Link;https://www.spacex.com/launches/

Another one up and another one down, third successful landing for the booster. I believe this is one of the newer batch with a projected life of 10 launches.

Not sure what happened with SkySat 3. They called the launch of 1 and it appeared in view 10 seconds later, they called the launch of 2 and it appeared 10 seconds later, they called the launch of 3...... and I didn’t see anything appear, but they all appeared happy.

Yes, it definately deployed ok, you could see it.

No info yet if they caught the fairings.

It's a busy month. Five more launches scheduled for the rest of June. Two Spacex, one Aranespace Vega and a couple of Chinese Long March missions.

At 34:45 on the official SpaceX video ( t+ 19:51) you can see three objects in a slightly lower orbit and they appear again whenever that camera angle is used....I presume that's them.

Everything you ever wanted to know about fairings - except if they caught them.....

Just read elsewhere they fished them out of the sea, one is a total loss. Ouch.

https://spacenews.com/nasa-to-allow-...-and-boosters/

NASA to allow reuse of Crew Dragon spacecraft and boosters

WASHINGTON — NASA will allow SpaceX to reuse Crew Dragon spacecraft and the Falcon 9 first stages for launching them as soon as next year.

A modification to the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract NASA has with SpaceX, published last month, will allow SpaceX to reuse both the Falcon 9 first stage and Crew Dragon spacecraft starting with the second operational mission of the spacecraft, known as Post-Certification Mission (PCM) 2 or Crew-2. That change was described as part of a “bilateral modification” that also formally extended the length of the Demo-2 mission from two weeks to as long as 119 days.

The move is a change for SpaceX, as the company originally planned to use a new Crew Dragon spacecraft on each of its commercial crew missions for NASA. That stood in contrast to Boeing, which will refurbish its CST-100 Starliner crew modules between flights.......

Tonight's launch postponed until Thursday. Shame as its clear skies here, was looking forward to a view.

Niw that is pushing the envelope.....

https://newslanded.com/2020/06/21/na...x-crew-dragon/

NASA PLANNING ON EMERGENCY ESCAPE FROM ISS USING SPACEX CREW DRAGON

SpaceX made history on May 30, 2020, by becoming the first private company to launch astronauts onboard its human-rated spacecraft, the Crew Dragon. Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley set off towards the International Space Station (ISS) on a NASA mission titled “Demo-2,” testing the capabilities of the SpaceX Crew Dragon for NASA’s Commercial Crew program.

The first official mission with 4 NASA astronauts, called Crew-1, is expected to launch later this year. The main goals the current Demo-2 aims to accomplish is to test the spacecraft and all its functionality, including manual control. However, it seems NASA is planning on conducting another unprecedented test with Crew Dragon: escaping the ISS in an emergency rehearsal.

According to Teslerati, the drill will “rehearse” an “emergency” in which the four of the five ISS crewmembers will simulate a last-minute escape from the space station. Unfortunately, this is all the information that we currently know about the planned demonstration.

Along with the planned demonstration, other tests are currently still being conducted with Crew Dragon. In a Q&, the new head of NASA’s Human Spaceflight Office Kathy Lueders, says, “The Crew Dragon has been doing great. Every week it wakes up and we do checkouts, and then it goes back into sleep mode. The crew on orbit have also been putting it through its paces. About to do a demonstration with four crew members in the vehicle at once.”

She also said that the mission is expected to return to Earth early in August. Right now, the crew of the ISS consists of the 2 NASA astronauts that launched aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon, and 1 NASA astronaut + 2 Roscosmos astronauts that launched aboard Russia’s Soyuz. The demonstration is planned to take place with four of these five astronauts, including one Roscosmos astronaut......

If push ever comes to shove and they need to abandon the ISS, I wonder how they determine who the unlucky soul is that's going to be left behind :eek:

There’s room for up to 7 in the capsule. If the real thing happened I’m sure they’d all be in there, even if sitting on a rubber floor mat.

SN7 Test tank goes boom!

That would be one uncomfortable ride - re-entry forces are rather uncomfortable when sitting in a seat specifically designed for it - without a proper seat it would downright suck.
Still, probably better than the alternative...

SpaceX latest Starlink mission, postponed from Tuesday is now rescheduled for 20:18z tonight.

The first Arab space mission to Mars is preparing to lift off within weeks. Fuelling is due to begin next week. It will take seven months to travel the 493 million km (308 million miles) to reach Mars and begin its orbit, sending back ground-breaking new data about its climate and atmosphere.

The probe will remain orbiting Mars for an entire Martian year, 687 days, to gather sufficient data.

A single orbit around Mars will take the probe 55 hours.

In a briefing on Monday, the programme's science lead Sarah Al-Amiri said the project should be a major incentive for young Arab scientists to embark on a career in space engineering

Named Amal, meaning Hope, the robotic craft is due to lift off from a remote Japanese island, Tanegashima, during a narrow launch window on 14 July.
Does anyone know if this is to be shown live on television any channel ?
Thanks David

Next launch is the US Space Force GPS III Satellite from the Cape. Hopefully tomorrow night. 30th June. Starlink 9 now stood down until further notice.
https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-sta...order-shuffle/

Avgasdinosaur, keep an eye on this site. It's usually pretty good.

https://everydayastronaut.com/al-ama...aunch-preview/

Crew dragon has seating for 4, and Soyuz seating for 3, so I make it that there would currently be 2 spare seats if they had to abandon.

Many many thanks
David

https://www.space.com/spacex-space-f...h-success.html

SpaceX launches advanced GPS satellite for US Space Force, sticks rocket landing