arm to begin a month-long stay.

The Dragon’s occupants included a free-floating robot resembling a soccer ball sliced in half named CIMON (pronounced "Simon,") short for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion.

The European technology demonstration will test the computer’s ability to use artificial intelligence to help astronauts work more efficiently in space. It's trained to recognize the face and voice of German astronaut Alexander Gerst, but can interact with others of the station's six-person crew.

"If you go out to the Moon or to Mars, so you cannot take all mankind and engineers with you, so the astronauts, they will be on their own," said Christian Karrasch, project lead at the German Aerospace Center. "But with an artificial intelligence, you have instantly all the knowledge of mankind."

NASA says AI will be crucial for deep space exploration, when communications back and forth from Mars to Earth could take 40 minutes — too long during, say, a medical emergency. A computer could much more quickly tap into and relay helpful information.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Friday morning. The rocket is carrying cargo to the International Space Station.

"As we go forward it’s not even an option, I think," said Kirk Shireman, NASA's ISS program manager. "We have to have autonomy, we’ll have to have tools like this to have the species successfully live far away from Earth."

The launch was SpaceX’s 12th of 2018 — a blistering pace for the first six months of the year.

It was the ninth of those missions to re-fly a rocket that had launched before.

In this case, the rocket’s first-stage booster had flown for the first time just over two months earlier to launch a NASA science mission that will search for planets orbiting other stars.

That’s the quickest turnaround yet between launches by a Falcon rocket, a sign that SpaceX says shows it is getting better at making reusable rockets more routine.

“Our teams have just gotten extremely efficient at the refurbishment process,” said Jessica Jensen, SpaceX director of Dragon mission management. “They know what to look for, they know what signs they’re looking for, they know what’s going to have to be replaced.”

Long-term, SpaceX hopes that knowledge leads to a drastic drop in launch costs that will help enable human flights to Mars.

Friday's booster was the last of a version referred to as “Block 4.” Because those boosters were limited to two missions, SpaceX did not attempt to land the stage for a second time.

Future missions will feature “Block 5” boosters upgraded to improve performance and reusability. SpaceX says they'll be able to fly at least 10 times with minimal maintenance between launches.

The Dragon capsule also had flown to space before, having visited the ISS in 2016. It was the third time a used rocket and Dragon had flown together, which SpaceX says represents a small step forward in it's goal to make spaceflight more like air travel.

"We want to make it safe, affordable, and utilizing vehicles that can be re-flown repeatedly," said Jensen. "This is the key to the future of a civilization where we have thousands to millions of people exploring the stars and living out on other planets."

The mission called CRS-15 was SpaceX's 15th of 20 planned under a NASA Commercial Resupply Services contract awarded nearly a decade ago.

SpaceX is targeting its 13th launch of the year next month, lifting a commercial communications satellite from the Space Coast.

In early August, United Launch Alliance plans to return to the Eastern Range to launch a NASA solar probe on its most powerful rocket, the Delta IV Heavy.</s>A commercial SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule packed with a robot assistant for the International Space Station’s crew, pouches of extra strong coffee, and a NASA science instrument designed to track the health of plants on Earth left Cape Canaveral aboard a Falcon 9 rocket Friday on a three-day pursuit of the orbiting research lab.

Riding a plume of orange rocket exhaust, the Falcon 9 launcher climbed into a clear pre-sunrise sky after liftoff from Cape Canaveral’s Complex 40 launch pad at 5:42:42 a.m. EDT (0942:42 GMT), roughly the moment Earth’s rotation carried the spaceport under the International Space Station’s orbital track.

The Falcon 9’s first stage, launching for the second time after boosting a NASA science satellite to orbit in April, pivoted its engines to steer the rocket northeast from Cape Canaveral with 1.7 million pounds of thrust.

The rocket dropped the first stage booster to fall into the Atlantic Ocean — it was not planned to be recovered — as the Falcon 9’s second stage ignited for a five-and-a-half-minute firing to give the Dragon cargo craft enough speed to achieve orbit around Earth.

The launcher soared into sunlight as it reached the rarefied upper atmosphere, creating a twilight effect as the Falcon 9’s expanding exhaust cloud caught the first rays of the morning sun.

