JCC The Official SpaceX Launch/Disaster Thread

Now this is reusability

Regular old Falcon booster on its 10th go around.

 

^ Awesome, it's a double ace.

 

SN15 is headed back to the launch pad for a 2nd go.

 

So China has landed a rover on Mars. Pretty cool.

 

Yep! That makes China the second country to successfully land a rover on Mars. And this is a week after they got the first module for their multi-module space station up into orbit.

 

They have some low quality video of Mars as they were getting ready to attempt landing but there does not appear to be any released recording of the landing itself.

Edit: There's a Starlink launch tonight too.

 

Here's what the first orbital shot will look like

Basically the booster will splash down 20 miles off Texas. Starship will splash down near Hawaii.

 

Very exciting for the future of space science!

 

Virgin Galactic Unity making its first space attempt:

 

SN15 will not fly again

It appears they wanted to but after inspection they decided against.

 

https://www.space.com/17933-nasa-television-webcasts-live-space-tv.html - SpaceX launch to the ISS in about 30 mins.

 

Launch looked good. Normally these are too late for me to watch..

 

China just launched its first crew for their new space station

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57504052

 

A drop off at the Moon, a drop off an assist at Venus, then off to Jupiter with a rather large nuclear powerplant.

 

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sends 88 small satellites into space with a big boom (msn.com)

Booster recovered from its 8th launch, landed on solid ground.

 

Wally Funk, 82-year-old woman who trained for NASA, will go to space with Jeff Bezos on New Shepard flight - ABC7 Chicago

 

Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson prepare for Spaceport America launch, aim to beat Bezos to space (msn.com)

Branson hopes to launch July 11, Bezos is looking at July 20.

 

Battle of the Billionaires

 

Absolutely ****ing stupid.

 

Has Branson named a hostage to guarantee he's allowed reentry yet, or is there a chance?

 

I think Virgin Galactic would have been in business already if Burt Rutan had not retired. They were looking to have paying customers going suborbit by 2009. It also did not help that the ownership of Scaled Composites changed a couple of times. By now there should have been a SpaceShip III going to orbit, but now said SS3 is just a next generation suborbital vehicle.