Main Engine Cut Off
A perfect Florida sky, the blending of past and future hardware with the weathered Fixed Service Structure and SpaceX’s brand-new transporter-erector, the sleek-as-ever Falcon 9 complete with landing legs…the absolute beauty of this photo is endless.
Our old friend u/Death_Cog_unit posted some photos over on r/spacex of the ITS composite tank back in port after its most recent test outing. This time, it came back in pieces.
A Falcon Heavy side booster was seen outside SpaceX HQ wrapped and ready to hit the road. On the ITS front, the composite tank was seen on the move in Anacortes, WA.
It took a while for this to be announced officially. I talked with Mike Johnson, Chief Designer at NanoRacks, back in September about the airlock project (among a lot of other very interesting topics) and he said on the podcast that they were all set on the NASA side and were about to start finding a launch slot.
CRS-10 has been set as the first SpaceX launch from 39A, with pad renovations taking longer than expected. EchoStar 23 will be launched after CRS-10.
SpaceX added over 40,000 square feet of space in Redmond, Washington, where their satellite internet operation is based.
SpaceX is off to a strong start in 2017 with a very successful launch of Iridium-1 and a promising next few weeks. I also discuss the very interesting story developing between NASA, Boeing, and Russia regarding Soyuz flights to the ISS.
Assuming the next three launches hold their date, SpaceX will hit their target cadence of once every two weeks right off the bat. Iridium-1 on January 14, EchoStar 23 on January 26, CRS-10 on February 8, SES-10 on February 22. Those are gaps of 12 days, 13 days, and 14 days, respectively.
There’s clearly a split over this topic within NASA and their advisory groups. My guess is that “load and go” is going to win out in the end. If SpaceX can put together a strong, reliable 2017, with the above report from NASA’s Safety Technical Review Board in hand, this issue could be put to bed once and for all.
While we don’t yet have hard details on which direction NASA programs are headed during the Trump administration, we have started to get some hints. The leadership of the Congressional subcommittees that NASA depends on will be largely unchanged, and Boeing and SpaceX were each promised 4 more Commercial Crew flights. I also talk a little bit about how the Air Force One and F-35 situations apply to NASA programs.