In the famous words of Maxwell Smart in the '60s series Get Smart. What in the world am I talking about missing? Last night's post about this morning's scheduled Falcon Heavy launch. The launch was scrubbed late in the countdown due to storms in the area, with the scrub called at just about T-30 seconds, when they ordinarily will issue their "go for launch call." The official forecast was for a 70% chance of good weather, so it was at least somewhat of surprise to everyone.
Screen capture of NASA Spaceflight's coverage of this morning's scrub. Is that
gray cloud taking up the left side of the photo the one that caused the scrub?
The current schedule for this FH launch is Tuesday, April 28, at 10:13 AM.
Since I'm here, SpaceX had their 50th Falcon 9 launch of the year last night from Vandenberg, carrying another load of 25 Starlink satellites. The magic of the internet tells me that was the 116th day of the year, which calculates to around 155 to 160 Falcon 9 launches this year, if they keep the exact same pace, which seems like it might be a little pessimistic. The big variable is when Vandenberg's second launch pad gets started operating, which would enable two launches/week from both coasts.
Something that needs to be shared is a video from SpaceX, called Starship - Test Like You Fly and while it's nearly a half hour long, it's absolutely worth watching. They sent me a copy directly to my email address associated with the blog (right sidebar under "WANT TO EMAIL ME?) a couple of days ago and I watched yesterday. It's got me stoked and ready for flight test 12, which will be the first test of a bunch of new systems. You'll see how they got there.
Watched "Starship - Test Like You Fly" earlier today. Excellent insight into Space X.
ReplyDeleteExcellent video. Inspiring. And I like that SpaceX openly acknowledges their mistakes and failures.
ReplyDeleteAs to weather at the Cape, years of experience from living down there, yeah, weather's a bit volatile at times. Best to scrub than launch in bad weather. Good call on whomever's part on that.
And it's great to see the Western Test Range get lots of commercial action. Everybody after the mid 60's knew about the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral and the Eastern Test Range, but Vandenburg was pretty much an unknown for so long. A second Falcon pad? Cool. Wonder if they're thinking about Starship from Vandy?
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen anything about that, but that doesn't mean much. NASA Spaceflight ran this piece last October saying, "The decision clears the path for the redevelopment of the historic Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6), enabling up to 100 annual Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches from the site." That's twice as many SpaceX launches as Vandy did the year before in total.
DeleteAnd even Blue Origin is looking to be considered for the next pad at Vandy. Apparently, Space Force selected Blue, so it's not "if SpaceX is doing it, we can, too!"
Oops - left out the link for the last paragraph. Here.
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