SpaceX launches super-computer to space station

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A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Florida on Monday, sending the US space firm's latest first-generation Dragon cargo ship to the International Space Station.

The Falcon 9 rocket, with the Dragon spacecraft sitting on top, blasted off from a launch pad at NASA's Kennedy Space Center at 12:31 p.m. EDT (1631 GMT), according to a live webcast by the US space agency NASA.

About eight minutes later, SpaceX successfully landed the rocket's first stage at the company's Landing Zone 1, just south of the launch site at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, as part of its effort to develop fully reusable rockets.

Experiments make up most of the 6,400 pounds of cargo, which should reach the orbiting lab Wednesday. /AP Photo

Previously, SpaceX had successfully recovered 13 first stages, five on land and eight at sea.

Monday's flight was the 12th of up to 20 missions to the space station that SpaceX will fly for NASA under a multi-year commercial resupply services (CRS) contract.

It also marked the last time SpaceX launches a brand-new Dragon 1 vehicle. The remaining CRS missions will fly only reused ones, an official from SpaceX said at a pre-launched news conference on Sunday.

AP Photo

A variant of the Dragon spacecraft, called Dragon 2, is currently being developed for US-based crew transport to and from the space station, the company said.

For this mission, Dragon was filled with over 2,900 kilograms of supplies and payload, including critical materials to directly support dozens of the more than 250 science and research investigations that will occur during the next six months.

A staff member works with a plant experiment in the Destiny laboratory of the space station. /NASA Photo

"I'm happy to say 75 percent of that total mass is headed toward our research community," Dan Hartman, deputy manager of NASA's space station program, said at Sunday's news conference. "It sets a new bar for the amount of research that we've been able to get on the flight."

A biology experiment will use the orbiting laboratory's microgravity environment to grow an important protein, LRRK2, which is believed to be greatest genetic contributor to Parkinson's disease.

Another experiment will test strategies for growing new lung tissue from stem cells, with the ultimate goal of producing bioengineered human lung tissue to help better understand organ rejection.

Astronauts already have the use of off-the-shelf laptops and other computer configurations. But none of them have the kind of computational power an HPE supercomputer would offer. /NASA Photo

Also aboard the Dragon was an investigation that aims to validate the concept of using microsatellites in low-Earth orbit to support critical operations, such as providing lower-cost Earth imagery in situations such as tracking severe weather and detecting natural disasters.

In addition, the cargo included a Hewlett Packard Enterprise supercomputer, which is part of a year-long experiment to test how a system like this would operate in deep space for about a year, which is roughly the length of time needed to travel to Mars.

The goal of the mission is to test the Spaceborne Computer (rendering pictured) for one year to see if it can operate in the harsh conditions of space, about the same amount of time as it would take for astronauts to arrive at Mars. /NASA Photo

The supercomputer doesn't look like a desktop computer because it's actually a server. It will be able to communicate with other computers, much like desktops and laptops on earth communicate with servers owned by companies like Google. /NASA Photo

If everything goes well, the Dragon spacecraft will arrive at the space station on Wednesday, where it is expected to stay for about one month.

Then, in mid-September, the spacecraft will return to Earth with results of earlier experiments, splashing down in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Baja California.

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Source(s): Xinhua News Agency