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The Great one, Elon has tweeted that the Starhopper will be doing small hop tests, up to 20 metres going by permits, in 10 day. That will be around 1st June. Everyday Astronaut will try to live stream it.
 
Falcon 9 launch at 12.30 pm 24th. Links above.

Another revision of the Starship. It will now how have 6 engines rather than the 7 on previous versions. Three sea level and 3 vacuum Raptors. Vacuum optimized mean bigger nozzles for better performance in space. The prototypes will fly with 3 or maybe all 6 at first.

Other news. Their are at least 100 companies developing rockets and other space launch systems.
 
The Starlink mission was a success though the release of the 60 satellites was not as spectacular as I had thought. Booster landed Ok and both fairings recovered.

A highlight video....

[video=480,360]https://youtu.be/NU95s5wfT6w[/video]

This is a video of the satellites passing over the Netherlands. They will slowly spread out and light their engines to place them in their individual orbits.
They have Ion engines powered by Krypton. Sounds very Star Trek eh.

https://vimeo.com/338361997?fbclid=IwAR0Q-pPW0dqd9NdjlgRZWHoJguX-AqfjxVk-3SDkzrEVl_sT-U1uovL6I6M
 
Funny if you understand it. :D

Starlink sattelites begin to disperse.

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Sad to hear that Stratolaunch has closed shop. I guess the when the visionary dies, his vision dies with him. Paul G. Allen passed away a few months ago. They built and flew the largest plane ever.

1559516082_stratolaunch.jpg


Meanwhile there are 6 spacecraft docked to the ISS today. Room for one more. The Dragon will be departing for return to Earth later today.

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Dragon cargo capsule looking toasty after returning from the ISS yesterday. Loaded up with science experiments and it is the only craft capable of bringing materials back to earth. The other cargo craft, Soyuz and progress, burn up in the atmosphere.

An imaginary prize for guessing what the diagonal slash is.

1559698699_dr1.jpg

1559698700_dr2.jpg
 
'To Expose Contents, just Unzip'. ?.... sign got burnt off... {) Living up to the name 'toasted marshmallow'.... :lol:

Or a Parachute cord got caught.... something sliced into it that's for sure...

LW...
 
LoneWolf said:
'To Expose Contents, just Unzip'. ?.... sign got burnt off... {) Living up to the name 'toasted marshmallow'.... :lol:

Or a Parachute cord got caught.... something sliced into it that's for sure...

LW...

It IS the parachute cord channel. The chutes are in the hole at the bottom but of course they want it landing right side up so the chute lines rip up that slot and are attached at the top.

There ya go... Ya learnt something today. :D :Y:
 
A few interesting events coming up. The Star hopper should be doing static fire and short hops in the coming days. A raptor has been installed and the hold down cables attached. The next falcon heavy launch has been pushed back to the 24th, I believe.
Orion will do an in flight abort test on July 2nd. Interesting as it looks very similar to the "little Joe" tests for Apollo in the 60's. See pic.
The last pic is from one of my brothers. An Apollo era F1 engine on display at the Powerhouse museum. I am going to go see it while it is still on loan.
Also been announced that tourists will be flying to the ISS on Falcon 9 rockets with the Dragon capsule starting in 2020. Spacex will also be launching at least 2 private moon landers via NASA contracts.

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There's some great pics and stories there Ramjet.... 2020..Hmmmm.. Time to start saving I think..... It is certainly is an exciting time for Space Exploration.... Its great seeing smaller Countries and Companies getting into it....

Another great launch the other day too... Most Expensive payload at an estimated cost of $1.3 billion... I bet Elon and co had their fingers crossed all goes well... And it did...

LW...
 
Yeah LW. Was cool to see it break through the fog. The rocket also did a roll during the launch, like the shuttle used to do. When Everyday Astronaut asked Elon via twitter why. He replied.... "FUN." LOL

Testing the machine I guess and because they can!
 

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