Spacesuits and Dragon Crew


Elon Musk wants us all to be able to wake up in the morning and have something grand to look forward to. Well, he is single-handedly making that happen for many of us with his constant output of exciting work. This bright Monday morning we can have a look at a sizzle reel featuring crewed transport on their Dragon launch system, and more about their snazzy spacesuits. I especially like the very last scene!

Falcon Heavy Launch Short Film

The Westworld team, and everyone’s favorite savior of mankind Elon Musk have released a beautiful short video commemorating the incredible and wildly successful Falcon Heavy launch on February 6th 2018. It is most definitely worth a watch, and there is even a short clip of the center booster missing the OCISLU drone ship, which is transparency we can all appreciate. No matter how often I replay the events of that launch in my head, it remains amazing and so very important.

Falcon 9 Launch #50!

Any day where I can wake up and watch a successful rocket launch that took place earlier that morning delights me by proving we, as a people, are doing at least one thing right. This was the historic 50th Falcon 9 launch by SpaceX and Elon Musk (founder, CEO, lead designer, savior of mankind) and as we have already grown to expect, it went off without a hitch.

Unfortunately storm conditions and very high seas prevented everyone’s favorite drone ship, the “Of Course I Still Love You” from retrieving the first stage, which had to be abandoned to the sea. However, the mission was a success, and Hispasat 30W-6 was placed into geosynchronous transfer orbit, there to provide telecommunication services to areas around the globe.
Please check out the excellent article over at newatlas.com for more details!

Dubai space center is joining the race to Mars

Dubai Space Center
“The UAE hopes to become the first Arab state to send a mission to the red planet, by designing, developing, manufacturing and eventually controlling a probe. The country doesn’t have its own rocket technology so it will have to rely on companies such as Mitsubishi (MSBHY) or Musk’s SpaceX to carry the payload into space.”

Exciting to see Dubai and the UAE throwing their support into the ring. They are people who understand the important places to spend effort and capital, and have correctly identified this as the next big thing!
(CNN Tech)

Successful Launch of the PAZ Mission this morning!


Watch the perfect and exhilarating liftoff of the Falcon 9 this morning, and (spoiler) flawless deployment of the payload.

This was an older model booster, not capable of landing, so no recovery on this one, but going forward you can bet that is something we will see on nearly all missions. They did, however, try to catch the fairing with Mr. Steven (another spectacular boat name) but missed by a few hundred meters. The good news? The parafoil deployed correctly and slowed descent, and it should be easily recoverable from the water. This represents a $6million savings each time, which is another piece of the puzzle to reducing launch costs and making these missions increasingly affordable and attractive to carry out.
(more details at techcrunch.com)

SpaceX has an intriguing launch on Wednesday morning

Falcon 9 Launch Ready
(ars technica)
“The primary mission on Wednesday is the launch of the PAZ satellite to low Earth orbit…The Falcon 9 rocket will also carry a second payload of note: two experimental non-geostationary orbit satellites, Microsat-2a and -2b. Those are two satellites that SpaceX has previously said would be used in its first phase of broadband testing as part of an ambitious plan to eventually deliver global satellite Internet. “

Because now Elon Musk is ready to give us global internet. He must have had a few spare minutes before dinner last Thursday!