Imagery of the Falcon 9’s ascent into space showed the exhaust plume illuminated, appearing as a growing nebula-like feature and putting on a memorable light show for spectators across Florida.

The rocket’s second stage shut down around eight-and-a-half minutes into the flight, then deployed the Dragon supply ship around 90 seconds later. Two power-generating solar panels unfurled to a span of around 54 feet (16.5 meters), and the ship’s rocket jets were primed for the three-day chase of the space station.

Meanwhile, the second stage was programmed to continue orbiting Earth for a long-duration coast demonstration, collecting data to verify the rocket can operate in space for up to six hours, allowing future Falcon 9 rocket missions to send payloads into higher, harder-to-reach orbits.

Friday’s launch marked the 57th flight of a Falcon 9 rocket, and SpaceX’s 12th launch of the year. It was the 14th time SpaceX has launched a reused first stage booster, and the fourth flight of a previously-used Dragon capsule.

The first stage launched Friday was the final one manufactured by SpaceX using the company’s discontinued “Block 4” configuration. SpaceX debuted the upgraded “Block 5” version of the Falcon 9 rocket May 11, and Friday’s flight employed a second stage containing Block 5 improvements.

The Falcon 9 Block 5 design is optimized for reusability of the first stage, and SpaceX founder and chief executive Elon Musk said the upgraded Block 5 boosters could be launched, landed and flown again in as few as 24 hours, eventually requiring little more than the cost of new propellants and processing costs.

The Block 4 configuration was not capable of such rapid re-flights, requiring disassembly of its landing legs, inspections, refurbishment and the installation of new heat shield material and grid fins used on descent. The work took time and cost millions of dollars, but SpaceX officials said the expense of refurbishing Block 4 boosters was less than the cost of manufacturing an all-new vehicle.

Friday’s mission was the final launch of a Block 4 first stage, said Jessica Jensen, SpaceX’s director of Dragon mission management.

SpaceX’s 15th space station cargo mission, part of a commercial resupply contract with NASA valued at more than $3 billion, is set to reach its destination around 7 a.m. EDT (1100 GMT) Monday.

Space station crew members will take command of the Canadian-built robotic arm to grapple the free-floating Dragon capsule. The robot arm will berth the spacecraft on the station’s Harmony module a couple of hours later, beginning a one-month stay.

Astronauts will manually unpack the contents of Dragon’s pressurized cargo module, which SpaceX is reusing from a previous resupply mission that launched in July 2016.

The mission is slated to deliver 5,946 pounds (2,697 kilograms) of equipment, experiments and provisions to the orbiting research laboratory. About 3,774 pounds (1,712 kilograms) of that tally are carried inside Dragon’s internal cabin, including:

The cargo loaded inside Dragon include mice to be examined by scientists upon return to Earth. Researchers will study the effects of microgravity on microorganisms in the animals’ gastrointestinal tracts.

There is also an experiment aboard the Dragon cargo capsule which will help scientists study how algae grows in space. Algae could provide basic nutrition and help absorb carbon dioxide on future space missions, and algae oils could reduce the adverse effects of cosmic radiation on humans.

European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst, who launched earlier this month to begin a half-year on the space station, is also getting a talking assistant enabled by artificial intelligence.

Known as CIMON — short for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion — the robot will help Gerst complete tasks, conduct experiments, and repair and upgrade components inside the space station.

“CIMON a free-floating artificial intelligence, and when he will be activated, this is kind of a historical moment,” said Christian Karrasch, CIMON’s project lead at DLR, the German Aerospace Center. “We are very happy that CIMON will be the first artifical intelligence in space.

“For us, this is a piece of the future of human spaceflight. If you go out to the moon or to Mars, you cannot take all (of) mankind and engineers with you, but with an artifical intelligence, you have, instantly, all the knowledge of mankind,” Karrasch said.

Developed in partnership between DLR, Airbus Defense and Space, and IBM, CIMON is a spherical device about the size of a medicine ball. The entire structure of CIMON, primarily metal and plastic, was 3D-printed, according to Airbus.

