I had a dream last night Musk and SpaceX reused the two boosters already and launched another Falcon 4 heavy with all 3 boosters coming in for a successful landing. It was a very cool dream but I kept thinking, “There’s no way they could have properly tested and retrofitted those boosters so quickly”. So when they didn’t explode I was very happy.
I don’t know if this should be posted in Space or Games, but it is cool the intersection.
Scott Manley looks at history of Elon Musk in games.
Awesome thanks for that!
SpaceX has launched another Falcon 9. This one wasn’t recovered since it’s an older reused booster which doesn’t have that much life left, but they publicly attempted to recover the fairing for the first time. The fairing holds and protects the payload at the top under atmospheric pressures until they get to space. They hope to recover these by using a parafoil directed by thrusters and a small ship with a large net and maybe save a few million more in reused rocket parts. It just missed this time and ended up in the salt water.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfgRX-lgIt6/
Falcon fairing half as seen from our catcher’s mitt in boat form, Mr. Steven. No apparent damage from reentry and splashdown.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfgRX-lgIt6/
Besides the customer payload, they also launched two test internet satellites. These are the prototypes for a new satellite constellation they plan which supposedly can handle up to 1 Gbps utilizing 4,000-12,000 low-earth-orbit mini-satellites the size of a mini-fridge, a ludicrous number of satellites to launch for anyone.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/966703261699854336
He’s also apparently taunting people with a password related to these sats somehow.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/966706193560305664
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/966706924124188672
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/966707038095986688
Is he trying to crowdsource people with the right antennas to connect and see if they can log in? I’ll be curious to see what this was about.
I mean I’m going to take this time researching if I can, so I imagine it is exactly that.
Yay, we need more junk in LEO. :(
There are times when Elon lives up to his promises.
Yes, it is terrible. But it looks like he is having fun.
I still see people blasting Elon for getting subsidies from the government particularly from Tesla
They never mention the cost savings that Elon has made to the US taxpayer for rocket launches
5 launches of GPS satellites. The Air Force is giving Boeing-Lockheed Martin $350 million for launching 2 satellite while giving Space X 290 million for 3 launches. So a free launch and $50 million cheaper.
ULA gets a billion year from the Air Force just to keep the assembly open for building rockets. Actual rocket launches were extra.
It doesn’t say in the article which one is the evil twin, but I’m guessing it’s the one who came back from space.
It’s clearly the one who just shaved his goatee.
People people people: everyone has known since the 6th grade that the dude with the facial hair is the evil one.
Good: wants everyone to live long and prosper
Evil: working on a hostile takeover of Starfleet Command
If Vulcans are so badass why aren’t they already in charge of Starfleet in that reality?
Neat excerpt from forthcoming book on the new Space companies.
Can’t find the tweet, but basically it was
"The most unrealistic thing about Star Trek, isn’t the technology it is that San Francisco City Council would have allowed the Federation HQ to be built in downtown SF.
File this one under Things Not Happening in Space in 2019
NASA has delayed the launch of its next great space observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, until no earlier than May 2020 — nearly a year later than planned — due to the need for more testing of the telescope’s intricate systems and setbacks, including tears in the tennis-court-size sun shield, the space agency announced today (March 27).
NASA originally hoped to launch the James Webb Space Telescope in 2018 but delayed it until 2019 last September due to delays in the observatory’s assembly.
KevinSorboDisappointed.gif
Dang, this is getting more and more concerning. Curiosity is the last mission that had bleeding edge, radical, untested engineering. I just don’t rememeber these kinds of delays and problems with that rover and it’s delivery system. Anyone else?
I know the JWT is was more complex, but still.
Considering that it orbits Moon L2, there is no way to repair it in space. L2 is about 4 times further away than the Moon itself.
It’s the Mount & Blade 2 of space telescopes.