Rocket launches LIVE.

[Ramjet]

Sorry for the bad spelling and granma

Doing this on my phone. Still spending most of my days at the hospital with Mrs Ramjet. She is making progress but it is slow. Two good days, one shitty day type deal. :|

This current rapid push ahead by Spacex is awesome to see. As we know, generally new developments in space exploration usually takes months, years, decades....

We are seeing these changes made in almost real time. Such an exciting time to be alive.

 

[grubstake]

Rocket Lab's DARPA test satellite launch is ready to go now:
https://www.rocketlabusa.com/live-stream/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaUSf0D95vs

 

[grubstake]

Another successful launch:

 

[Ramjet]

Watched it on my phone. :Y: The 3D printed Rutherford engine is very cool.

 

[Ramjet]

Live spacewalk at the ISS.

[video=480,360]https://youtu.be/21X5lGlDOfg[/video]

 

[LONEWOLF]

Bummer they couldn't go ahead with the first all Woman Spacewalk.... I could just imagine the 'Girls' sitting on a Solar Array having a cuppa and a good ol chin wag... :lol:

LW.....

 

[Ramjet]

It's ALIVE! The Space hopper has had brief static fire of the Raptor engine.

Check out @NASASpaceflights Tweet: https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1113606734818545664?s=09

 

[grubstake]

Rocket Lab's next launch is for the US Air Force! The company's Electron rocket will carry three R&D satellites for the branch in April. Combined, they'll be the heaviest launch for Rocket Lab to date, weighing in at 180kg:

https://twitter.com/lorengrush/status/1113503824453558278

 

[Ramjet]

The first ever Block 5 Falcon Heavy has completed it's static fire test. Haul it back in the barn to attach the payload and it launches 7th April at this point. First commercial launch and Musk says they are taking it slowly. The launch date may slip. I think on the same day the Beresheet Moon lander built by SpaceIL, an Israeli team will land on the moon. The first private company to do so. Alao launched on a Falcon 9 so the first private company to launch a moon lander.

 

[Ramjet]

Do these 27 rocket engines make my butt look big? Less than 24 hours until the Falcon Heavy launch. 8.35 am tomorrow, Thursday 11th.

 

[Ramjet]

FH launch Scrubbed due to high winds. Try again same time tomorrow.

 

[Jaros]

Ho hum......what's it doing upside down??

 

[Ramjet]

Ho hum......what's it doing upside down??

It's called humour I believe. layful: O

In today's live feed they announced "the pointy bit is aimed at the sky and the burny end is facing the ground."

 

[LONEWOLF]

Breaking News on the Spacex front...... Crew Dragon suffers an Explosion on the Test Stand yesterday. ... Spacex has confirmed that an 'anomaly' during a static fire test resulted in a big orange plume of smoke over the test site...
Not too sure what exactly happened, still early days and Spacex and NASA are not saying too much...

LW...

 

[Jaros]

It just went"POOF"!!

 

[Ramjet]

Sad news. From what I have read the "smoke" is actually hypergolic fuel.
"A hypergolic propellant combination used in a rocket engine is one whose components spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with each other. The two propellant components usually consist of a fuel and an oxidizer."

This would seem to be either a stuck valve or a ruptured fuel tank. There are unconfirmed reports the capsule is "all but destroyed." It's not good either way. This Dragon was going to be used on the in flight abort test. This may put Spacex back many months in their efforts to send humans into space.

 

[Ramjet]

Bugger

Check out @Astronut099s Tweet: https://twitter.com/Astronut099/status/1119825093742530560?s=09

 

[Jaros]

Well, lucky no humans hurt.

 

[Ramjet]

Well, lucky no humans hurt.

"That is why we test." better to have failures during testing than when we have human lives at stake.

 

[LONEWOLF]

They were lucky the wind was blowing Offshore and blew the Toxic 'Orange' smoke out to sea...

LW....