Robots like CIMON could help space crews do their work more efficiently, improve safety, minimize crew stress, and help the public better understand spaceflight, according to project officials.

CIMON’s “neural” AI network and ability to learn, along with human-like characteristics such as a face and voice, will make it more of a companion than just an experiment to Gerst and other station crew members, officials said.

The AI-enabled helper was paired with Gerst, a German-born astronaut, using voice samples before his flight. That means CIMON will best communicate with him, but officials said anyone could work with the robot.

“If Alexander Gerst has certain questions to the experiment he’s working on, CIMON has quite keep knowledge on that experiment, so he can really get inside the experiment, and he can ask questions that are beyond the procedure,” said Philipp Schulien, an engineer on CIMON from Airbus.

CIMON learns with the help of IBM Watson AI technology.

“During the times when there is connectivity, all the communications go back through the cloud,” said Bret Greenstein, IBM’s global vice president of Watson and Internet of Things offerings. “So all the AI work is being processed at the cloud, actual language, all the training and the tailoring we did, happens in the cloud, which also means we can enhance it from the Earth anytime, and make it smarter constantly to help Alexander and the team to use it.”

Kirk Shireman, NASA’s space station program manager, said astronaut crews traveling deeper into the solar system will need to be more autonomous due to the communications delays inherent in such journeys.

“You can think of all of human knowledge, you might need to access parts of that,” Shireman said. “So having AI, and having that knowledge base and the ability to tap into it in a way that’s useful for the task that you’re doing, is really critical for having humans farther and farther away from the planet.”

In sum, the cargo mission will help enable 27 scientific experiments on the space station, according to David Brady, the International Space Station’s assistant program scientist at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Fresh food, including crab, lobster and maple-smoked salmon, pouches of strong coffee from Death Wish Coffee, an iPad Air, and spacesuit gloves are also among the items stowed inside the Dragon spacecraft.

The equipment launched to the space station inside the Dragon’s trunk included a spare Canadian-built latching end effector for the research lab’s robotic arm, plus a 1,213-pound (550-kilogram) instrument developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory to be mounted outside the station’s Japanese Kibo lab module to measure the temperature of plants from space.

The spare latching end effector, or hand, for the robotic arm will be stored outside the space station, ready to replace one of the arm’s two end effectors with the help of spacewalking astronauts, if needed.

Astronauts replaced both hands of the robotic arm in a series of spacewalks late last year and earlier this year. Both latching end effectors showed signs of aging and wear-and-tear after nearly 17 years on the space station, and the replacements left the station without a spare hand for the arm, also known as Canadarm 2.

“It’s a critical system,” said Ken Podwalski, the Canadian Space Agency’s space station program manager. “We always want to be able to protect for a failure.”

The robotic arm is vital for the space station to receive cargo deliveries by SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo carrier, and Japan’s HTV supply ship. It is also used to move astronauts around the space station on spacewalks, and for transferring experiments and other equipment around the exterior of the nearly million-pound science outpost.

Canadarm 2 is Canada’s primary contribution to the space station. It uses the latching end effectors to inchworm between multiple host adapters outside space station module and on the station’s truss backbone, and the arm’s hands are capable of routing data, video and electrical power.

“Overall, I would dare say that we’ve gotten exceptional performance out of our space robotics, just because (we’re) 17 years into the game for a system that was designed for a 10-year operational life — and 15 years on orbit — with the very few issues that we’ve had,” Podwalski said.

“I think our biggest problems have really been about cameras. We’ve changed a number of cameras. We’ve got new cameras in the works, and those are actually very nice because we can actually change them out robotically,” he said. “So that’s a case where we’re using our own robots to fix our own robots. It’s kind of the ideal scenario.”

The Ecosystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station, or ECOSTRESS, will measure heat energy coming off Earth’s surface. The temperature measurements will tell scientists about the health of the plants, how much water they are using, and the resiliency of crops to extreme conditions like heat waves and droughts.

“When a plant is so stressed that it turns brown, it’s often too late for it to recover,” said Simon Hook, ECOSTRESS principal investigator at JPL. “But measuring the temperature of the plant lets you see that a plant is stressed before it reaches that point.”

