Month: December 2018

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Spaceflight gears up for satellite extravaganza

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket
A twice-flown SpaceX Falcon booster is readied for its third mission, set for launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Scorch marks make the booster look “sooty.” (SpaceX Photo via Twitter)

Seattle-based Spaceflight Industries is closing in on what’s shaping up as a grand convergence in commercial space.

Spaceflight, which handles launch logistics for small satellites, is nearly ready for its most ambitious mission yet: the “dedicated rideshare” launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that will deliver 64 satellites to a pole-to-pole, sun-synchronous orbit.

The SSO-A mission, also known as the SmallSat Express, is due to lift off from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Dec. 3, with SpaceX providing a webcast. The launch has been postponed several times, most recently on Dec. 1, due to the need for additional inspections and concerns about high-altitude winds at the launch site.

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Stratolaunch’s rocket preburner hits full power

Stratolaunch preburner test
The preburner for Stratolaunch’s PGA rocket engine blazes during a hot-fire test. (Stratolaunch via Twitter)

Chalk up another milestone for Stratolaunch Systems’ rocket engine development effort: The Seattle-based space company founded by late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen says it ramped up the preburner for its PGA rocket engine to full power this week during hot-fire tests.

Stratolaunch’s 3D-printed preburner, a key component that typically begins a rocket engine’s combustion process, had its first hot firing less than a month ago at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. And just a year ago, the hardware was merely a twinkle in the eye of Stratolaunch’s engineers.

“Per public records, this is the fastest preburner development in U.S. history,” Hanna Steplewska Kubiak, Stratolaunch’s vice president of business development,  tweeted.

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