Tag: SpaceX

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SpaceX joins battle over satellite bandwidth

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SpaceX’s Redmond office is the center for its satellite operations. (GeekWire photo by Kevin Lisota)

SpaceX has provided a rare update on its Seattle-centric plans to develop a multibillion-dollar Internet satellite network, saying that the work is now at a “critical stage.”

That assessment is part of the company’s argument against giving away the bandwidth required for such a network for another purpose – specifically, for 5G mobile broadband services that would be offered by Dish Network and other members of an industry coalition.

The Multi-Channel Video Distribution and Data Service Coalition filed a petition on Wednesday with the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday, asking that the Ku-band spectrum currently being reserved for satellite broadband should be reallocated for 5G services.

“There is simply no basis to jeopardize 5G deployment to give additional spectrum to a speculative NGSO (non-geostationary orbit) service that already has access to ample spectrum,” the MVDDS Coalition told the FCC.

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Stage set for private missions to moon, Mars

Moon Express lander
An artist’s conception shows Moon Express’ MX-1 lander extending its robotic arm to take a “selfie” of the spacecraft on the lunar surface with Earth in the background. (Credit: Moon Express)

After months of discussion, federal agencies are closing in on a process to approve commercial missions to other celestial bodies – including the moon, Mars and asteroids.

The groundwork for the process was laid in April, when the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy told Congress that the Transportation Department was the most appropriate entity to approve new kinds of commercial space missions such as on-orbit satellite servicing and trips beyond Earth orbit.

Now the Federal Aviation Administration and other agencies are “working through the interagency process to ensure a mechanism is in place that permits emerging commercial space operations,” FAA spokesman Hank Price said in a statement emailed to GeekWire.

The issue was brought to a head when Moon Express, one of the companies chasing the Google Lunar X Prize, asked the FAA to review its plans to put a lander on the moon next year. The FAA is part of the Transportation Department. Its Office of Commercial Space Transportation is currently in charge of approving commercial space launches and re-entries, but not activities in orbit or in deep space.

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SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket leans in for a landing

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SpaceX’s Falcon 9 booster stands on a drone ship after landing. (Credit: SpaceX)

For the third time in a row, a SpaceX Falcon 9 booster sent a payload into space and then came back for a landing on an oceangoing platform. But this time, the booster was a little shaken up.

Today’s launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida put the Thaicom 8 telecommunications satellite into geosynchronous transfer orbit.

Minutes after liftoff at 5:40 p.m. ET (2:40 p.m. PT), the Falcon’s first stage fell away from the second stage. While the second stage continued into orbit with the satellite, the first stage went through a series of maneuvers aimed at braking its supersonic descent and putting itself down on an autonomous drone ship hundreds of miles out in the Atlantic Ocean.

Today’s success rounded out what could be called a hat trick in rocket reusability. SpaceX pulled off its first at-sea touchdown on April 8, and did it again on the night of May 5.

This one was a nail-biter: The launch to a high orbit meant the booster had to re-enter the atmosphere at an incredibly high speed.

In a series of tweets, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said the booster was roughed up when it landed on the drone ship, known as “Of Course I Still Love You.”

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SpaceX Dragon returns year-in-space samples

SpaceX splashdown
SpaceX’s Dragon capsule descends toward the Pacific at the end of its parachutes. (Credit: SpaceX)

A month after delivering an expandable prototype habitat and other goodies to the International Space Station, SpaceX’s Dragon cargo capsule splashed down in the Pacific Ocean today  with tons of equipment and scientific samples.

Among the roughly 3,700 pounds of cargo are freezers containing blood, saliva, urine and stool samples from astronaut Scott Kelly, who served as an experimental subject during a nearly yearlong stint on the station. Those samples will be studied to see how long-term spaceflight affected Kelly’s metabolic functions, including the function of the gut bacteria in his bowels.

The results could affect how NASA plans for even longer journeys to Mars and other deep-space destinations.

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Blue Origin and SpaceX revisit rocket landings

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A view from the “vent cam” on Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital booster shows a West Texas landscape during an April 2 flight, plus a “toasty brown” ring fin at the top. (Credit: Blue Origin)

Will seeing a spaceship land on its feet ever get old? The novelty is still there in newly released videos from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, showing new perspectives on their most recent rocket landings.

Blue Origin’s video recaps the April 2 flight of its New Shepard suborbital space vehicle, as seen from a camera pointing out from one of the booster’s vents. The 2:38 clip begins with a shot of the curving blue Earth below the blackness of space – a view that paying passengers could see as early as 2018.

