SpaceX sticks the landing perfectly!

Uwe said:

^^^ Do they have a launch date?

I so wanna watch that one in person!

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Uwe said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_Heavy

On December 28, the Falcon Heavy was moved to the launch pad and raised to a vertical standing as preparation of a static fire.[38] The morning of December 29, Falcon Heavy was lowered back to a horizontal position.

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Uwe said:

^^^ Do they have a launch date?

I so wanna watch that one in person!

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jyoung8607 said:

Let me know if you're going to make it down there!

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It’s not official, but sources say the secretive Zuma satellite was lost

"As of right now reviews of the data indicate Falcon 9 performed nominally.”

ERIC BERGER
JAN 8, 2018 9:34 PM UTC

On Sunday night SpaceX launched the Zuma satellite into space. What we know for sure is that the first stage of the rocket behaved nominally enough such that it was able to safely return to Earth and make a land-based landing along the Florida coast.

SpaceX, however, never officially confirmed mission success. On Monday, Ars began to hear discussion from sources that the mysterious Zuma spacecraft—the purpose of which was never specified, nor which US military or spy agency had backed it—may not have survived. According to one source, the payload fell back to Earth along with the spent upper stage of the Falcon 9 rocket.

Later on Monday afternoon another space reporter, Peter B. de Selding, reported on Twitter that he too had been hearing about problems with the satellite. "Zuma satellite from @northropgrumman may be dead in orbit after separation from @SpaceX Falcon 9, sources say," de Selding tweeted. "Info blackout renders any conclusion - launcher issue? Satellite-only issue? — impossible to draw."

This was just SpaceX's third national security mission and was seen as critically important in winning further lucrative business from the US Department of Defense. In response to a query on Monday afternoon, a SpaceX spokesperson told Ars, “We do not comment on missions of this nature, but as of right now reviews of the data indicate Falcon 9 performed nominally.”

A media query to Northrop Grumman, which manufactured the satellite, was not immediately returned Monday. (Update: Tim Paynter, Vice President of Strategic Communications for Northrop Grumman, said, "This is a classified mission. We cannot comment on classified missions.”)

Actions taken by SpaceX on Monday indicate its confidence in the rocket's performance during the Zuma launch. Earlier in the day, SpaceX founder Elon Musk shared photos of the nighttime launch on Twitter. Also, the company continued with preparations for future launches, including rolling the Falcon Heavy rocket back out to a different launch pad in Florida for additional tests.

Ars will update this story as more information arrives.

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SpaceX Keeps U.S. Air Force's Confidence After Satellite's Loss

By Anthony Capaccio
January 22, 2018, 3:57 PM EST

* No need to change SpaceX’s certification, commander says

* Air Force now evaluating biggest launch contract to date

The U.S. Air Force command that certified Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. for military missions says it remains confident in the company’s capabilities despite the disappearance this month of a classified satellite it launched.

“Based on the data available, our team did not identify any information that would change SpaceX’s Falcon 9 certification status” after “a preliminary review of telemetry that was available to us from” the Jan. 7 launch, Lieutenant General John Thompson, commander of the Space and Missile Systems Center, said in a statement to Bloomberg News.

While Thompson’s comments were carefully qualified -- he emphasized that “the Air Force will continue to evaluate data from all launches” -- they bolstered SpaceX’s position that its Falcon 9 rocket apparently “did everything correctly” in the mission code-named Zuma.

That may increase scrutiny of Northrop Grumman Corp., which oversaw the mission and built the satellite as well as the coupling to release it from the second-stage rocket.

Northrop has repeatedly declined to discuss its role in the mission. Spokesman Tim Paynter has said “we cannot comment on classified missions.”

Boeing-Lockheed Competition

SpaceX was certified by the Air Force in 2015 to compete for military launches against United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. For Musk, who also heads the electric-vehicle manufacturer Tesla Inc., it was a hard-won victory against what he portrayed as a government-blessed monopoly.

SpaceX remains eligible to compete for 11 launches through fiscal year 2019, including a looming winner-take-all contest for three Global Positioning System III missions now in source selection. SpaceX has already received two of three contracts in which it competed against United Launch Alliance.

Before the Zuma mission, which was launched for an undisclosed U.S. agency other than the Air Force, Northrop Grumman spokesman Lon Rains said the launch represented “a cost-effective approach to space access for government missions.” The U.S. “assigned Northrop Grumman the responsibility of acquiring launch services for this mission. We have procured the Falcon 9 launch service from SpaceX.”

“Northrop Grumman realizes this is a monumental responsibility and we have taken great care to ensure the most affordable and lowest-risk scenario for Zuma,” he said then.

Thompson’s remarks were the first substantive public comments from the U.S. military about the missing satellite. “I would have to refer you to SpaceX, who conducted the launch,” Defense Department spokeswoman Dana White said repeatedly in a Jan. 11 briefing at the Pentagon, citing “the classified nature of all of this.”

Asked what investigation is being conducted to ensure accountability for the loss of a costly payload, White told reporters she will “come back to you on that.”

Lieutenant General Arnold Bunch, the Air Force’s top uniformed acquisition official, said in a separate interview, “I can’t say a whole lot about what all happened” but for “anything that goes forward” in terms of a formal investigation “we’ll be involved in the process” of analyzing data.

— With assistance by Dana Hull

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vreihen said:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-22/spacex-keeps-u-s-air-force-s-confidence-after-satellite-s-loss

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