SpaceX returning humans to the Moon next year

SpaceX announced today that they have been approached to launch 2 private citizens on a mission to the Moon. The two customers have already paid a significant deposit to go and will be launched on SpaceX's upcoming Falcon Heavy rocket. Debuting later this year, the Falcon Heavy will launch from LC-39a with a demo payload for its first mission. It will be the most powerful rocket to be currently launching once successfully launched. It has two-thirds the amount of thrust as the Saturn V and has more than double the amount of thrust as the largest rocket currently launching. The two people will be launching inside the Dragon V2 spacecraft that is currently under development and being funded by NASA's commercial crew program and will preform an unmanned flight to the ISS this year and a manned flight sometime next year. 

New era of launches begin at historic pad

Today, February 19th, the Falcon 9 rocket successfully launched from the historic Launch Complex 39a and delivered the Dragon spacecraft into orbit and landed the first stage back to Cape Canaveral. LC-39a is a launch pad that previously launched man to the Moon on Apollo 11 and held missions of the Space Shuttle including the last launch of STS-135. With clouds covering a lot of the Kennedy Space Center, the Falcon 9 lifted off at 9:38am EST and disappeared into the clouds, then landed back at Landing Zone 1 about 8 minutes later. 
High quality photos can be found here on SpaceX's Flickr.

Another attempt to launch CRS-10 tomorrow morning

This morning, SpaceX had begun fueling their Falcon 9 rocket in preparation to launch supplies and experiments to the International Space Station. Early in the count, there was a slight issue with the second stage's TVC (Thrust Vector Control) system that helps "steer" the rocket in the vacuum of space. SpaceX continued moving forward with the launch and called a "hold hold hold" at T-13 second to launch to not risk anything going wrong with the second stage during flight. The next launch opportunity to the ISS is tomorrow (Sunday) morning at 9:38am EST.

SpaceX will launch from Historic pad this morning

Later this morning at 10:01 am EST, SpaceX's Falcon 9 will lift off from the historic Launch Complex 39a carrying CRS-10 for NASA to resupply the International Space Station. Dragon is carrying up many hundreds of experiments and supplies for the astronauts including SAGE III and live mice. SAGE III is an experiment that will be mounted on the ISS and with its unique position over the Earth allows for long-term measurements of aerosols, ozone, water vapor, and many other gasses in the atmosphere. A Helium leak was found in the Falcon 9's second stage during the day yesterday in the second stage's spin system that has been resolved and Elon Musk tweeted, "Looks like we are go for launch. Added an abort trigger at T-60 secs for pressure decay of upper stage helium spin start system." After launch, the first stage will perform the 3rd first stage landing back at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base at Landing Zone 1 and will be the first daytime land landing. The Dragon being launched on this mission is the last produced Dragon and they will be reused for the first time on CRS-11.
You can view the launch live on the following SpaceX streams:
Hosted Webcast (Commentary, info on launch and vehicle)
Technical Webcast (Various Camera angles, Control room audio)

Gwynne Shotwell pre-launch briefing at LC-39a

During a pre-launch briefing held by NASA, SpaceX's President Gwynne Shotwell discussed a lot of assets of the new pad and how honoured SpaceX is about leasing the historic pad. She stated that SpaceX has taken good care of the pad and saved 'precious' parts of the launch pad and upgraded things for their use. The rotating service structure is also being taken down piece-by-piece whenever they have time for it and giving the scrap metal back to NASA. After that, they moved to the Q&A part of the briefing where people asked many different questions on upcoming launches, Mars, reusability, and crewed missions. Gwynne stated that Falcon Heavy will be flying this summer once LC-40 is back up and running, as well as there are many customers wanting to fly on FH. She also talked about Red Dragon and that they're now looking more toward the 2020 timeframe for the first launch. SpaceX wants to put more time and resources into the program before launching so they can also

focus on Crew Dragon and Falcon Heavy. SpaceX is planning on starting crewed launches in 2018 and Gwynne is confident that will happen on time. Along with crew launches, they've been working on a redesign on the Merlin engines because of cracks in the turbine wheel that they've been flying with for all Falcon 9 launches. The redesign needs to happen so the engines have no issues during launch for the safety of the crew and they will be used sometime this year. Nothing was revealed about the spacesuits for the crew but Gwynne said that they look "really cool". Reusability was then brought into conversation and that the second stage will not be reused for any of the Falcon rockets because of high orbital speeds. Although, she addressed that fairings will be recovered and reused on one of the following missions this year. The first reused booster will be launched on the SES-10 mission from LC-39a sometime in March. Launch Complex 40 should be up and running sometime this summer. She also said that the Falcon 9 Block 5 has an increase in

performance, some manufacturing improvements, and about 100 other changes on the vehicle. With all this information given to us, it shows that this year will be a big year for SpaceX with the maiden launch of Falcon Heavy, the first reused booster, and recovery of the payload fairings.