Then there’s the supersonic descent back through the atmosphere. If you look closely at the full-frame, high-definition video, you might be able to pick out the Rio Grande River running through the West Texas landscape surrounding Blue Origin’s launch and landing site.

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After launch, SpaceX aces tricky rocket landing

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The first stage of a Falcon 9 rocket stands upright on a drone ship after landing at sea. (Credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX increased the degree of difficulty for tonight’s Falcon 9 rocket landing attempt at sea after launching a Japanese satellite into a super-high orbit – but the feat came off successfully nevertheless.

The California-based company’s billionaire founder, Elon Musk, downplayed the odds of success before the launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 10:21 p.m. PT (1:21 a.m. ET Friday). “Rocket re-entry is a lot faster and hotter than last time, so odds of making it are maybe even, but we should learn a lot either way,” he tweeted.

Moments after the Falcon 9’s first stage landed on a drone ship, hundreds of miles out in the Atlantic Ocean, Musk tweeted just one word.

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SpaceX gets its first national security launch

Image: DSCOVR launch
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket launches the Deep Space Climate Observatory for NOAA, NASA and the Air Force in February 2015. SpaceX has launched payloads for the Air Force previously, but now it’s been chosen for the launch of a national security payload. (Credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX today won an $82.7 million contract to launch a GPS-3 navigational satellite into orbit for the U.S. Air Force, marking the first national security mission for the California-based company.

The award was virtually in the bag for SpaceX because United Launch Alliance, the only other company certified to launch national security payloads, dropped out of the competition last November.

At the time, ULA said it couldn’t submit a compliant bid because of federal restrictions on the use of Russian-made RD-180 engines. But last month, a ULA vice president said his company was actually seeking to avoid a “cost shootout” with SpaceX.

The vice president of engineering, Brett Tobey, resigned after his remarks went public.

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SpaceX plans to send ships to Mars in 2018

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An artist’s conception shows SpaceX’s Red Dragon capsule on Mars. (Credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX is teasing plans to send robotic Red Dragon capsules to Mars atop its Falcon Heavy rocket, starting as soon as 2018.

The Red Dragon mission concept has been on the agenda for years: Researchers at NASA’s Ames Research Center have talked about using a modified SpaceX Dragon capsule to grab samples from Mars and bring them back to Earth. Others see the Red Dragon as part of an advanced search for life on the Red Planet.

In the past, actually executing the concept was dependent on funding from NASA. But now it looks as if SpaceX may go ahead with a mission –and put up the money – under the terms of an unfunded Space Act Agreement with NASA. The space agency and SpaceX signed off on a Mars-centric amendment to that agreement just this week.

In a series of tweets sent out today, SpaceX and its billionaire founder, Elon Musk, said the Red Dragon flights would inform the company’s overall architecture for Mars missions. “Details to come,” SpaceX said.

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SpaceX booster comes full circle after landing

Image: SpaceX Falcon
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 first-stage booster makes its way back to the company’s processing facility in Florida after its recovery at sea. (Credit: USLaunchReport.com via YouTube)

Eleven days after a thrilling landing at sea, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket booster is coming back to the company’s space-age garage in Florida, in preparation for engine tests and potentially the first-ever reuse of its rocket hardware.

The Falcon blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida and lofted a Dragon cargo capsule toward the International Space Station on April 8. Minutes after launch, the first-stage booster made an unprecedented touchdown onto an autonomous spaceport drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.

It took a few days for the ship to come back to Florida’s Port Canaveral in Florida. Then the booster was packed up for a slow, careful trip back to SpaceX’s launch processing facility at Kennedy Space Center. Visitors happened to catch video of the Falcon passing by today.

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Obama hails rocket landing in tweetfest

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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shows President Barack Obama around the company’s Cape Canaveral rocket processing site in 2010. (Credit: Bill Ingalls / NASA)

SpaceX’s first-ever at-sea rocket landing was cause for a Twitter celebration that drew in President Barack Obama as well as other space-loving luminaries.

SpaceX used its two-stage Falcon 9 rocket on Friday to send a Dragon cargo capsule on its way to the International Space Station from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Minutes later, the rocket’s first stage guided itself back from the edge of space and settled onto an autonomous drone ship, hundreds of miles out in the Atlantic Ocean.

Today the Dragon is heading toward a rendezvous with the space station, with a robotic-arm grapple maneuver scheduled for about 7 a.m. ET (4 a.m. PT) Sunday. You can watch the operation starting at 5:30 a.m. ET (2:30 a.m. PT) via NASA TV. Meanwhile, the drone ship is making its way back to Port Canaveral, where the rocket stage will be offloaded for testing and probable reuse.

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