It will never get old watching rockets land. So crazy.

Doh, did I miss something?

weee, just watched the replay on youtube of the drone landing, but do not see any status on catching the fairing.

Launch and landing is done, but the webcast is still up if you want to watch. You can rewind for those parts and then go back to live to watch the second burn and deploy here in a bit.

They're still having a lot of trouble figuring that part out. They did have chutes on one of the fairing halves but no boat to try and catch it.

While we're waiting for the sat deploy, I went ahead and updated the OP. Bangabandhu-1 isn't all that notable in terms of the payload, but it'll be the first launch of the "Block 5" version of the rocket. In theory, the booster will be capable of being reused up to 10 times without refurbishment. I'll be curious to see (assuming it works) if they consider giving the boosters names in the future since we'll see a single booster putting in a lot of work.

All looks good. Still need to hear from NASA that they've got a good signal, but for now, we can breathe easier. :)

Solar arrays deployed. Now TESS just has to move itself into its proper orbit over the next couple months. Total mission success on the SpaceX side!

That was pretty awesome. Love seeing a private firm launching FOR NASA. I have been a proponent of privatizing space since the Apollo program died.

Yep. I've slowly become more and more against SLS. NASA needs to get out of the launch vehicle game and focus on doing great science instead. Once Blue Origin gets New Glenn up and running, they'll have multiple options for providers to do just about any launch they could want.

Apparently the second block 5 booster is on the test stand in Texas.

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-reu...xas-may-debut/

There's not really anything new or surprising in the article, but it points out a kind of cool possibility: This booster is likely going to the west coast, where they only launch once every couple of months. In theory, it needs no refurbishment between launches. That means that this may be the ONLY booster to launch off of the west coast for the next couple of years. Would be crazy if that works out.

First block 5 booster is ready to fly, though it sounds like the date pay push back a bit from that in the OP.

https://i.imgur.com/E3HDLce.jpg

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Falcon 9 Block 5 static fire test complete ahead of next week’s launch of Bangladesh’s first geostationary communications satellite. Vehicle is healthy. Data review will take a few days—will confirm a target launch date once that review is complete.</p>&mdash; SpaceX (@SpaceX) <a href="https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/992571214265765890?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 5, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Bump for today's launch. Big story is the first block 5 launch. Barge landing, and I believe they're still working on fairing recovery.

The bigger story may be how long we go before seeing this booster back on the pad again. In theory, it might only be a month or two (and maybe even faster once they get the process down).

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Falcon 9 Block 5 and Bangabandhu Satellite-1 went vertical on Pad 39A in Florida this morning. Now targeting liftoff at 4:42 p.m. EDT, 20:42 UTC – vehicle and payload look good, completing final check outs at the pad. <a href="https://t.co/gtC39uBC7z">https://t.co/gtC39uBC7z</a> <a href="https://t.co/ML81qpl76g">pic.twitter.com/ML81qpl76g</a></p>&mdash; SpaceX (@SpaceX) <a href="https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/994632986006978560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 10, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Time is bumped back an hour.

Webcast is live.

They must be excited about this launch. The last launch they had a team doing the webcast was FH.

Random notes from Elon in a conference call today via reddit:

• Really the 6th iteration of F9
• Last major revision
• Up to 300 more flights with block 5
• 2nd stage has block 5 engine but will operate like a block 4 for this flight
• The interstage looks cool
• Re-flying same block 5 core within 24 hours next year
• Leg 2.0
• No more aluminum grid fins
• Elon confident that full reusability of the Second Stage is achievable.
• Gaining data about 2nd stage entry now. They transmit to the Iridium constellation
• Will add thermal protection system to 2nd stge
• Fuel costs $300,000-400,000. Still hoping to get the marginal cost of a Falcon 9 launch down to $5-$6 million.
• first stage 60 percent of cost, 2nd stage 20, fairing 10, everything else 10
• Expecting no unnecessary action between flights. Fold up legs, attach 2nd stage and go.
• First block 5 to 10 flights most likely next year. Big milestone Elon says.
• Need to take this booster apart after this flight since it's the first Block 5
• Human rated rockets must be overdesigned by 40% for crew safety
• Boca Chica will be re-dedicated to BFR
• 30 to 50 Block 5 cores planned
• SpaceX charging $50 million for flight proven flight, instead of $62 million for a new one.
• NASA can be a pain in the ass sometimes
• Load and Go issue has been overblown. CAN load fuel and then have astronauts board
• Massive amount of research and testing in COPV 2.0. Most advanced pressure vessel ever developed by humanity.

