Category: Fun & Curios

NorKs fail again

Electron from NZ tonight
40th flight, 7th recovered booster, first re-flown booster engine

India’s Chandrayaan-3 lands on the Moon!
More info with background and future plans

Tues morning from Vandenberg (landing in the x-ring)

• Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the moon (interesting video of latest news, updated)

• On deck: India’s second try (Wed morning)

Rescheduled Launch #2 to next week
(delayed due to the Pacific hurricane in the landing area)

Another textbook night launch from the Cape
13th landing for this booster

If you’re wondering why I post mainly SpaceX launches:
• Landings (never had these back in my day, only capsules in parachutes caught in mid-air)
• Sheer mass (profit > glory)
• Just entertainin’ myself, here

(click through for readable size)

Textbook night launch from the Cape, early-AM Friday
Nice landing vid

Next launch planned for Wednesday from the Cape

Aaaand another textbook launch

The next one is scheduled for Thursday night from the Cape,
with another one Sunday from Vandenberg again.

Note: this kind of foggy launch reminds me of back in the day with the fire/security team stationed less than a mile north of this launch complex. As the vehicle rises and starts to pitch south, you’re lookin’ right into the engine nozzles. On a foggy day, you can’t see it; and it sounds like it’s comin’ right atcha. Everybody moseys over near the fire truck, just in case the noise goes away abruptly or gets really loud, when diving for cover will go to the top of the things-to-do list.

Starlink night launch from the Cape

Sunday morning’s static fire of Starship’s SuperHeavy B9
with nifty new water-cooling baseplate

Drone view of Booster 9 static fire test pic.twitter.com/ARv6H6njgu

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 6, 2023

Another textbook night launch from the Cape
Payload deployment at the end is nice*

______
* Like a magician’s final flourish after a series of seemingly miraculous set-up moves

______
• Story
• Alternative joke
• Title cultural ref
• Cultural ref

Thursday Night Falcon9 Starlink
This booster’s 15th launch/landing

Friday’s Falcon Heavy Jupiter3 comsat launch
Side boosters land, center booster expended

Full water-deluge test on Starhip launch mount
Another angle
Just a reminder of what can be done,
if your goal is to actually fix an actual problem
(see: engineering vs legislating)

Aliens, aliens, I say!
Bigass satellite deployment

What are we talking about?
Extraterrestrial material? Already have some (meteorites, moon/asteroid samples, etc.)
Extraterrestrial crewed craft? Very highly unlikely
Extraterrestrial robotic craft? Somewhat less very highly unlikely

Hiding the fact-of may be useful to governments, of course;
but I think that this ambiguity is be even more valuable to Hollywood
______
• Story