SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell is the SpaceX representative.
"This was an incredibly smooth mission," says Shotwell. Notes that this is just the beginning of regularly bring people to and from low earth orbit.
@Astro_illini, commander for Crew-1 (first operational mission with Crew Dragon), notes that this mission went so smoothly it did not seem like SpaceX's first crewed misison.
@JimBridenstine says that the private boats coming in like that was a problem and something that they need to do better next time.
Stich (Commercial Crew Program manager) adds that it was clear for the splashdown event, but then boats came in after.
Shotwell says that the capsule appears to be in great shape from the early analysis. Stich adds that it is expected to take about four months to refurbish the vehicle.
Stitch: We want to have overlap between Crew-1 and Crew-2.
Me: This means two Crew Dragons at the Space Station at once! 🤯
Elon is on a plane to Houston to meet Bob and Doug.
Shotwell says that they will build a fleet of Dragon 2 vehicles (both crew and cargo). Want to get data back from the first few missions before deciding how many they need to build.
Shotwell: Biggest surprise of this mission was how smooth it was.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
SpaceX is finally making a foray into the Earth observation market as part of a new service for government customers called Starshield. Starshield also includes global comms and hosted payload opportunities. Essentially, Starlink for national security.
I think SpaceX has a huge advantage over existing providers for a few reasons, which is why I think it is a very big development.
- Tremendous bandwidth
- Continuous ground station links via space lasers
- Potential for far more satellites
You can imagine a world where the pentagon says they want a photo of a particular place on Earth, and they get that photo in under a minute, or even near-constant real-time surveillance of a location.
VSS Imagine was unveiled in March, 2021. At the time, Virgin Galactic said that glide test flights would begin that summer. It still has not flown and is now postponed indefinitely, if not canceled.
If you have not already, read Test Gods. It is pretty enlightening on many topics, including how Virgin Galactics marketing department is completely detached from engineering realities.
ULA teams have worked a few minor technical issues that have led to a slight delay in the launch time for NROL-91. A forward plan has become agreed upon and pressing ahead with a launch at 3:25:30 pm PDT.
New issue. A cycle of a fill and drain valve just failed. Taking it to the anomaly net.
LIVE: SpaceX is holding a Q&A with the Inspiration4 crew
Participants:
- Benji Reed, SpaceX Director of Crew Mission Management
- Jared Isaacman, Inspiration4 Commander
- Hayley Arceneaux, Inspiration4 Medical Officer
- Dr. Sian Proctor, Inspiration4 Pilot
- Chris Sembroski, Inspiration4 Mission Specalist
Reed points out that this will be the first time that three Dragons are on orbit at once with the Crew-2 and CRS-23 Dragons at the Space Station right now.
I do not think the SpaceX commentator was reading from the right script there. Deployment is supposed to be at T+15:32 with no second stage restart.
I guess the problem with too many Starlink launches is copy and paste errors.
Are they going to come back for deployment? Or did they update the mission profile and she read the right thing? SpaceX website and the on-screen graphic are both synced for T+15:32.