burble @ burble @lemmy.dbzer0.com

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From the Arstechnica article:

The military's talk of expanding the envelope and operating in new orbital regimes seems to suggest the next X-37B mission will fly in a higher orbit than its predecessors.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2023/11/in-a-surprise-move-the-militarys-spaceplane-will-launch-on-falcon-heavy/

Looks good! It's cool to see how much smaller their purpose-built tower is compared to the repurposed one on LC-39A.

If Axiom-3 is supposed to launch from SLC-40 NET Jan 24, then this will enter service before the Starliner crew access arm at SLC-41 (NET Apr 24).

Berger just said they're targeting Dec. 1 to Feb. 23 launch window for the third flight.

https://bird.makeup/users/sciguyspace/statuses/1721611872028274932

For a bunch of scrap carbon fiber? Nothing. For the propulsion / GNC tech to China or if you cut out the logo and other parts and sell them to nerds? More than nothing.

I think this is a step to get cleared to launch Starship from 39A, but they could have been working on it this whole time, and were working on the launch mount off-site, right? My feeling was that part of the hold-up there was wanting to prove out the design a bit more down in Boca Chica first.

Vulcan and New Glenn look pretty good, but I'm more looking forward to the Rocket Lab Neutron and Relativity Terran-R a few more years down the road.

If the first two Vulcan launches go well, a lot of big milestones will get hit across the board. First flights of a new rocket and upper stage, first CLPS lander, first flight of Dreamchaser, and proving the BE-4 for New Glenn. Those have all been a loooooong time coming!

Next Year™

I feel like they'll launch a New Glenn, Blue Ring, and Blue Moon Mk1 within the next 5 years. I'm less sure about seeing the first Orbital Reef module during that timeframe.

At some point, one of these programs has to cross the finish line, right?

What do you mean "disagree"? That SpacexX should be cut off from government contracts? Is the owner even under investigation or anything by the US gov (court of public opinion notwithstanding)?

Who else is supposed to launch these payloads?

Excitement guaranteed for those ships without heat hields

Absolutely 0 insider info here - I wonder if they skipped a lot during block upgrades or major design changes, like stopping work on a lot of similar engines after the first orbital flight because of the amount of rework needed being too significant.

I think the "just waiting for a launch license" thing has been misleading a few times in the past, and I suspect that's going on (or at least was the case) again here. That being said, I do wish that all of these agencies could pay better and staff up enough to get through this type of investigation more quickly.

Industrial runoff, even of pure fresh water, can really mess with the balance of a brackish area. They should have done sea-launch from the beginning if they didn't want to be a good neighbor to the public lands around the launch site.

Prototypes are neat. I wonder what the full story behind the scenes is on this one, like if keeping up with their original design will get them to the moon first, which will be huge for testing out plenty of systems that will get used on mk2.

A skyhook would be a lot easier to implement on the moon than Earth (no atmosphere and 1/6 gravity).

Good old regulatory capture and ladder pulling.

I kind of wonder if they're already doing this to an extent with AFTS and satellite brightness.

Other companies are working on reuse, but they haven't gotten anything up and running.

Neutron, Terran R, and New Glenn will have reusable 1st stages. New Glenn will probably fly first in the next year or two, but we'll see how long it takes them to reuse a stage.

Stoke is the only one I know of working on reusable upper stages. They actually hopped a prototype of their upper stage not too long ago.

What would the final destack be for?

Agreed on the taxes (there shouldn't be billionaires), but to give SpaceX a bit of credit, they're offering to help fund some of this:

The company also believes that license applicants should be able to opt-in to help fund independent third-party technical support to assist the FAA surge in the near term

That's a good point, and I hadn't thought about that angle, that there just isn't a reason for the terms to exist in the first place.

"In the red" and "in the black" is another pair that isn't intuitive to me at all and I have to look up every time.

Allowlist and Blocklist are also more intuitive to people who haven't heard the terms before.