Developed under a cost cap of $30 million, the ECOSTRESS instrument is a pathfinder for future missions, and it will collect data from its mounting fixture outside the space station for about one year.

“ECOSTRESS will allow us to monitor rapid changes in crop stress at the field level, enabling earlier and more accurate estimates of how yields will be impacted,” said Martha Anderson, an ECOSTRESS science team member with the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Maryland. “Even short-term moisture stress, if it occurs during a critical stage of crop growth, can significantly impact productivity.”

The thermal sensitivity of ECOSTRESS will also make it useful for detecting and studying hotspots, such as wildfires and volcanoes.

The Dragon spacecraft will depart the space station Aug. 2 and return to a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean with nearly two tons of equipment, cargo and research specimens for analysis by engineers and scientists on the ground.

SpaceX will prep for two Falcon 9 missions on the books for July.

Next on the company’s launch schedule is a Falcon 9 launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, set for July 20 at 5:12 a.m. PDT (8:12 a.m. EDT; 1212 GMT), with 10 more new-generation Iridium communications satellites heading for low Earth orbit.

Less than two days later, at 1:50 a.m. EDT (0550 GMT) on July 22, another Falcon 9 rocket is set for blastoff from Cape Canaveral with the Telstar 19 VANTAGE telecommunications craft on the way to a perch in geostationary orbit more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator.</s>CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla — Clear weather and a Moonlit pre-dawn sky provided perfect conditions as SpaceX launched its final Block 4 Falcon 9 on its fifteenth cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS). The rocket lifted off at 5:42 a.m. EDT (9:42 GMT) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40).

If everything continues to go as it is planned, the CRS-15 Dragon spacecraft should deliver an estimated 5,900 pounds (2,676 kilograms) worth of supplies and equipment to low-Earth orbit (LEO), where it is scheduled to rendezvous with the ISS on July 2.

The mission, part of NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) contract with SpaceX, saw the use of two flight-proven vehicles — the Falcon 9 rocket that launched NASA’s TESS spacecraft, and the Dragon capsule that was used for the CRS-9 mission in 2016. Only 10 weeks separated the TESS mission and the flight of CRS-15, highlighting how far SpaceX has come with their reusable technology.

Weather for today’s liftoff was predicted by the 45th Weather Squadron as having a 90 percent chance of favorable conditions, with only a slight concern for cumulus and anvil clouds.

Approximately three seconds prior to liftoff, the nine Merlin 1D engines ignited with a telltale green flash. The engines, which burn a mixture of liquid oxygen and a highly refined kerosene called RP-1, produce a combined 1.71 million pounds-force (7,600 kilonewtons) of sea-level thrust. This provided enough power to propel the rocket and the Dragon spacecraft off the pad. The vehicle cleared the tower shortly thereafter.

After gaining speed and altitude, the Falcon 9 began its gravity turn and assumed a northeasterly heading.

As the vehicle accelerated, the forces experienced by the rocket – atmospheric pressure combined with velocity, a condition known as maximum aerodynamic pressure (max Q) – reached their greatest at approximately 79 seconds into the flight.

The first stage’s nine Merlin 1D engines continued to power the vehicle for another 96 seconds, shutting down at 2 minutes and 45 seconds after it had left the launch pad far below. This was followed three seconds later by separation of the first and second stages.

Like most SpaceX launches carried out this year, the Falcon 9 rocket was deemed expendable and not reused. As such, the F9’s first stage was not recovered. Given this, there were no in-flight acrobatics from a returning booster orchestrating a series of flips and engine burns so that it could return safely for a ground landing or on an Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship out in the Atlantic.

Shortly after stage separation, the second stage’s lone Merlin 1D-Vacuum (MVac) came to life. The vacuum-optimized engine – similar to the power plants on the first stage, but with a larger nozzle extension – continued to accelerate the stage and its payload with some 210,000 pounds-force (934 kilonewtons) of thrust.

The second stage continued accelerating the spacecraft and its cargo over the next 5 minutes and 35 seconds, with engine cutoff coming at 8 minutes and 31 seconds after liftoff. After a short coast phase, the Dragon spacecraft separated from the second stage and was flying freely, only nine and a half minutes after taking to the skies above SLC-40.

