Derrol Nail, launch commentator: We are here with Bill Spetch — he is the deputy manager
of the International Space Station, transportation integration office at NASA.
Bill, thank you for joining us after the launch.
It looked like a beauty from where we were watching it.
You’re obviously watching in a very official capacity.
What’s the official word from you?
Spetch (:20): It was a great launch; we were really happy to see the weather clear out
the way it did.
It was a little bit touch and go after yesterday, and we continued to watch the forecast as
we went.
But the clouds cleared out and we got to see a great launch.
Nail (:33): It was 70 percent no-go yesterday; got all the way up to the 6:24 launch point
and had weather delays so couldn’t do it, but then 12 minutes later it cleared — could
have launched.
Today, same setup, 70 percent, but then the weather started to clear just in time, about
an hour all those weather constraints lifted and it hit right on time at 6:01 — right
when you need it to.
Spetch (:57): Yep, absolutely, it’s an instantaneous launch window to get to ISS for this and so
they have to hit that timeframe, and that’s why we couldn’t go yesterday with the weather
the way it was, even though it cleared out so quickly afterwards.
You’ve got to go right on time to catch up with the space station the way you need
to.
Nail (1:12): Did you watch the launch live outside or did you watch it on the monitors?
Spetch (1:15): So, uh, we were over at the, uh, SpaceX Launch Control Center and we ran
outside to watch it because you gotta take a look at it outside; you don’t really get
the effect when you’re in the building watching it on the monitors.
Nail (1:28): It was just a beautiful launch all the way from start to finish, it seemed
to us.
How about that landing?
Spetch (1:34): Man, it’s impressive every time you see it.
And, you know, it was great to see this one land successfully.
Because we flew this booster on our previous mission, and so this has been one that we’ve
used before and, you know, we’ll probably use again.
Nail (1:48): And the Dragon flying on for the third time now to the International Space
Station.
Your thoughts on the 5,000 pounds of supplies and science that are going up?
Spetch (1:57): You know, there’s dozens of new investigations going up on this flight.
I can’t wait for it to get up there and for them to get started on it.
Uh, a couple of really interesting ones that caught my eye as I was looking through it,
looking at, um, a space moss experiment looking at growing moss in space and seeing how it
develops differently that it does down here on Earth.
Um, and obviously that has applications as you look forward to exploring other planets
and, uh, how do things grow.
Another one that caught my eye, which is another one for terrestrial use, uh, Goodyear Tire
actually has an investigation going up on this one, looking at silica fillers that can
improve tire performance, improve gas mileage and approve efficiency for our vehicles and
help us out here on the ground.
Nail (2:38): And it berths with the space station on Saturday?
Spetch (2:41): Saturday morning, yes.
Nail (2:42): They’ll unload everything into the International Space Station.
Um, your thoughts going forward … there is an international docking adapter that’s
also going up.
Um, it’s berthing now with the current docking adapter.
It’s the same adapter, but now you’ll have two places where the cargo spacecraft
can dock?
Spetch (3:01): Well, so this actually, this vehicle goes to the, uh, the bottom port,
the nadir port of the Harmony node, um, which is a uh … it’s a berthing mechanism, in
this case of this vehicle.
The docking mechanism that we’re … or the docking adapter that we’re bringing
up will actually go on the top and matches the one that we have on the forward of the
space station that we docked the SpaceX Demo-1 mission to.
And so this one will enable us to have two docked vehicles to the U.S. side of the station
at the same time, allowing us to do crew handovers more efficiently, and allowing them to talk
to each other as they’re exchanging things that are going on for one crew that’s coming
up and the crew that’s leaving, um to help really familiarize them with the vehicle and
everything that’s going on in the current status, uh, live, fact to face.
Nail (3:46): And how are you feeling after this launch?
Spetch (3:48): Oh, it feels great; it feels really good; um, this is the 18th one for
SpaceX under the CRS contract.
We’ve got a couple more left with them under CRS-1, and then it’s on to our CRS-2 missions.
So it’s great, it’s, uh, we’re really happy to get it going and we look forward
to getting it capture on Saturday morning.
Nail (4:05): Bill Spetch, thank you for joining us; we appreciate it.
Spetch (4:06): No problem, appreciate it.
Nail (4:07): That’s going to wrap it up for us here at Hangar AE.
We’ll toss it back to Jenn in the studio.