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

Cosimo

Cosimo

Cosimo

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The SpaceX, JCSAT-14 mission in now targeted for Friday at 06:21 BST. The launch window can be extended by two hours.

It will be live here:


with live updates:

https://spacexstats.com/live

Technical webcast here:


Following stage separation, the first stage of Falcon 9 will attempt an experimental landing on the “Of Course I Still Love You” droneship.

Weather is 90% favourable for launch tomorrow
 

Glaucus

Glaucus

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the video of the landings great, cheering as you see it descending, volume drops considerably as it flares the camera out, then it go mental as camera refocuses showing it landed.
 

Khrest

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It just seems as though they get things done whilst NASA spends 7-8 years designing one rocket that it can afford to launch once every couple of years. I realise that's more congress' fault than NASA's but it's starting to seem as though the road ahead for space exploration is privately funded.

The odds of the first person to walk on Mars having a SpaceX logo on their suit are pretty good I reckon.
 

Cosimo

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Superb onboard video of a rocket being launched and then the deployment of a capsule:


On November 6th, 2015 UP Aerospace Inc. launched the 20-foot (6 meter) tall SL-10 rocket into near-space. The mission: deploy the Maraia Capsule testing the aerodynamics and stability of the payload on re-entry to the atmosphere. The rocket reached an altitude of 396,000ft (120,700 meters) and speeds up to Mach 5.5 (3800mph or 6115km/h) at engine burnout.
Click to expand...

:cool:
 

Glaucus

Glaucus

Glaucus

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Khrest said:
It just seems as though they get things done whilst NASA spends 7-8 years designing one rocket that it can afford to launch once every couple of years. I realise that's more congress' fault than NASA's but it's starting to seem as though the road ahead for space exploration is privately funded.

The odds of the first person to walk on Mars having a SpaceX logo on their suit are pretty good I reckon.
Click to expand...

It's absolutely congresses fault. They dedicated to the engineers what they have to use. They would never use solid booster rockets on crewed vehicles if they had a choice.

The future is COTS like programs. Where nasa says to private companies we want you to achieve xyz and we'll pay you a fixed amount to achieve it.

It will be hard for spaceX to go to mars (human missions) on it's own, not impossible. But a collaboration makes far more sense. All the life-support, rovers, 3d printing and 1001 other vital equipment you need.

If I had to predict (and that's hard as everything changing so fast) congress will eventually find them self in a space race with others, and they will simply end up purchasing soacex flights, Bigelow habitats etc, To get there first.
 
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