Main Engine Cut OffWorkers will be attaching the pylon that holds LauncherOne to the aircraft’s left wing in the next few days, he said. “If everything goes well there, we’ll conduct our first captive carry test,” he said. The flight will take place from the Mojave Air and Space Port in California.
The language is vague, but it sounds like they’re talking about the entire window that runs until July 6. Must be a really pesky issue if they don’t think they can get it solved within a week.
Yowza. They’ll need to get an additional $800 million approved by Congress, and the launch is now set for about a year from the estimated retirement date of Ariane 5.
“The partnership combines the lower resolution but daily global coverage of Planet’s cubesat constellation with Airbus’ fleet of high-resolution satellites that have more limited coverage.”
About two months ago, we heard that Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin would be receiving sole-source contracts for the next-generation Overhead Persistent Infrared program. I believe this is the first official contract award we’ve seen posted.
The HYDROS-C propulsion unit is tiny—just 1U in size. NASA also has a nice video up showing PTD-1 in action.
I don’t remember RL10 being part of the previously-awarded EELV propulsion contracts. Wonder if that’s related to the recent announcements that both Vulcan and OmegA will use the RL10 as their upper stage.
AFSPC-52 is well within the performance of an expended Falcon 9, so this is exactly one of those scenarios predicted for Falcon Heavy’s use: flying a recoverable Falcon Heavy instead of an expended Falcon 9.
Just in time for opposition, when we take out our telescopes and try to get a glimpse of some surface detail. Hoping it clears up for us —and Opportunity—by mid-July.
That means the relay satellite is doing well at Earth-Moon L2. I’m really excited to watch this mission get up there.