Another SpaceX launch, this time of the Taiwanese Earth-Observation satellite Formosat-5. This was one of the lightest payloads ever launched on a Falcon 9 at only about 475 kilograms, are just over 1000 lbs. Most Falcon 9 payloads tend to be in the 3,000-7,000 kilogram weight range, with one going so far as 9,000 kilograms …
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Tag:falcon 9
SpaceX CRS-12 Successfully Launches To The International Space Station
Today marked another Falcon 9 launch, carrying a Dragon cargo spacecraft on a resupply mission to the International, Space Station. As usual, it was a nominal launch with a successful first stage landing, and successful insertion into orbit of the Dragon spacecraft which should be getting to the Space Station about the time I publish …
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Elon Musk Says The SpaceX Falcon Heavy May Fail On Its First Flight
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 …
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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 …
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What I Like About SpaceX
With me about to go into detail on the phenomena I call “The Cult of SpaceX” I thought it would serve well to express upfront just what I do actually like about SpaceX, which is quite a bit. In fact, if I didn’t like something about SpaceX the more hostile elements of its fanbase wouldn’t …
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SpaceX? Where Do We Begin…
If you read my articles related to SpaceX at all, you will notice a common theme with them – excitement for launches, a feeling of happiness with success, but all the while, at least since September of 2016, a level of snark, of subtle disdain can be read in the posts. To be fair some …
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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 …
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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 …
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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. http://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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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SpaceX CRS-10 – The First Launch From LC-39 In 5 Years
Saturday, February 18th, 2017, will mark the first launch in 5 years from Kennedy Space Center LC-39. Pad 39A last saw usage for the final launch of the Space Shuttle Program, STS-135, in 2011, and since then has been only slightly modified from its shuttle configuration to accommodate the future SpaceX Commercial Crew Missions to …
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Why Did The Falcon 9 Explode? Video by Thunderf00t
YouTube user Thunderf00t, a scientist who also happens to make videos about a wide variety of subjects, has spent quite a bit of time in the week following the Falcon 9 explosion studying the event in detail and formulating his own ideas as to why the vehicle exploded – more accurately, describing the variables that …
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