Because of issues preventing a dress rehearsal countdown and launchpad static fire of the Falcon 9 rocket SpaceX has delayed Saturday’s launch.
No new date has yet been set, but I expect the delay will not be long.
In response to the Obama administration’s request a judge has lifted her injunction against the purchase of Russian rocket engines for the Atlas 5 rocket.
More here. It appears that, at least for the moment, the Atlas 5 rocket will be allowed to buy these engines. Whether the Russians will continue to allow them to buy them however remains an open question, especially if things in the Ukraine get worse.
The competition heats up: SpaceX’s next Falcon 9 commercial launch, set for early Saturday morning, will once again attempt a soft splashdown of its first stage.
If this launch happens as scheduled it will also be the fastest turn-around between launches for the company.
The competition heats up: SpaceX continues to acquire land in Texas for its planned spaceport in Brownsville.
Elon Musk’s Dogleg Park LLC picked up an additional five lots in late April, bringing the total number of lots it has acquired in Cameron County to 95. The total land area that SpaceX now owns is roughly 38 acres of land, public records show. This is in addition to 56.5 acres that SpaceX has under lease at the site of what would be the world’s first private and commercial vertical launch site.
Compared to the acquisitions made by the federal government when it established its space centers in Florida and Wallops Island, these purchases are small. Nonetheless, they are likely sufficient for what the company plans to do.
The competition heats up: SpaceX releases spectacular footage of another vertical take-off and landing test of their Falcon 9R rocket, this time flying over 3,000 feet in the air.
Video below the fold. What I think everyone, including me, has missed so far about both the Grasshopper and the Falcon 9R test flights is that the test vehicle not only was able to land safely using its rockets, both vehicles were quickly turned around and flown again. This certainly lends weight to the feasibility of the company’s plan to make their first stage reusable.
A draft bill in Congress is proposing the Pentagon develop an engine for the Atlas 5 engine to replace the Russian engine now used.
The legislation passed by a House subcommittee Wednesday calls for up the U.S. military to spend up to $220 million next year to kick off full-scale development of the engine, which could be ready for flights no later than 2019. The bill states the Defense Department “should develop a next-generation liquid rocket engine that is made in the United States, meets the requirements of the national security space community, is developed by not later than 2019, is developed using full and open competition, and is available for purchase by all space launch providers of the United States.”
There is no reason for this funding gift to the aerospace industry. For one thing, there are two rockets that already exist that use all U.S. parts, the Delta family of rockets and the Falcon 9. For another, if Congress stays out, the private sector will take care of this need and do it for a lot less and far quicker, while costing the taxpayers relatively little. By making this a government project we guarantee it will be expensive and take forever, thus keeping the pork flowing to Congressional districts without solving the problem.
And speaking of keeping pork flowing to Congressional districts, pork king Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) today ripped into NASA for trying to trim a little from the budget of SLS (which sends a lot of cash to Alabama). He also condemned NASA’s manned commercial effort.
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SpaceX has won an injunction from a federal judge, preventing ULA from buying any further Russian engines.
Federal Claims Court Judge Susan Braden said her preliminary injunction was warranted because of the possibility that United Launch Alliance’s purchase of Russian-made engines might run afoul of the sanctions. NBC News’ past coverage of the issue was cited in Braden’s ruling.
Wednesday’s injunction prohibits any future purchases or payments by the Air Force or United Launch Alliance to NPO Energomash, unless and until the Treasury Department or the Commerce Department determines that the deal doesn’t run counter to the U.S. sanctions against Russian officials. Braden stressed that her ruling does not affect previous payments to the Russians, or purchase orders that have already been placed. United Launch Alliance says it already has some of the engines on hand.
This injunction is not directed specifically at the Air Force’s bulk buy from ULA, nor does it address the cartel-like nature of the ULA monopoly for Air Force launches that SpaceX is challenging. However, it does put a serious crimp, if temporary, on the use of Lockheed Martin’s Atlas 5 rocket, which depends on the engine for all its launches. Though the company has engines in stock, they will quickly run out with no way to immediately replace them.
The competition heats up: Thaicom has chosen Orbital Sciences to build its next major communications satellite and SpaceX to launch it.
Thaicom used a Falcon 9 in January to launch its Thaicom 6 satellite, also built by Orbital Sciences. Apparently they were very satisfied with both companies.
SpaceX has released video of its Falcon 9 first stage splashing down vertically in the ocean.
The video is not very good, but at one point you can clearly see for a flash that the first stage is vertical and appears to be hovering above the water.
For decades engineers and managers in the aerospace industry have said that returning a first stage vertically made no sense. Elon Musk insisted that SpaceX try. It appears he and his company are now going to prove that everyone else was wrong about this.
A proposed House bill would forbid use of Russian rocket engines in launching any American military payloads.
This bill is being put forth partly because of the Ukrainian situation and partly to support SpaceX’s effort to break the ULA Atlas/Delta monopoly on military launches. Whether it makes any sense or not is of course beside the point.
Meanwhile, the State Department has expanded the sanctions on satellite exports to Russia, which might threaten some future commercial Proton launches.
Both actions suggest that Elon Musk’s political clout is growing. Obviously his company’s concerns are not the prime motivation behind these decisions, but we should note that both actions hurt his direct competitors, while doing little harm to SpaceX.
The competition heats up: ULA has accelerated delivery of its required Russian rocket engines in anticipation of worsening relations with Russia and with members of Congress.
ULA presently is the only company the Air Force uses to launch its military satellites, and members of Congress are questioning this monopoly in the context of the situation in the Ukraine as well as SpaceX’s lawsuit challenging it.
At the end of a press conference Elon Musk lets slip the news that SpaceX has chosen Brownsville, Texas as the location of its commercial spaceport.
They still have to get some FAA and environmental approvals, but expect to be launching from Texas in “a couple of years.”