The first order of business for the Dragon is to deploy its twin solar panels to power the spacecraft and its systems. It will spend the next three days slowly raising its orbit as it rendezvous with the ISS, where it should be captured by the space station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm, which will be operated by NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold.

The CRS-15 mission marks SpaceX’s twelfth flight of 2018, with up to another sixteen on the launch manifest slated for the remainder of the year. The company’s next scheduled launch is the seventh Iridium NEXT mission, currently set for July 20, 2018.

SpaceX was awarded an estimated $1.6 billion to carry out 12 resupply missions to the orbiting lab in 2008. Three additional missions were added to the Phase 1 contract of this program in 2015.

Curt Godwin has been a fan of space exploration for as long as he can remember, keeping his eyes to the skies from an early age. Initially majoring in Nuclear Engineering, Curt later decided that computers would be a more interesting - and safer - career field. He's worked in education technology for more than 20 years, and has been published in industry and peer journals, and is a respected authority on wireless network engineering. Throughout this period of his life, he maintained his love for all things space and has written about his experiences at a variety of NASA events, both on his personal blog and as a freelance media representative.</s>CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A SpaceX rocket that flew just two months ago with a NASA satellite roared back into action Friday, launching fresh space supplies for the International Space Station.

The used Falcon rocket blasted off before dawn, hauling nearly 6,000 pounds of cargo, including the first robot with artificial intelligence bound for space, genetically identical mice, or mousetronauts, and super-caffeinated coffee for the crew of the International Space Station.

The shipment — packed into a Dragon capsule that’s also recycled — should reach the station Monday.

It was an especially gorgeous launch, delighting spectators as the rocket plume expanded in the clear night sky like a giant halo.

This marked SpaceX’s fastest reflight of a booster. The same first-stage booster launched the planet-hunting Tess satellite in April. The capsule, meanwhile, flew in 2016.

Aiming to lower launch costs by reusing rockets, SpaceX did not retrieve the booster for another flight and, instead, ditched it in the Atlantic. The company is switching to a new and improved line of boosters.

The space station and its six inhabitants were sailing 250 miles above the South Pacific when the Falcon 9 took off.

The Dragon will deliver 20 brown female mice, half of them genetically identical from one strain or family, and the other half identical from another family. Northwestern University researchers want to study the bacteria in the animals’ guts and compare them to their identical sisters on the ground. They did the same with Scott and Mark Kelly, NASA’s former identical twin astronauts, during Scott’s yearlong space station mission a few years ago.

Sixty packets of Death Wish Coffee from New York state also are going up. A former astronaut helped arrange the java delivery for the space station’s Serena Aunon-Chancellor, a coffee lover.

And then there’s the AI robot Cimon, pronounced Simon, intended for German astronaut Alexander Gerst. Slightly bigger than a basketball, the round, 3D-printed German Space Agency robot will assist Gerst with science experiments. IBM provided the AI brain. Cimon will remain indefinitely on the orbiting lab, continually getting updated via IBM’s Cloud.

Cimon stands for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion. The name also refers to the genius doctor in the science fiction tale “Captain Future.”</s>CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the final Block 4 version of the launch vehicle to be launched, lifted of from the Cape’s Space Launch Complex 40 on a mission to resupply the International Space Station (ISS) on Friday, June 29, 2018.

