Since a number of cool things are happening in space exploration these days, we'll widen the scope of this thread a smidge. Conversation about all things space exploration are welcome, whether it be from NASA, SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, or anyone else. Chances are most of the discussion will still be about SpaceX since they love to make things public and fun, but nothing's off limits. I'll eventually get around to modifying the OP to include resources for other companies too, but in the meantime, feel free to post any cool stuff you run across.
Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut) - A "random dude" who got really into space (particularly SpaceX). He's a great resource for simple explanations of this stuff, as well as live hosting launches.
USLaunchReport - Lost of videos of the more mundane stuff (e.g., booster recovery operations). Not a ton of commentary.
NASASpaceFlight - Live hosting of most launches including a ton of video of Starlink operations.
Glossary
Spoiler!
Space discussions tend to get a little bogged down in jargon, so here's a list of terms you might encounter. (Others, please let me know of others that should be added.)
ASDS - Autonomous Spaceport Droneship - The "barges" that they sometimes land rockets on.
Dragon - The cone-shaped capsule that sits at the top of the rocket for ISS-bound launches that holds the cargo (or, in the future, humans).
F9 - Falcon 9, the name of the rocket itself.
FH - Falcon Heavy, the three-booster version.
GTO - Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, a type of orbit that will eventually result in the satellite orbiting the earth as it turns so that it seems to be in the same spot from the ground (such as DirecTV or Dish satellites). These types of launches are particularly challenging because they require a lot of power to get them into the right orbit, leaving very little fuel left for landing.
HIF - Horizontal Integration Facility - the building near the launch pad where they put all of the pieces of the rocket together before rolling it out to the pad.
ISS - The International Space Station
JRTI - Just Read The Instructions, the name of the "barge" that they land on for west-coast launches.
LEO - Low Earth Orbit, a fairly low orbit shared by many satellites and ISS. These launches usually require less power to achieve the proper orbit, so the first stage can often be landed back on land rather than on a drone ship.
LZ1 - Landing Zone 1, basically a big open slab of concrete at Cape Canaveral where the first stage will attempt to land (for some launches).
NET - No Earlier Than, basically the date they're hoping to launch, but rocket launches have a tendency of getting delayed.
OCISLY - Of Course I Still Love You, the name of the "barge" that they land on for east-coast launches.
RTLS - Return to Landing Site, a mission where the first stage comes back and lands at LZ1.
Starship - SpaceX's next-generation rocket (and spacecraft) that will hopefully one day take us to Mars. Starship is the "second stage" that will carry cargo or people, but also refers to the whole system. (It's confusing, but think of it like the Space Shuttle, which was both the shuttle itself and the entire launch system.)
Super Heavy - The giant booster that will carry Starship to space.
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. [Reply]
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.
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. [Reply]
Originally Posted by DaFace:
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. [Reply]
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. [Reply]
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. :-) [Reply]
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. [Reply]
