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from the off-we-go-into-the-wild-blue-yonder dept.
Spaceflightnow reports on the next launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket (11 hours from the time this story posts):
Falcon 9 • Iridium Next 51-55 & GRACE Follow-On
Launch time: 1947:58 GMT (3:47:58 p.m. EDT; 12:47:58 p.m. PDT)
Launch site: SLC-4E, Vandenberg Air Force Base, California
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch five satellites for the Iridium next mobile communications fleet and two Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE Follow-On) satellites for NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ). The Falcon 9 rocket will launch with a previously-flown first stage.
As it usually does, SpaceX has a live feed page up on YouTube which also notes:
A backup instantaneous launch opportunity is available on Wednesday, May 23 at 12:42 p.m. PDT, or 19:42 UTC.
[...] SpaceX will not attempt to recover Falcon 9's first stage after launch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @03:56PM (4 children)
is, or is this a spacex only site?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday May 22 2018, @04:01PM (2 children)
You didn't comment on the last one [soylentnews.org]. Or are you just a slow idiot?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @04:06PM (1 child)
I am a slow idiot, but to be fair I didn't check yesterday.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 22 2018, @04:58PM
You were just out to launch.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 23 2018, @12:59AM
Is there another game in town?
It's not Orbital Sciences. Right now, there's SpaceX and then there's a bunch of other launchers who can't come anywhere near them on price. And if SpaceX can deliver on BFR with reasonable specs, it'll probably wipe out most of the world's space launch industry, including Orbital.
For example, from this report [faa.gov], Falcon 9 launched 18 commercial payloads (which appears to be the extent of its launch activity) to 6 for Atlas V and 2 for all of Orbital Science's launch vehicles combined. In other words, Falcon 9 is the commercial launch market in the US. And given that there were only 90 orbital launches in the entire world, including scientific and military payloads, that means that a single company founded 15 years earlier now launches a fifth of the entire market in 2017.
But sure, let's talk about Orbital. They launch rockets or something, right?