Thread Rating:
  • 1 Vote(s) - 5 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Other Assorted Stuff

Reply
#12
Yazata Offline
And Doug's twin Bob has been spotted in harbor in Tampa. It had been in Port Fourchon Louisiana where it was being fitted out for SpaceX service, but had to be moved because Hurricane Ida was bearing down. (The eye passed right over Port Fourchon.) Bob looked finished in the photos I saw and seeing as how Port Fourchon is heavily damaged I wonder if it will just continue on to Port Canaveral.
Reply
#13
Yazata Offline
Photographed by Reagan Beck at SpaceX McGregor

To the left is the iconic "tripod", now being used as a vertical test stand for Raptor engine tests. And to the right is brand new Falcon 9 booster B1071 in McGregor for the full-duration static-fire acceptance testing that all new Falcon 9 boosters must complete.

And it wouldn't be SpaceX if there wasn't a big crane in the shot. And a tower. (This one a little skinny one, perhaps a lightning tower.)


[Image: FDczVbdXEAUL9C6?format=jpg&name=large]
[Image: FDczVbdXEAUL9C6?format=jpg&name=large]

Reply
#14
Magical Realist Offline
Meanwhile, in Earth-related Musk news:

https://www.thinkinghumanity.com/2021/11...Z3Uq5hFP64

"YouTuber and boxer, Jake Paul says he will donate $10 million to the UN World Food Programme to help eliminate world hunger if Elon Musk also donated $6 billion.


Sharing his pledge on Twitter, Paul added that he would only keep his promise if his tweet received 690,000 retweets.


Paul's offer came following a Twitter spat between UN's World Food Programme director, David Beasley and Elon Musk. The spat occured after a CNN story got published in which Beasley claimed that world hunger would be eliminated if only a few ultra-rich people donated a fraction of their wealth.

Beasly has said in the interview:


"$6 billion to help 42 million people that are literally going to die if we don't reach them. It's not complicated."


Musk tweeted in response:


"If WFP can describe on this Twitter thread exactly how $6B will solve world hunger, I will sell Tesla stock right now and do it."
Reply
#15
Yazata Offline
15 hours 17 minutes after B 1051 flew for the 11th time from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, SpaceX is spooling up for another Falcon 9 launch from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. This is the shortest time between Falcon launches ever. Booster is B 1067 which will be flying for the 3'd time. Payload is Turksat 5B, a Turkish communications satellite. (SpaceX has launched one earlier Turksat.) Recovery will be on ASOG.


https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/CoWYFMGmjEM
Reply
#16
Yazata Offline
B1058 launched today for the 10th time. It launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and its payload was a dedicated rideshare mission called Transporter 3. It carried more than 100 (!) small cubesat-sized satellites for organizations and universities in many different countries, all sharing the cost. Which is probably comparatively low since B1058 no doubt earned back its own cost launches ago, so apart from the processing and refurbishment costs, continuing to use it is pure profit for SpaceX.

And to celebrate its 10th flight, B1058 conducted an RTLS (return to launch site) landing, coming in for a spectacularly successful landing on its lovely landing pad at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral!

The tweet below is absolutely great video from SpaceX. And scroll down and watch the next little video too, since it shows what the landing looked like to people there. I especially love the characteristic double sonic booms.

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/stat...3753693191
Reply
#17
Yazata Offline
There was an owie at Mojave Air and Space Port this morning. There was a loud boom, followed by a plume of black smoke. It wasn't an aircraft crashing and appeared to have happened out at the rocket engine test area some distance away from the runways. There was immediate concern that it was Virgin Galactic, who test rocket engines for their Spaceship Two vehicles out there, but VG says nope, wasn't them.

https://twitter.com/spacecom/status/1483920030605606913

Photo taken from the roof of the Mojave firehouse I believe

https://twitter.com/engineco16/status/14...7250541568

Turns out that it was ABL Space Systems, another one of the "new-space" small-sat orbital launch companies. They are like Astra in having a very small easy to produce rocket that can be transported in shipping containers, flown in transport planes etc. And like Astra, they have been attracting interest from the Space Force.

They were testing the second stage engines of their RS-1 launch vehicle when they experienced an "anomaly" (aerospace industry-speak for 'something not right', in this case a euphemism for explosion). Safety precautions were in force, people were a safe distance away and nobody was injured. The fire is out.

I just hope that this doesn't set back the first orbital attempt of their RS-1 (from Kodiak like Astra), planned for later this year.

https://ablspacesystems.com/

https://ablspacesystems.com/site/wp-cont...2022-1.pdf
Reply
#18
Yazata Offline
SpaceX has another RTLS (return to launch site) landing at Cape Canaveral scheduled for 6:11 PM EST tomorrow (Friday Jan 28). Payload will be two Italian Earth observation satellites. Booster will be B1052.3 on its third flight. It's unusual in that its first two trips to space were as a side core on two previous Falcon Heavy flights. But apparently there is more demand for single core Falcon 9 flights, so the side core was repurposed as a stand-alone booster.

After launching from SLC40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and hurling the satellites into orbit, B1052 will perform a boost-back burn and return for a landing at lovely landing pad LZ-1 at next door Kennedy Space Center. Another highlight is that the launch will take place 13 minutes after sunset, with the rocket ascending out of darkness into the sunlight above, and will probably produce one of those SpaceX space jellyfish sky-shows.

It was supposed to go today (Thursday) but the launch was scrubbed because of weather and pushed back a day.

https://nextspaceflight.com/launches/details/418

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1486831387336314882


https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/AbFoi68L-GQ
Reply
Reply
#20
Yazata Offline
Looks like a scrub because of a cruise ship violating the range.

https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1487927141073260548

Another try on tap tomorrow. (That will be the fourth try I think. First weather scrubs, now an irresponsible cruise ship captain.)

There was a Starlink launch scheduled for tomorrow and now it's pushed back to Tuesday. And there will be another return to launch site launch at Vandenberg (a spy satellite) on Wednesday. A launch every day for the next three days!
Reply


Possibly Related Threads…
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  Artemis Stuff Yazata 53 1,094 Mar 26, 2024 03:22 AM
Last Post: Yazata
  Chinese Stuff Yazata 8 283 Dec 4, 2023 08:01 PM
Last Post: Yazata
  McGregor Stuff Yazata 9 264 Aug 18, 2023 07:41 PM
Last Post: Yazata
  Launch Stuff Yazata 70 2,171 Mar 9, 2023 09:30 PM
Last Post: Yazata
  Russian Stuff Yazata 21 443 Jul 30, 2022 02:04 AM
Last Post: Yazata
  ISS Stuff Yazata 4 162 Mar 3, 2022 05:16 AM
Last Post: Yazata
  Weird Stuff Yazata 2 202 Apr 14, 2021 07:11 AM
Last Post: Yazata



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)