The flight got underway at 5:42 a.m. EDT (09:42 GMT) with the CRS-15 Dragon spacecraft perched atop the approximately 230-foot (70-meter) tall F9. The “flight-proven” Dragon spacecraft was tasked with carrying an estimated 5,900 pounds (2,676 kilograms) worth of supplies and equipment to low-Earth orbit (LEO). From there, it is scheduled to rendezvous with the ISS on July 2.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The last Block 4 variant of the Falcon 9 rocket was launched from Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida on June 29, 2018. The mission, a cargo run to the International Space Station under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract. The CRS-15 cargo Dragon spacecraft began its ascent toward the International Space Station at 5:42 a.m. EDT. Photos courtesy: Scott Schilke, Mike Deep, Mike Howard, Michael McCabe, Vikash Mahadeo, Andy Sokol with Turbofox Photography CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The last Block 4 variant of the Falcon 9 rocket was launched from Canaveral's Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida on June 29, 2018. The mission, a cargo run to the International Space Station under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services contract. The CRS-15 cargo Dragon spacecraft began its ascent toward the International Space Station at 5:42 a.m. EDT. Photos courtesy: Scott Schilke, Mike Deep, Mike Howard, Michael McCabe, Vikash Mahadeo, Andy Sokol with Turbofox Photography</s>Introducing CIMON, a floating, basketball-sized robot that will serve as a companion and assistant to crew members aboard the International Space Station. Infused with artificial intelligence, the floating bot is reminiscent of HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, but far less evil. We hope.



Earlier today, SpaceX successfully launched a recycled Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida carrying around 6,000 pounds of cargo to the ISS. In addition to delivering genetically identical mice, super-caffeinated coffee, and other supplies, the CRS-15 Dragon capsule contains CIMON, the first interactive flight companion to take part in an ISS mission.

Once aboard, CIMON—short for Crew Interactive MObile companioN—will assist the crew with its many activities. The point of this pilot project is to see if an artificially intelligent bot can improve crew efficiency and morale during longer missions, including a possible mission to Mars. What’s more, activities and tasks performed by ISS crew members are starting to get more complicated, so an AI could help. CIMON doesn’t have any arms or legs, so it can’t assist with any physical tasks, but it features a language user interface, allowing crew members to verbally communicate with it. The bot can display repair instructions on its screen, and even search for objects in the ISS. With a reduced workload, astronauts will hopefully experience less stress and have more time to relax.

CIMON was built by Airbus under a contract awarded by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). It has 12 internal fans, which allows the bot to move in all directions as it floats in microgravity. CIMON can move freely, and perform rotational movements such as shaking its head back-and-forth in disapproval. CIMON’s AI language and comprehension system is derived from IBM’s Watson Technology, and it responds to commands in English. CIMON cost less than $6 million to build, and less than two years to develop.

The pilot project will be led by DLR astronaut Alexander Gerst, who arrived on the ISS about a month ago. CIMON is already familiar with Gerst’s face and voice, so the bot will work best with him, at least initially. The German astronaut will use CIMON to see if the bot will increase his efficiency and effectiveness as he works on various experiments.

Indeed, with CIMON floating nearby, the ISS astronauts could easily call upon the bot for assistance, which they can do by calling out its name. They can request that CIMON display documents and media in their field of view, or record and playback experiments with its onboard camera. In general, the bot should speed up tasks on the ISS that require hands-on work.

The round robot features no sharp edges, so it poses no threat to equipment or crew. Should it start to go squirrely and use it’s best HAL-9000 imitation to say something like, “I’m sorry, Alexander, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” the bot is equipped with a kill switch. But hopefully it won’t come to that; unlike HAL, CIMON has been programmed with an ISTJ personality, meaning “introverted, sensing, thinking, and judging.” Its developers chose a face to make it more personable and relatable, and it can even sense the tone of the crew’s conversation. CIMON smiles when the mood is upbeat, and frowns or cries when things are sad. It supposedly behaves like R2D2, and can even quote famous sci-fi movies like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.

CIMON has an open invitation to stay aboard the ISS, and it will likely improve over the duration of its stay, receiving software updates via IBM’s Cloud.</s>A SpaceX rocket that flew just two months ago with a NASA satellite roared back into action Friday, launching the first orbiting robot with artificial intelligence and other station supplies.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A SpaceX rocket that flew just two months ago with a NASA satellite roared back into action Friday, launching the first orbiting robot with artificial intelligence and other station supplies.

The used Falcon rocket blasted off before dawn, hauling nearly 6,000 pounds (2,700 kilograms) of cargo including the spherical AI bot named Cimon, genetically identical mice and super-caffeinated coffee for the crew of the International Space Station.

The shipment — packed into a Dragon capsule that’s also recycled — should reach the station Monday.

