The SpaceX Falcon Heavy is a rocked system designed along the same lines as the Falcon 9 booster – in effect, 3 Falcon 9 1st stages strapped together. Of course in practice it’s much more complex than that, but that helps you visualize the idea of the booster – 3 times the initial power to […]
Tag: spacex
The SpaceX Dragon V2 Crew Vehicle To No Longer Use Propulsive Landing
File this one under “things not going as planned”, SpaceX announced at a recent conference that the planned Crewed Dragon vehicle (also known as Dragon V2) which will be used for SpaceX launched manned missions to the International Space Station and also as part of their planned Mars missions will no longer use propulsive landings […]
An American Rocket Using Russian Rocket Engines – What’s It Matter?
Let’s deviate away from SpaceX for a moment – let’s talk about United Launch Alliance. United Launch Alliance, or ULA, is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Boeing Defense, Space & Security. Lockheed and Boeing have been involved in rocketry since the the 1950’s, having combined between them over a century of […]
What I Like About SpaceX
SpaceX? Where Do We Begin…
SpaceX’s 3rd Launch In 12 Days, And The Heaviest Payload Yet: Intelsat 35e
I’m covering this one quickly, since I missed the launch live, but on Wednesday the 6th of July, SpaceX, after 2 previous failed attempts to launch, finally got Intelsat 35e off the ground and into one of the highest orbits possible for the booster with such a payload. This high initial orbit was to preserve […]
SpaceX Successfully Launches BulgariaSat-1 And Re-flies Another Falcon 9 1st Stage
Same stuff, different day at SpaceX today with yet another launch from Pad 39A, this time of Bulgaria’s 1st satellite, BulgariaSat 1, to geosynchronous orbit. Yep, another communications satellite, but as mentioned, this is the 1st satellite made by Bulgaria, so that’s special: I hope it works out well for them and their needs! The […]
SpaceX CRS-11 Successfully Launches And Docks With The International Space Station
On June 3rd, 2017, yet another Falcon 9 booster launched from LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center, this time carrying the 11th SpaceX Commercial Resupply mission to the International Space Station. This mission is noteworthy for 2 reasons: This is the 100th launch from LC-39A, which was first used for the Apollo 4 Saturn V launch […]
SpaceX Launches Its Heaviest Payload Yet – Inmarsat-5
Yesterday evening SpaceX launched Inmarsat-5 F4, the heaviest payload yet flown on a Falcon 9. Inmarsat-5 is yet another communications satellite, this one intended to provide increased network connectivity over Europe (to put it extremely simply). The vehicle was a Falcon 9 full thrust, and due to the record weight of the payload (for Falcon […]
What I Failed To Notice About Yesterday’s SpaceX Launch
I’ve made a pretty big mistake in my article yesterday about the Falcon 9 launch of NROL-76. This is the fact that they used high-end cameras and telescope systems to track the booster for it’s entire flight and return to land. https://www.xadara.com/nrol-76-successfully-flies-on-a-falcon-9-rocket/ Seriously, re-watch the footage: aside from a few sections to show the on-booster […]
NROL-76 Successfully Flies On A Falcon 9 Rocket
After a day long delay, the classified U.S. Military payload known as NROL-76 was launched this morning, not on a Delta IV or an Atlas V booster, but on a SpaceX Falcon 9! It’s an incredibly standard launch from LC-39A, but being a military payload, the livestream of the event focused on liftoff and the […]
SpaceX Successfully Re-flies A Falcon 9 First Stage!
Looks like the engineering teams at SpaceX did things right – the 1st stage of the Falcon 9 rocket for the SES-10 launch, which was used last April for the CRS-8 Mission, not only flew successfully, apparently they re-landed the stage on a drone ship in the ocean. Again. Yeah, the stage successfully launched and […]
Finally, A Falcon 9 First Stage Re-flight To Happen On The SES-10 Mission
One of the goals in the rocketry ethos of SpaceX is reusability – This past year they have seemingly mastered the art of landing a booster back on Earth and, if need be, onto ocean barges (quite an incredible thing when you think about how rough ocean waters are). Later this evening, they plan on […]
EchoStar 23 Successfully Launched On A Falcon 9 Booster
This morning was the successful launch of of the EchoStar 23 communications satellite from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39A on a Falcon 9 booster. This is the second launch of a Falcon 9 from LC-39, and the 3rd successful launch since the September 2016 explosion of a Falcon 9 rocket on LC-40. It looks […]
SpaceX CRS-10 Launch Webcasts
As always for any SpaceX launch, here are both the technical and hosted webcasts. For this launch I mainly watched the actual NASA feed, as it felt more fitting for the launch from pad 39. I should have stuck with the SpaceX feed though as it had better video and the added telemetry data that […]