A sampling of recent articles, videos, and images dealing with space transport:
** SpaceX;
**** Second Falcon Heavy launch now set for Wednesday, April 11th from Kennedy Space Center:
Now targeting Falcon Heavy launch of Arabsat-6A on Wednesday, April 10 – weather forecast improves to 80% favorable
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 8, 2019
**** A successful static firing of the Falcon Heavy took place last Friday: SpaceX conducts Static Fire on Falcon Heavy ahead of Arabsat 6A launch – NASASpaceFlight.com
**** A view of the Falcon Heavy in the hangar courtesy Elon Musk:
Booster mate inside SpaceX’s hangar at LC-39A ahead of Falcon Heavy’s static fire yesterday pic.twitter.com/G7ZPhOBkyj
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 6, 2019
A nice view of the business end of the FH:
Falcon Heavy’s 27 Merlin engines generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, making it the world’s most powerful operational rocket by a factor of two pic.twitter.com/0LGaLgdi13
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 7, 2019
The scorched booster over to the side of the FH, is the first stage used on the Crew Dragon mission that flew in early March.
Also in the hangar is the Falcon 9 first stage booster that launched Crew Dragon to the @Space_Station last month
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 7, 2019
Speaking of the Crew Dragon demo, SpaceX has posted new videos on the company’s Youtube Channel with the complete webcasts for each major event during the mission.
**** A second Starhopper engine firing took place on the evening of the same day as the FH static firing. The vehicle lifted a short distance off the ground: SpaceX’s Starhopper Prototype for Starship Reaches End of Its Rope In Test Hop | Space.com
Starhopper just lifted off & hit tether limits! pic.twitter.com/eByJsq2jiw
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 6, 2019
**** A dramatic view of Starhopper via Elon Musk:
** Ariane V launches four O3b satellites on April 4th, bringing the total number of spacecraft in the medium earth orbit constellation to twenty. The constellation provides global broadband Internet services.
- Mission accomplished: Arianespace’s latest Soyuz success marks completion of the initial O3b satellite constellation – Arianespace
- Soyuz Flight VS22 – Arianespace
- Soyuz ST-B lofts another set of O3b satellites – NASASpaceFlight.com
** Relativity Space will launch satellites for Telesat’s low earth orbit broadband Internet services constellation. Relativity is developing expendable rockets aimed at the growing market for launching small satellites. The company has not yet launched a rocket but is making progress in developing large 3D printing systems that will print all of the large structures of the company’s rockets, drastically reducing the number of individual parts and speeding up assembly of the rocket. Their first vehicle, the Terran 1 rocket, will put 700 kg into a 1200 km altitude sun-synchronous orbit and the debut launch is set for the end of 2020.
- Relativity Contracts with Telesat to Provide Launch Services for Telesat’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Satellite Constellation – Relativity Space/APNews.com
- Relativity Space inks first Cape Canaveral launch deal for its… – ClickOrlando.com
- Relativity, the 3D printed rocket manufacturer, inks multi-year contract with Telesat | TechCrunch
** Reaction Engines has a successful test of a Pre-cooler prototype: UK’s Sabre space plane engine tech in new milestone – BBC News
The pre-cooler is a key component of the Sabre rocket engine, which uses oxygen from the air during the initial atmospheric phase of a space launch vehicle’s flight before switching to on-board oxygen when the vehicle leaves the atmosphere. For combustion with the hydrogen fuel to take place properlyh, the incoming air must be cooled from ~1000°C to -150°C in 1/20th of a second.
** The latest on space elevators from the Int. Space Elevator Consortium: ISEC Space Elevator Newsletter April 2019.
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