It was an especially gorgeous launch, delighting spectators as the rocket plume expanded in the clear night sky like a giant halo beneath a nearly full moon and a gleaming Mars.

SpaceX’s Jessica Jensen described the high-altitude plume, illuminated against the dark sky, as “the space jellyfish that’s coming down after us.”

“I was going to say breathtaking, but maybe awakening might be a better word,” said NASA’s space station program manager, Kirk Shireman.

This marked SpaceX’s fastest reflight of a booster. The same first-stage booster launched the planet-hunting Tess satellite in April. The capsule, meanwhile, flew in 2016.

Aiming to lower launch costs by reusing rockets, SpaceX did not retrieve the booster for another flight and ditched it in the Atlantic instead. The company is switching to a new and improved line of boosters.

The space station and its six inhabitants were sailing 250 miles (400 kilometers) above the South Pacific when the Falcon 9 took off.

The Dragon will deliver the robot Cimon, pronounced Simon. Slightly bigger than a basketball, the round, 3D-printed German Space Agency robot will assist German astronaut Alexander Gerst with science experiments. IBM provided the AI brain. Cimon will remain indefinitely on the orbiting lab.

Cimon stands for Crew Interactive Mobile Companion. The name also refers to the genius doctor in the science fiction tale “Captain Future.”

Also on board are two sets of genetically identical brown female mice, or 20 mousetronauts altogether. Northwestern University researchers want to study the bacteria in the animals’ guts and compare them to their identical sisters on the ground. They did the same with former NASA astronauts and identical twins Scott and Mark Kelly, during Scott’s yearlong space station mission a few years ago.

Groceries include ice cream bars, fresh blueberries from Texas, home to Mission Control, and 60 freeze-dried packets of Death Wish Coffee from New York state. A former NASA astronaut helped arrange the java delivery for the space station’s Serena Aunon-Chancellor, a coffee lover.

“We like to keep our astronauts super-caffeinated because they work harder then,” Shireman joked after liftoff.

New food — especially treats — is “a huge psychological benefit” when you’re stuck with a space menu that repeats every eight or nine days, Shireman said. “The crew’s going to be opening up and eating blueberries, drinking coffee and eating ice cream, I’m sure, before you know it.”</s>A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was prepped for for a pre-dawn launch Friday to carry nearly 6,000 pounds of equipment, supplies and science gear to the International Space Station. Its payload includes a basketball-size robot using IBM's Watson artificial intelligence technology that will act as an astronaut assistant.

Liftoff from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station is targeted for 5:42 a.m. EDT (GMT-4), roughly the moment Earth's rotation carries the pad into the plane of the space station's orbit -- a requirement for such rendezvous missions.

This will be SpaceX's 12th flight so far this year and its third for NASA featuring a previously flown first stage, used to launch the agency's planet-hunting TESS satellite in April, and a "used" Dragon cargo ship that flew to the space station in 2016.

The first stage is the last "block 4" model in SpaceX's inventory. The block 4 version was not designed to fly more than twice and SpaceX said no attempt would be made to recover the booster after launch.

But after this flight, SpaceX will switch to upgraded block 5s that are designed for 50 or more flights each.

"From the get-go, SpaceX has set out to make spaceflight more like commercial air travel," said Jessica Jensen, manager of Space's Dragon program in Florida. "We want to make it safe, affordable and utilizing vehicles that can be reflown repeatedly.

"This is the key to the future of a civilization where we have thousands to millions of people exploring the stars and living out on other planets. Tomorrow's mission (is) one small step toward that goal."

Assuming an on-time launch, the Dragon cargo ship will reach the International Space Station early Monday. Its pressurized cabin, the section accessible by the crew, is packed with more than 3,770 pounds of equipment and supplies.

An environmental research instrument and a spare latching end effector, or "hand," for the station's robot arm are loaded in an unpressurized trunk section. They will be pulled out later and mounted on the station's exterior.
SpaceX successfully launches Commercial Resupply Services payload CRS-15 via a Falcon 9 rocket to dock with the International Space Station. The cargo includes CIMON, a head-shaped AI robot designed by the German Aerospace Center to assist crew onboard the ISS.