And here’s the megafeed of everything I’ve been doing.
Excellent table from /u/Kona314 showing every Falcon 9 launch with information about its static fire. Since Amos-6, it’s been going around that SpaceX has only just started doing static fires with the payload attached, and that’s absolutely false.
That’s a fine strategy for the here and now, but it isn’t a viable long-term strategy by any means. SpaceX isn’t the only one coming for Arianespace’s market share by way of reusability.
Blue Origin is going to be pretty damn active out on the Cape. Very exciting.
We’re still about a month out from OA-5, but it’s a good sign that Orbital ATK made any comment. The radio silence has been deafening after their static fire.
Mike Johnson, Chief Designer at NanoRacks, joined me this week to talk about his incredibly interesting career in spaceflight, the past and future of NanoRacks, their NextSTEP proposal, and a handful of other topics.
Absolutely fantastic read, and a great pick-me-up after SpaceX’s rough week. There are an incredible amount of parallels to the age that launched Boeing.
I’ve been doing a good amount of reading of these reports already, and I’ll write something longer after I’ve finished up, but they’re interesting to read through.
It’s been a rough day or two for spaceflight: SpaceX’s incident on the pad, China’s Long March 4C failure, and an earthquake near Rocket Lab’s launch site (everything is fine there for Rocket Lab).
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SpaceX has a busy manifest as they close out 2016, including SES-10 which will fly with a “flight-proven” first stage. A few bits of info have come out regarding Blue Origin’s future plans—including flying diverse payloads on New Shepard, and construction of their factory in Florda. Antares’ return-to-flight launch date is still a mystery, and I have a theory about its future engines.
I love the way they call it “flight-proven” instead of reused. It’s like the “certified pre-owned” of the launch industry.
The first launch is just under a month away. It’ll be the first launch for SpaceX from Vandenberg since January. I’m particularly interested in the flight pattern and recovery of this first stage. Last we heard, SpaceX was working on RTLS clearance for Vandenberg flights, and was constructing what looked like their west coast landing zone.
ULA posted a new video about the Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage over on YouTube. They spend a lot of time talking about on-orbit refueling, distributed lift, and Integrated Vehicle Fluids. The video even shows a little sneak peek of Xeus, the Masten-ULA lunar lander collaboration.
Seán Doran has been adding a CG astronaut to the photos of the Murray buttes that Curiosity has been sending back as it travels past them. I’ve been absolutely loving these images.
SpaceX has been in need of room to work on recovered boosters since running out of space in their hangar at Pad 39A months ago. More importantly, they need that hangar to support launches from 39A in the next year.
Dr. Robert Zubrin, President of The Mars Society, creator of Mars Direct, and author of The Case for Mars is on the show this week to discuss Mars exploration and colonization internationally, within NASA, and at SpaceX.
I like how NanoRacks is approaching this—looking objectively at hardware that’s in use today to put things together in interesting ways.
Aside from this being an election year plea to avoid cancellation of a struggling program, I’m not sure where the idea comes from that SLS will be rid of development in the 2020s.
Getting closer to the first launch of Electron. Nice video at the link, too.
During a NASA TV broadcast today, a short video of a Dragon 2 parachute drop test was shown. Someone helpful posted a link to some screenshots over on the r/spacex thread.