And here’s the megafeed of everything I’ve been doing.
China has recently been opening up to more collaboration with Russia, ESA, and others. I really want to see the United States open up to China before it’s too late and everyone moves on together, without us.
Here’s hoping they don’t “bend over backwards” on this one.
While this is posed as an option to help get Inmarsat’s payload off the ground sooner, this is an interesting decision for SpaceX to make in the future, as Falcon Heavy is flying regularly and they are reusing cores.
The roadmap for SLS got a little murkier this week thanks to some additional details in the GAO report regarding its cost and schedule. SpaceX test fired a landed core three times in three days last week, paving the way for reuse of the CRS-8 core.
They also seem to be on the brink of solving the aerodynamic loading issues they’ve talked about in the past. The one issue they haven’t yet solved is how damn expensive these launches are going to be, riding on an Atlas V.
This would be an absolutely fantastic system on small sats.
Doug Messier has some questions regarding the handling of Virgin Galactic’s licensing by the FAA. It’s a very interesting case that could set a lot of precedent in this realm.
The more hardware heading towards Mars, the better.
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I’ll probably stop posting about each test this core goes through at this point, because it looks like they’re going to be doing a lot of them. Firing it once a day until something goes wrong?
Reports out of McGregor—posted over on the SpaceX Facebook group—that SpaceX has fired the JCSAT-14 core again, for over two minutes. It’ll be very interesting to watch how many times they run this core through tests. That was an extremely quick turn around between full-duration tests, so things must be going well.
Yesterday, SpaceX completed a full-duration static fire of the JCSAT-14 core.
The Dream Chaser flight test vehicle is on its way to NASA Armstrong for a second flight test out at Edwards Air Force Base.
After a few months of work on SLC-4E at Vandenberg, SpaceX looks ready to pick up flights from there this fall. I haven’t heard too much lately about their work on the landing pads out west, but we should be seeing some of that soon, too.
It’s absolutely true that Orion’s timeline is ridiculous, but I can’t stand comparing post-Shuttle projects with those that came before it.
ExoMars completed a 52-minute burn this morning to put the Trace Gas Orbiter and Schiaparelli lander on track for an October arrival. Can’t wait to see this mission reach Mars.
Sounds like there’s been some internal debating, and the Astronaut Office must now be fine with flying EM-2 with the EUS without having flown previously, contrary towhat I’ve been talking about this week regarding the future roadmap of SLS.
Great rundown by Doug Messier of Parabolic Arc on the first two days of the NASA Advisory Council meetings. The full council meets Thursday and Friday.
Scott Johnson with Spaceflight Insider got in touch with SpaceX about the signature sonic booms of Falcon 9.
Before Mars and exploration-centric talk, I talk about Orbital ATK’s agreement for exclusive use of LMP-103S. Then I take a hard look at the post-EM-1 roadmap for SLS, and theorize some potential uses for SpaceX’s giant Mars-bound rocket—lovingly referred to as the Big F…alcon… Rocket (BFR).