Space News Roundup - Little Pieces

After a schedule slip from early Halloween morning due to weather down range, the crew rotation Crew-3 flight to the International Space Station was rescheduled for Wednesday night, November 3rd.  Before Wednesday, though, the mission was delayed again due to a "minor medical issue" (unspecified) with one of the crew.  The mission was rescheduled on Saturday, Nov 6, for Saturday night, Nov 6th, at 11:36 PM EDT.  Monday night Nov. 8 at 9:51 p.m. EST (0251 GMT on 9th).
SpaceX live coverage will start about 4 hours earlier.  

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SpaceX has won a contract to launch the (regrettably-named) Skynet military satellites for the United Kingdom.  

Instead of a self-aware, apocalyptic AI, though, “Skynet” refers to the United Kingdom’s planned Skynet 6A spacecraft – part of a family of military communications satellites that far predate their science fiction namesake. It will be the 15th such satellite launched since 1969 when Falcon 9 carries it to a geostationary transfer orbit as early as 2025, beginning a ~$700 million transition to a new network architecture with upgraded ground systems and a different satellite contractor.

On a more serious note as you saw there, the Skynet satellites have been a UK Military program since 1969.  Although they could have come back from the future to plant that story so we don't get upset from the use of the same name in the documentary on Skynet.  The part of this announcement that caught my eye was that it contained an endorsement of SpaceX by a part of the European Space Agency. [BOLD Added: SiG]

UK @DefenceHQ's Skynet 6A satellite will be launched into GEO orbit in 2025 by a @SpaceXFalcon 9 rocket, UK MoD said at @SMi_Group @GlobalMilSatCom. Decision based on value for money & schedule credibility, prime contractor @AirbusSpace said. pic.twitter.com/NJtwISsKit

Based on value for the money and schedule credibility?  I assume that decision involved pitting SpaceX vs. an Ariane booster.  Hmmm.

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The next SpaceX launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base will be carrying a NASA Satellite called DART, Double Asteroid Redirect Test.  This is an interesting mission for the science geeks, not to mention anyone who enjoyed the documentaries about teams redirecting space rocks bound for Earth.  Documentaries like Armageddon or Deep Impact.

DART will crash into a small asteroid 6.5 million miles from Earth and measure the effect on its motion. Tune in: https://t.co/gtbo67VJIz pic.twitter.com/daxLGhGAVR— NASA (@NASA) November 3, 2021

The mission is currently scheduled for 10:20 pm PST, Nov 23 (05:20 UTC, Weds., Nov 24), which is the day before Thanksgiving.  The mission will launch on Falcon 9 Booster 1063 on its third mission; while it's very possible that with the small size of the DART satellite that B1063 could do a Return To Launch Site (RTLS) landing on Vandenberg, the current plans are for it to land on the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You.  DART will be the first interplanetary NASA payload launched on a flight-proven commercial rocket and Falcon 9’s first interplanetary launch.  

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The work at Boca Chica is nonstop, but road closures this week were all postponed so no testing was done.  The next closures are set for Monday, 11/8, with backup days of  11/9 and 11/10, followed by a second set with Primary on 11/11 with backups of 11/12 and 11/15 (Monday).  

They are filling the fuel storage tanks at the Launch complex and signs continue to point toward static firing and other rocket tests soon. 

EDIT Nov. 6, 2021 at 1615 EDT: to update launch schedule of Crew-3 mission, bottom of the first paragraph.