Originally Posted by Cornstock (Post 13013825)

For those of us who dont know anything, anyone want to give a quick recap of today? Looks like it went well. What was it for, or was it just a test?

Cool that Bulgaria's thing went well, but still don't really understand the full significance of it...

Originally Posted by reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comm...ficial_launch/
...
Some quick stats about this launch:
-This will be the 39th Falcon 9 launch.
-This will be the 35th Falcon 9 launch from the East Coast.
-This will be the 11th Falcon 9 launch this year.
-This will be the 9th launch of Falcon 9 out of Historic Launch Complex 39A.
-This will be the 103rd launch out of LC-39A, along with 12 Saturn V, 82 Shuttle and 9 Falcon 9.
-This flight will lift to space the dragon D 1-14 (113.1) for the CRS-12 Mission
-This will be the last flight of a new dragon v1 capsule
-This will be the first flight of falcon 9 block 4 first stage! (the block 4 second stage has debuted before before)
-This is the last launch from the original crs contract before it got extended
-This mission is to reuse landing legs
-The Static Fire Test was completed on August 10th 2017.
...
Primary mission - successful launch of dragon to the iss
CRS-12 is the 3rd CRS mission of 2017 and the last one to use a newly built dragon capsule, all future capsules will reuse pressure vessels like already done on CRS-11. After being inserted into the highly inclined orbit of the International Space Station, Dragon will spend several days rendezvousing with the ISS. Following that, Dragon will slowly be guided in by the manually-operated Canadarm for its berthing with the station at the earth-facing port of the Harmony Module. Dragon will spend approximately a month attached to the station after which it is loaded with ground-bound experiments and waste before being unberthed for its splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.

This mission only carries a single piece of equipment in the un-pressurised part of the capsule, the trunk called the Cosmic Ray Energetics and Mass (CREAM). CREAM weighs 1258kg or 2773.4 lbs

Here is some data about the experiment: The Cosmic-Ray Energetics and Mass investigation, known as CREAM, places a highly successful balloon-borne instrument aboard the International Space Station where it gathers an order of magnitude (ten times) more data, which has lower background interference because Earth's atmosphere is no longer interfering. CREAM's instruments measure the charges of cosmic rays ranging from hydrogen up through iron nuclei, over a broad energy range. The modified balloon instrument is carried aloft on a Space X Dragon Lab cargo supply mission and placed on the Japanese Exposed Module for a period of at least three years. when attached to the outside of the iss it will be called ISS-CREAM

The rest of the cargo is launched inside the capsule inside the pressurised cargo compartment. the cargo consists of:
-Science Investigations 2019.4 lbs. / 916 kg
-Crew Supplies 485 lbs. / 220 kg
-Vehicle Hardware 747.4 lbs. / 339 kg
-Spacewalk Equipment 66.1 lbs. / 30 kg
-Computer Resources 116.8 lbs. / 53 kg
...
Secondary mission - First stage landing Because this mission is not particular heavy or goes into an high-energy orbit there will be a landing attempt of the first stage at LZ-1. The landing will probably be approximately 9 minutes after launch. if successful this will be the 14th landing and the 6th at lz1. The booster on this mission will not be a flight proven one, but an all new one with the serial number of: 1039.1

Launch Complex 39A - What's the big deal? LC-39A is the most historically significant orbital launch pad in the United States. Its first launch was Apollo 4 in 1967, and it went on to launch the rest of the Apollo missions, with the exceptions of Apollo 7 & 10. After the Saturn V and all its variants were retired, the pad was reconfigured for the Space Shuttle. Over the course of the program, it launched 82 of the 135 STS missions, including all five orbiters. Since the retirement of the Shuttle in 2011, it was sitting dormant until SpaceX began leasing it in 2014. Construction work began in earnest in 2015 and continued until early 2017, culminating in the successful static fire for this mission. This launch will also mark the 103rd launch out of 39a.
...