** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **

Glaucus

Glaucus

Glaucus

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Oh wow, flight 14 & 15 (currently October and December) for flacon 9 they're going to try landing on a solid suffice, I assume some sort of big barge.
I believe the next 3 launches aren't possible, two are to GTO so not enough fuel left, and the other I'm not sure what orbit, the fuel for soft touch down will be boarding and likely to run out before touch down, although I believe they're going to try just for data on that one.

Edit - here we go from the horses mouth.

http://www.spacex.com/news/2014/07/22/spacex-soft-lands-falcon-9-rocket-first-stage
At this point, we are highly confident of being able to land successfully on a floating launch pad or back at the launch site and refly the rocket with no required refurbishment. However, our next couple launches are for very high velocity geostationary satellite missions, which don’t allow enough residual propellant for landing. In the longer term, missions like that will fly on Falcon Heavy, but until then Falcon 9 will need to fly in expendable mode.

We will attempt our next water landing on flight 13 of Falcon 9, but with a low probability of success. Flights 14 and 15 will attempt to land on a solid surface with an improved probability of success.
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Cosimo

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ESA's last Automated Transfer Vehicle, ATV-5, is heading for the ISS in the early hours of tomorrow morning at 00:47 BST from Europe’s Spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana:

 

Cosimo

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ATV-5 during preparation in the Final Assembly Building and integration on its Ariane 5 launcher:


ATV-5 is set to carry almost 6.6 tonnes of supplies to the ISS.
 

Cosimo

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More Orion preparation:

pj2SYZ0.jpg

A test version of NASA's Orion spacecraft floats inside the well deck of the U.S.S. Anchorage on Aug. 2, 2014, during recovery tests off the coast of California. A combined NASA and U.S. Navy team practiced recovery techniques over the weekend, in preparation for Orion's first trip to (and return from) space in Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1) in December.
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Cosimo

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LIVE: First attempt of AsiaSat 8 and Falcon 9 launch aborted:


It now looks like we may be able to have another attempt within the launch window which ends at 09:11 BST (04:11 EDT). They will reset the countdown clock and assess the situation. Watch this space!
 
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