Investigation Under Way for CRS-7

SpaceX’s Hans Koenigsmann will lead the investigation into the CRS-7 launch anomaly. For updates on the progress of the investigation and to keep track of the International Space Station’s research and crew, go to www.nasa.gov/spacex and www.nasa.gov/station. We will update the SpaceX blog here as events warrant. If you find debris, please call 321-867-2121.

Parts for a Third IDA Will Be Assembled

NASA built two International Docking Adapters for the International Space Station. The second one that was already built and slated to go up on a future flight will remain on that schedule. Parts already available will be built up into a replacement for the first one, said Mike Suffredini, manager of the space station program.

Shotwell: We Will Find Out What Failed and Fix It

“We’re in an extraordinary position to find out what happened and get back to flight as soon as we safely and reliably can,” said Gwynne Shotwell, president of SpaceX. “We will pour even more effort into finding out every possible source in the future. This doesn’t change our plans, we’re very confident in our team, in our operations team and our technical team.”

Research on ISS Will Rebound – Suffredini

“This was a loss, but I still expect to be able to fly a lot of research and keep the research going,” said Mike Suffredini, manager of the International Space Station. “It’s not whether you stumble and fall but what you do after you stumble and fall that determines your greatness. We’ve clearly lost some significant hardware that we’ll have to replace and we’ll do that and get on with research on the International Space Station.”

Teams Will Come Back Stronger – Gerstenmaier

“The important thing is that we stand down just long enough to understand the failure and so we can come back stronger,” said NASA’s William Gerstenmaier, associate administrator of the Human Exploration and Operations directorate. “It’s not easy living on the frontier of space. It shows the problems that can occur but it also shows the resilience of the teams.