The next test flight of a version of SpaceX’s Grasshopper could occur in New Mexico in December.
The next test flight of a version of SpaceX’s Grasshopper could occur in New Mexico in December.
The story says this test will be with Grasshopper, but I think that is a mistake. Unless SpaceX is using this name for all its vertical landing test vehicles, the company had said the test vehicle to fly in New Mexico would be a full scale Falcon 9 first stage, with nine Merlin engines, not one as has Grasshopper.
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.
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The next test flight of a version of SpaceX’s Grasshopper could occur in New Mexico in December.
The story says this test will be with Grasshopper, but I think that is a mistake. Unless SpaceX is using this name for all its vertical landing test vehicles, the company had said the test vehicle to fly in New Mexico would be a full scale Falcon 9 first stage, with nine Merlin engines, not one as has Grasshopper.
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
They have been calling the next test vehicle Grasshopper 2 or F9R-1.
In the factory shots, on the blog at:
http://www.spacex.com/news/2013/09/24/production-spacex
In the image: http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/f9productionfloor1.jpg the second Falcon first stage from the left (Has the silver foil on the bottom and only 2 engines in site is supposed to be the test stage from McGregor that tested the 9 Merlin 1D engine cluster before the actual flight stage was tested.
So F9R-1 or GH2 is supposed to use that larger test tank, refurbed, with 3 or 9 engines (I have seen comments both ways) for higher altitude testing.
Also important is that this F9 v1.1 first stage may be SSTO.
Bob Clark