Both SpaceX founder Elon Musk and president Gwynne Shotwell have at times chided testing efforts in Texas for not pushing the envelope far enough and creating a smoking hole in the ground. Tonight they got their wish. According to multiple reports as well as tweet from Elon Musk, a Falcon F9R test at McGregor went […]
SpaceX released the following video of the first stage return on the July 14 Orbcomm mission. Early front runner for best short film of the year. SpaceX Description Published on Jul 22, 2014 Video of the Falcon 9 first stage reentry and landing following successful delivery of six ORBCOMM satellites to orbit. This test […]
Image Credit: SpaceX The timing of course, was ultimately a matter of co-incidence driven by weather and mechanical issues, but the back to back launches of the OSC Antares with a Cygnus re-supply ship, and the SpaceX Falcon 9 carrying the first Orbcomm OG-2 mission happen to highlight the stunning progress which has been wrought […]
Lifting off into a bright blue sky punctuated by intermittent clouds, the SpaceX Falcon 9 / Orbcomm OG-2 mission launched at 11:15 am EDT today from Cape Canaveral’s SLC-40. After initially pushing the planned launch time back from to 9:21 to 11:44 am in order to investigate a possible ground equipment issue, it finally came […]
What a fascinating time. SpaceX RLV testing is proceeding on two fronts, one at Cape Canaveral with orbital launches, and the other at its McGregor Rocket Development Facility. Yesterday, SpaceX released this video showing the next step in its sequential program. Here is the official description: “Video of Falcon 9 Reusable (F9R) during a 1000m […]
The much anticipated, but oft delayed launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 carrying 6 Orbcomm OG2 satellites has been reset for this Friday, with a backup slot open on Saturday. The latest delay was triggered when Orbcomm elected to perform further investigations regarding an undisclosed problem on one of the six satellites. The issue apparently […]
A post launch news conference on today’s SpaceX CRS-3 mission to the International Space Station shed a few key details on the mission itself, as well as the subsequent effort to recover the first stage in the Atlantic ocean. For anyone who viewed the launch, it was difficult to miss the rather odd plume […]
One perplexing item regarding today’s SpaceX CRS-3 launch to ISS, and subsequent first stage landing recovery attempt, was the fact that we had yet to see any flight test of the new F9R test vehicle, with the only released video having been a ground level static fire. It seemed therefore, that even if first stage […]
Image Credit: SpaceX/Youtube SpaceX released the following statement with the video Friday evening. Several hours later, FOX News ran a special segment “Surrendering America” which focused in part on the decline of the American space program. Perhaps they should have checked youtube first. SpaceX statement: SpaceX successfully test fired the first stage of F9R—an advanced […]
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