On March 1, SpaceX ran a test launch of Dragon, the capsule in which it hopes to someday transport human beings into space. Dragon was due to connect with the International Space Station, but very quickly into the launch things started to go all wrong. This is a short summary of the SpaceX team managed to stop their capsule from tumbling out of control.

  • http://www.facebook.com/DavidHaitch David Haddad

    There seems to be a problem with the link.

    • Felton / Moderator

      It’s working for me.

      • http://www.facebook.com/DavidHaitch David Haddad

         I suppose I’m just cursed.

        • http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith

           Just keep clicking. It will work eventually.

        • Mark Dow

          Try extending your solar panels and pressure slam the oxidizer tanks. 

  • Brainspore

    I wonder if solving this problem would have been easier or more difficult if the capsule had been manned. On the one hand a crew probably could have reacted faster than people on the ground, but on the other hand the probably would have coated the inside of the capsule with astronaut puke by the time the spinning stopped.

    • http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith

      I suspect the fix would have required a software upload from the ground regardless. But if communications from the ground were lost completely, a human crew could have continued to try to recover the vehicle.

      • Brainspore

        I suspect the fix would have required a software upload from the ground regardless.

        Man, that would be the worst wait for tech support ever.

        • http://glitch.tl/ Michael Smith

           I am sure the ISS does it every day.

  • jackbird

    “We had this communication system we call Megaproxy. We had to the reroute the Megaproxy to go through the Air Force long-range dishes to blast the spaceship with enough intensity to upload new code to try to fix the problem.”

    It’s the Lagrange point between Star Trek technobabble and hacker movie technobabble.