SpaceX drone ship arrives in California
Capitalism in space: One of SpaceX’s two drone ships used by its Falcon 9 first stages for ocean landings has arrived in California in preparation for frequent Starlink launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
The journey began on the East Coast two weeks ago and included passage through the Panama Canal. Once the drone ship gets offloaded, it will be based at Pier T, where it be part of recovery operations for the Starlink landings that potentially could occur in late July or early August.
These California launches will allow SpaceX to increase the global coverage of its Starlink constellation. It will also allow the company to begin frequent launches from both coasts.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Capitalism in space: One of SpaceX’s two drone ships used by its Falcon 9 first stages for ocean landings has arrived in California in preparation for frequent Starlink launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
The journey began on the East Coast two weeks ago and included passage through the Panama Canal. Once the drone ship gets offloaded, it will be based at Pier T, where it be part of recovery operations for the Starlink landings that potentially could occur in late July or early August.
These California launches will allow SpaceX to increase the global coverage of its Starlink constellation. It will also allow the company to begin frequent launches from both coasts.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Most of the reason, SpaceX moved both drone ships to the Florida seemed to be a lack of demand for polar orbits. It sounds like most of the demand here is coming from Spacex itself. I think its cool Spacex figure out how to do Southern Polar orbits from Florida, but I haven’t seen anything that suggests to me there are a many new flights needed to launch from the west coast other than those belonging to spacex.
On the subject of drone ships there has been talk for years on and off about a 3rd drone ship coming online. But I haven’t hear anything about that in the last few months. My reading is one of the issue Spacex is running into is the time in and time out to sea is about week each way. So the best your going to do is a launch a week(which is still really good) or two close together then two week turn around.
Thanks for all you do Bob
I haven’t seen anything that suggests to me there are a many new flights needed to launch from the west coast other than those belonging to spacex.
DART, Worldview Legion 1, SARah 1, SARah 2/3, NROL-85, NROL-87, Space Norway, SWOT, SPHEREx, SDA Tranche 0 flights 1 & 2, future Transporter launches
On the subject of drone ships there has been talk for years on and off about a 3rd drone ship coming online. But I haven’t hear anything about that in the last few months.
A Shortfall of Gravitas is expected to begin sea trials in the Gulf of Mexico within weeks.
ASOG (A Shortfall of Gravitas) has been spotted in Louisiana shipyard. It just recently had its wing extensions added, its OctoGrabber installed.
Design is refined. All the hardware is on one end of the deck instead of both. Looks like it has a Starlink dish. The thrusters are yet another even bigger size it would seem.
(JRTI got bigger thrusters than OCISLY, and now ASOG even more so).
As noted it is expected to begin sea trials and then move to Florida once complete in the near future.
This forum on NasaSpaceflight.com is pretty good on the ASDS barges.
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=39766.3300
OK, somebody is ignorant here. “Gravitas” is not “gravity”, it is “dignity”, “seriousness”
“Gravitas (Classical Latin: [ˈɡrawɪt̪aːs̠]) was one of the ancient Roman virtues that denoted “seriousness”. It is also translated variously as weight, dignity, and importance and connotes restraint and moral rigor. It also conveys a sense of responsibility and commitment to the task.
Along with pietas (regard for discipline and authority), severitas, gloria, simplicitas (lucidity), integritas, dignitas, and virtus, gravitas was particularly appreciated as an ideal characteristic in leaders. Gravitas and virtus are considered more canonical virtues than the others.”
So SpaceX is characterized by a lack of seriousness and dignity because they don’t care about the quality of their work?
No, SpaceX is simply naming its drone ships after the somewhat-whimsical names of starships in a certain series of books. In fact, most of SpaceX’s various creations have been named after fictional spaceships, memes, and other pop-culture references.
With all due respect I think Lex Luthor should not use Col Beausabre as an alias
Insert Evil Laugh
Thanks for the update mkent =)
SpaceX named their droneship after General Service Vehicle from Ian M. Bank’s Culture novels. “A Shortfall of Gravitas” is named after about 3 novels of GSV of the Gravitas. The other 2 drone ships are “Of Course I Still Love You” and “Just Read the Instruction”..