Boo. Aborted. Probably scrubbed for today.

Ye ole Thursday curse.

T- 00:15:00 now.

Window closes at 6:22 Eastern, so they don't have much time left to restart. Seems like they almost never get off the ground if it doesn't go on the first attempt.

Welp...

New(ish) vehicle must have some bugs. Hopefully it's minor.

Whoops - forgot the bump. But hooray success!

As always, AWESOME!!!

I think it's time for them to put a little mute on the people cheering tho.. Perhaps put the talker-people farther away.

That landing camera is always a tease.

Bump for the Iridium launch Tuesday afternoon. Sounds like there won't likely be a booster landing (it's starting to look like they won't bother with anything but Block V boosters moving forward), but they're still working on recovering the fairing with these west coast launches.

Won't be the most exciting launch of the year, but meh...rockets.

T-15 minutes (ish)

I think I'm gonna let the constantly-updating countdown in the OP thing go for now. It's kind of a pain to keep that updated, especially when launch dates tend to float around a lot. Now that we've basically just hit the "steamroller" stage when SpaceX is launching relatively mundane missions every couple weeks, it's hard for even me to get all that excited about every single mission.

I'll still bump the thread if I'm watching a launch, and I encourage others to do so as well. I'll still post interesting news as it comes up, and I'll be sure to give everyone a heads-up for any particularly notable launches moving forward. It's really just the OP counter and next mission info that's changing. Just use the links in the OP if you want to see what's coming up for yourself.


But on the subject of news, it looks like crew Dragon to ISS is currently NET January 2019.

http://www.sworld.com.au/steven/space/uscom-man.txt

Launch attempt coming up in 30 minutes if anyone's interested. Pretty mundane launch - block 4 booster that won't be recovered. They're still experimenting with fairing recovery, but they don't have a ship out there to try and catch it. It's pretty much same 'ol same 'ol.

It is pretty awesome that they have already gotten to the point where launches are boring.

If anyone's up late, a launch is coming up in an hour (1:50 am EST). This is the second launch of a Block 5 booster, and all of them will be moving forward. Landing on the drone ship.

In theory, this booster won't have to be torn apart at all (the first B5 was just to verify that everything was as they expected), so we might see this one fly again soon-ish.

Crazy cool shot from last night's launch.

https://i.imgur.com/cEXLQho.jpg

Credit to /u/TMahlman on reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comm...ld_happen_and/

THAT is a really cool shot! Thanks for sharing (and bumping this thread from time to time).

Last minute bump. Launch in 2.5 minutes.

Entering a 40-minute coast. This is unimportant but kind of fun - Iridium (customer for the launch) put together a playlist for the launch and synced it to the various events. So you hit play at T-10:30 and then had a nice soundtrack for the launch including Thunderstruck at launch, Return to Sender at boostback, and Welcome Back when the booster landed. ROFL

Gotta love how "boring" these have become.

Late launch tonight if any night owls will be up. GTO mission, barge landing. Only thing notable is that it's the first reuse of a Block 5 (the first one flown). Hopefully we'll see this one fly again shortly for the first multi-use vehicle.

Looks like the crew access arm is being installed at LC-39a.

https://i.redd.it/ezsmiapvbah11.jpg

Kind of bizarre seeing that futuristic arm attached to a giant hunk of metal from 50 years ago, but whatever works!

FWIW, they're now targeting November for the first demo launch of Dragon 2 and April 2019 for the first crewed demo.

Launch tonight:

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comm...ch_discussion/

Bad weather at the moment (60% go). launch in about 60m

<iframe width="1519" height="574" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Apw3xqwsG1U" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Gonna be a long night:

Liftoff currently scheduled for 03:28 - 07:28, September 10th 2018 UTC (11:28 pm - 3:28 am EDT, September 9th / 10th 2018,)

We are GO for propellant loading

Seems like it's been so long. We've been spoiled.

