Major US Launches this Week:

• MON CA Falcon9 / Starlink 100th mission of the year
★ THU FL Falcon9 / USSF X-37B Space Plane (RTLS)
• FRI CA Falcon9 / Starlink (nice vid)
- SAT NZ Electron
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Updated: 23 AUG / 1840 (all times US Eastern)
Last week

Rocket PrOn:

● SUN 24th 7:30 pm TX Starship

The tenth flight test of Starship is preparing to launch as soon as Sunday, August 24 → https://t.co/UIwbeGoo2B pic.twitter.com/j0YKKgAxAV

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 15, 2025

Major US Launches this Week:

★ MON FL Falcon9 / Kuiper
- TUE FL Vulcan  / USSF 
• THU CA Falcon9 / Starlink 
• THU FL Falcon9 / Starlink 
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Updated: 15 AUG / 1600 (all times US Eastern)
Last week

Major US Launches this Week:

• MON FL Falcon9 / Starlink
- MON NZ Electron/ iQPS (nice staging and fairing sep vids)
▶︎ FRI ISS Crew Dragon / separation from ISS
▶︎ SAT CA Crew Dragon / Recovery 
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Updated: 9 AUG / 1200 (all times US Eastern)
Last week

Rocket PrOn:

For info, click on X and Grok it.
Don’t miss the nifty shutdown transients in full-screen.

Archimedes full mission duration hot fire. Enjoy. pic.twitter.com/jF3I3zDM9G

— Rocket Lab (@RocketLab) August 7, 2025

Next week, Mach diamonds

Engineering Fun:

MaxQ is maximum aerodynamic pressure.
Think of aerodynamic pressure, Q, as felt wind.
Q = 1/2 x (air density) x (speed squared), so it goes from zero at liftoff to zero in space.
MaxQ is one of the primary design points, like liftoff and stage separation, that drives structure, dynamics, and control.
Basically, if it’s gonna break-up, it’ll be by here.
Where maxQ is the big driver, it requires structural strength and control oomph, i.e. it costs mass, dollars, and payload.
Avoiding the worst of it allows you to trade-off performance, cost, and reliability.
Therefore, they throttle-down around maxQ to avoid needing all that mass while staying within structural and control margin requirements.

Again, a slide rule is required beyond this.