Last night, Elon Musk posted this YouTube video of a 15 second test fire of the upgraded Falcon 9 first stage which took place on September 21st. While no return to flight date has been set, Space News reporter Peter B. de Selding posted via Twitter that speaking in Berlin, Elon Musk said “We hope […]
SpaceX has been uncharacteristically, but perhaps none too surprisingly, quiet about its future plans in recent months as it has concentrated on the failure investigation of the June 28th loss of a Falcon 9 booster carrying the CRS-7 Dragon supply capsule to ISS. Based on comments made by SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, as well as […]
Although the conclusions are still preliminary, SpaceX engineers believe they have tracked down the cause of last month’s spectacular failure of a Falcon 9 rocket in the skies over Cape Canaveral. The accident was apparently caused by the failure of a 2 foot long steel strut which was supporting a high pressure helium bottle. The bottle, which is located inside the […]
The SpaceX CRS-7 cargo mission to the International Space Station has been moved from Friday to Sunday, June 28th with a new liftoff time of 10:21 AM EDT from Cape Canaveral’s SLC-40. If liftoff, which must take place exactly on time, is delayed for any reason, a backup slot on Monday the 29th is reserved. […]
The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) launches aboard SpaceX Falcon 9 After nine years, two lawsuits and 18 successful Falcon 9 launches, SpaceX has received certification to compete for national security launches. Here is the press release from the Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs LOS ANGELES AIR FORCE BASE, El Segundo, Calif. (AFNS) […]
While SpaceX’s long running efforts to achieve certification for launching national security payloads under the EELV program have received a great deal of press attention, a similar, but far less contentions process has been underway at NASA. On Friday afternoon came the word that the SpaceX Falcon 9 V1.1 has finally been certified to launch […]
Image Credit: Tesla Motors Last week, Tesla Motors unveiled its new “non automotive” product line, and as anyone who has been following the company already knew, it was a home battery pack, named Powerwall. If you have not yet seen the 18 minute event, there are far less productive ways to start your week. Innerspace […]
Image Credit SpaceX After waiting out a 49 minute delay due to inclement weather, a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster lifted off from Cape Canaveral’s SLC-40 carrying a communications satellite for Turkmenistan. Officially designed as TurkmenÄlem52E/MonacoSat but referred to by SpaceX as simply the Thales mission in reference to Thales Alenia Aerospace which built the spacecraft […]
Image Credit: SpaceX After first tweeting and then deleting, SpaceX founder Elon Musk confirmed Saturday night that slow response from a thruster valves was the cause of last week’s close but no cigar effort at landing a Falcon 9 first stage at sea. Cause of hard rocket landing confirmed as due to slower than expected […]
Liftoff of CRS-6 / Image Credit: Stewart Money After a Monday scrub, the second launch attempt for NASA /SpaceX’s CRS-6 resupply mission to the International Space Station found brilliant blue skies punctuated by occasional clouds and absolutely no technical problems as it counted down to T-0. Lifting off the pad at SLC-40, the Falcon 9 […]
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