Click here for Part 1. On September 27th, 2016, SpaceX uploaded a video showing what their upcoming super-heavy launch vehicle plans were – the Interplanetary Transport System. This massive booster was going to launch a Mars bound vehicle into Earth orbit. The actual Mars bound ship would insert itself into orbit, with the ITS booster …
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Tag:falcon 9
I Used To Love SpaceX… And Then Things Changed. (Part 1)
Something I noticed the other day when scouring older articles of mine about SpaceX is that I used to love the company, and what they do. No, seriously, I used to seriously talk just like the very fans I deride now, right down to even some of the same phrasings about how watching them land …
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CRS-13 Is Successfully Launched To The International Space Station
After several delays, the final CRS flight of 2017, CRS-13, launched on a Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Launch Complex 40 for a standard cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station. This mission was a somewhat critical one – after the delay of the mysterious Zuma payload, SpaceX basically hasn’t …
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Why “Flight Proven” Means Nothing To Me
The primary focus that SpaceX has in its endeavours is in re-usability of launch vehicles. The Falcon 9, in current form, is a launch vehicle in which the first stage is capable of making a controlled landing back at the launch site, or on a drone ship in the ocean (as launch needs permit) and …
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SpaceX Successfully Static-Fires A Falcon 9 At Launch Complex 40
I wouldn’t normally cover a test firing of a Falcon 9 stage, but this one is kind of important – it marks the first use of Launch Complex 40 since the September 2016 explosion of a Falcon 9 booster destroyed the launch facility. Going back to that explosion, it happened during the same kind of …
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SpaceX Scheduling Madness
This is going to be interesting – a two-fold article. On one half, I have a bit more to say about what upcoming SpaceX content I have coming, and on the other half, I feel it worth discussing the actual current scheduling that SpaceX is launching on in the upcoming months. On my end, as …
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About The Upcoming SpaceX Articles…
So, as I’ve hinted to recently, I’m long overdue on finishing up a rather, shall we say, intense set of articles regarding SpaceX. More correctly, these articles regard the attitude the SpaceX fan base exudes, which is heavily rooted in the way SpaceX pushes itself to the public – a hype culture the company feeds …
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A SpaceX Falcon 9 Engine Fails On The Test Stand (And Commentary On Fan Reactions)
In doing my usual space news perusing yesterday I came across news that a SpaceX Merlin engine had “exploded” on the test stand. As it would turn out, the engine didn’t explode, but what did happen is still interesting enough to discuss here. The article also shared a bit of new information with me that …
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Koreasat-5A Is Successfully Launched On A SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket
It’s been a little while since any major space related news, but then again it’s been a rather quiet front on the side of launches of note – or at least, ones I feel it good to write about. In this case, we have another SpaceX Falcon 9 launch, this one of a communications satellite …
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A SpaceX Falcon 9 Successfully Launches A New Set of Iridium NEXT Satellites
Early this morning a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster launched from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, carrying 10 new satellites for the Iridium NEXT communications network. They were released about an hour after launch once they were in their proper positions to function in the “constellation” of satellites that will make up the Iridium NEXT …
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Re: The Downsizing Of The SpaceX “BFR”
While I plan on eventually addressing the entiretiy of the points made by Elon Musk at the International Astronautical Congress this past Friday, I did want to, at current, focus on one thing that has really gotten under my skin; the fact that SpaceX has, as I’ve heard others say, down-scaled and in some ways …
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Can SpaceX Actually Accomplish It’s Incredible Goals?
Something that I don’t think has actually come up in my commentary on SpaceX and its fan base is the question of capability. With all the criticisms I (naturally) have for the far off, science-fiction sounding goals of the company, you have to wonder: Do I actually think SpaceX can do all the things they …
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One Year Ago I Discovered The Cult Of SpaceX
If you had asked my opinion of SpaceX on Septmeber 26th, 2016, I would have told you that I loved them, and that I was excited and happy to see posts relating to their projects, launches, and the like. If you ask me today, I’ll tell you I still like the company, and some of …
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SpaceX Successfully Launches The X-37B For Its OTV-5 Mission
Yesterday SpaceX successfully launched the military’s X-37B space-plane into orbit for another mission to do… well, we really don’t know. It’s somewhat a mystery what it does – we know it “hosts experiments” and is built for long duration flight (literally over a year in orbit on its last mission) as well as high maneuverability, …
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SpaceX Isn’t Perfect
A key theme that seems to exist in the mind of every member of the “Cult of SpaceX” is this presumption that SpaceX is somehow perfect – that nothing ever goes wrong when SpaceX is involved! Even if this isn’t literally what is thought, the attitude presented exudes such an idea. SpaceX isn’t perfect. No …
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