SpaceX Falcon 9 and Dragon vertical at LC-39a (Photos)

Official SpaceX CRS-10 Mission Patch

Falcon 9 and Dragon vertical at LC-39a
(Flickr: SpaceX)

Falcon 9 and Dragon vertical at LC-39a
(Flickr: SpaceX)

PSLV liftoff with Cartosat-2D and 103 other satellites

India's Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) will be lifting off from the First Launch Pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Center in Sriharikota, India. The Cartosat-2D satellite is a part of a series of satellites and will be the fifth one launched. These satellites are Earth observation satellites that sit in a sun-synchronous orbit, meaning they orbit the Earth with the sun always in view. The PSLV launched from India at 10:58 pm EST on February 14th marking the 39th launch of the rocket. Along with carrying the Cartosat-2D satellite, it also brought up 103 small satellites exceeding the record of a number of satellites brought into orbit successfully. 

Ariane 5's first launch of the year

The Ariane 5 launched 2 key satellites, Sky Brasil 1 and Telcom 3S at 4:39pm EST from French Guiana. Sky Brasil 1 is going to support subscription television services by DirecTV, a subsidiary of AT&T.  Weighing in at over 13,000lbs, the satellite has 60 Ku-band transponders onboard and will be positioned along the equator at 43.1 degrees west longitude. Sky Brasil 1 will replace the Intelsat 9 satellite which has been in orbit since July 2000. The Telkom 3S satellite is being launched to help support high-definition television broadcasts, communications, and internet services. The satellites carried 32 C-band and 10 Ku-band transponders and is owned by Telkom Indonesia. It weighs in at about 7,800lbs and was built by Thales Alenia Space and will reach customers across Indonesia, Malaysia, and other parts of Southeast Asia. Telkom will be replacing Telkom 2 which was launched n November 2005.

Flames return to LC-39a

Photo of static fire at LC-39a
(Photo: Matthew Travis/Zero-G News)

After almost 5 1/2 years fire has returned to the historic Launch Complex 39a. SpaceX completed the hold-down firing of the rockets 9 Merlin 1D engines for approximately 3.5 seconds. The static fire was done 6 days prior to the launch of their Dragon spacecraft to the ISS for the CRS-10 mission. The rocket produced nearly 2 million pounds of thrust during the firing at full power. This static fire was set as a milestone for SpaceX as it double-checked the readiness of the Falcon 9 to launch this Saturday.  

Falcon 9 vertical at Launch Complex 39A

For the first time since the last launch of the Space Shuttle in 2011, a rocket stands tall on the historic launch pad. Today, SpaceX erected their Falcon 9 rocket with no payload on top for the first time at LC-39A to test systems for the upcoming CRS-10 launch on February 18th. Static fire is set for tomorrow with a confirmation from @NASASpaceflight on twitter, "KSC workforce provided with a notification there won't be a SpaceX Static Fire today. Saturday's window opens at 1700, ends 0500 Eastern.". People are awaiting as SpaceX gears up for the first launch off this historical launch pad next week bringing back launches from LC-39A since the launch of STS-135.

Commercial crew astronauts check Crew Dragon controls

Bob Behnken (Left) and Eric Boe (Right) Evaluating the controls
Credit: SpaceX

Astronauts that will be flying to the ISS in Boeing's CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX's Crew Dragon spacecraft visited SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, CA to evaluate the controls of the spacecraft. Bob Behnken and Eric Boe checked out the controls, seating and the crew compartment of SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft. They sat in a mockup of the cockpit and looked at the aspects of the layout of the displays and the ease of movement in the seats while using the control panel. SpaceX has designed their spacecraft to allow the crew to be comfortable for their ride to the ISS and build models like these to be tested to help determine the practicability of all the systems. Bob and Eric, along with Doug Hurley and Suni Williams have been traveling the country to evaluate the designs of both SpaceX's and Boeing's spacecrafts as the two companies work toward their first launches next year.

SpaceX's first launch from LC-39A

SpaceX renovating LC-39A, April 8th, 2016
Spaceflight News

SpaceX has been working hard on getting their new launch pad ready. Launch Complex 39A, which used to launch Space Shuttles and Apollo Saturn V rockets, was leased to SpaceX in April of 2014 to support the launches of their Falcon Heavy rocket. With the pad anomaly back in September resulting in the loss of the vehicle and payload along with major damage to the launch pad, SpaceX will now be launching their Falcon 9 rocket to catch up on their backlog. They have officially announced on Twitter that the first launch from LC-39A will be CRS-10 with the Dragon spacecraft to carry supplies to the ISS and will launch on February 18th at 10:01am EST. It is said to be a "Return to launch site" (RTLS) 1st stage landing and will be the first daytime landing

CRS-8 standing at Launch Complex 40
Spaceflight News

back on land. Nearly 2,029 kg (4,473 lb) of pressurized cargo will be loaded into the ISS and 977 kg (2,154 lb) of unpressurized cargo will be stored in Dragon's trunk. One of the primary payloads that will be carried up and mounted to the ISS is the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment, also known as SAGE III. After being mounted onto the Space Station, it will make long-term measurements of ozone, aerosols, water vapor, and other gasses in Earth's atmosphere.