Woot. Time for bed.

First stage landed successfully.

SpaceX Has Apparently Tweaked Its Giant BFR Rocket Design

https://www.space.com/41825-spacex-g...esign-art.html

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DnA7hZgU8AAxfxC.jpg:orig

That looks pretty sweet. Monday should be interesting.

The first time I saw the original, single fin design, I thought it was a bit bizarre. It really wouldn't give much control.

We don't need Space X. Mahomes can launch objects into orbit left handed.

Cool. About time they got that up and running.

We've been so spoiled from the fast pace in the beginning of this year. Seems crazy we have to go 3-4 weeks between launches. :deevee:

Launch in an hour if anyone's interested. This will be the first time they're bringing the booster back to land on the west coast, so should be at least mildly interesting in comparison to other recent launches.

T-5 minutes

Beautiful shots tonight. I bet there will be some great photos from the ground.

Now THAT was awesome.

The mountains in the background...I REALLY hope someone with a real camera got that.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SpaceX?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SpaceX</a> launch was one of the coolest things I’ve EVER seen! <a href="https://t.co/4csOPnT0SF">pic.twitter.com/4csOPnT0SF</a></p>&mdash; Beatrice Verhoeven (@bverhoev) <a href="https://twitter.com/bverhoev/status/1049124488556630017?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I could see it go up from my house in San Diego. Very cool.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Way to go <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SpaceX?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SpaceX</a>!! Another successful landing of a Falcon 9 first stage on land and for the first time on the west coast!! ���������� <a href="https://t.co/PhhxUqGvGL">pic.twitter.com/PhhxUqGvGL</a></p>&mdash; iJason Blog (@iJasonblog) <a href="https://twitter.com/iJasonblog/status/1049125278369415168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Missed it.

I really appreciate you posting here because it's a great reminder of upcoming launches.

Photos look amazing...

Wow. John Kraus must be doing well enough for himself that he can make the trip to the west coast.

https://i.redd.it/85y6jpxglvq11.jpg

Still a very fun thing to watch...

I was cooking dinner when my neighbor came over a little freaked out about this weird light in the sky. I explained what it was and told her she could look it up on the web to see when launches are expected to take place.

We had a really good view of it tonight.

Fun composite of the launch and landing (from the same camera).

https://i.redd.it/3bigyq7miwq11.jpg

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Falcon 9&#39;s first West Coast land landing <a href="https://t.co/zObJgzLI0C">pic.twitter.com/zObJgzLI0C</a></p>&mdash; SpaceX (@SpaceX) <a href="https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1049194290176352256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 8, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<iframe src="https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2FEmericTimelapse%2Fvideos%2F550418238741729%2F&show_t ext=0&width=476" width="476" height="476" style="border:none;overflow:hidden" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" allowFullScreen="true"></iframe>

Still not as powerful as Mahomes.

Wow.

Seems like 16:9 might have got the whole thing. Ugh...

Last one for me from this launch (probably), but this one was too good to not post.

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What causes that effect? Seems a little too early to be related to the 1st stage separation but that was cool seeing it coming back as well.

When the launch is in the evening, right after sunset, after the rocket gets up high enough, the plume of exhaust is lit up by the sun.

Not SpaceX per se, but a Soyuz flight to the ISS malfunctioned today and had to do an in-flight abort. The astronauts are safe, but that's scary as hell.

https://www.space.com/42097-soyuz-ro...n-57-crew.html

Scary... Wow!!

Heads up that there will be a launch tomorrow afternoon at 3:46 p.m. EST. Reused booster, landing on OCISLY, blah blah blah. They've definitely gotten to the "mundane" phase now that we're all spoiled with landings being routine.

Things should pick up after the new year. We should have the next milestone in the commercial crew program (uncrewed test flight), as well as another FH launch in Q1 sometime.

Mars started up on discovery again too....good show and in the vein of what SpaceX is doing

Bump. Webcast should be live any moment.

That was one big box... Six tins, huh?