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10 Nov, 5 tweets, 1 min read
NASA’s Steve Stich says they’re replacing a valve on the F9 second stage, pushing back the static fire a day; still on track for a Saturday launch of Crew-1 with weather now looking good.
SpaceX’s Benji Reed: my sense is no worries about running out of time for a Saturday launch even with the slip of the static fire to tomorrow.
Lot of discussion at this Crew-1 briefing about future missions. NASA targeting March 30 for Crew-2, and late summer/early fall for Crew-3. Boeing Starliner OFT-2 no earlier than 1st quarter next year.
This launch, unlike Demo-2, will be FAA licensed. Steve Stich says the main difference is FAA has responsibility for public safety for launch and reentry.
Call wraps up with NASA and SpaceX officials discussing safety. “This is in our hands, we take it seriously,” says NASA’s Kathy Lueders.

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More from @jeff_foust

Jeff Foust Profile picture
10 Nov
SpaceX’s Jonathan Hofeller says in a World Satellite Business Week panel that they’ve gotten a “super positive” response so far to the Starlink beta test. Preparing to expand into other countries, starting with Canada. #WSBW
Michael Schwartz, Telesat: we want to emulate fiber as much as possible. Spent a lot of time burning down risks. Will announce vendor for the satellites later this year. #WSBW
Hofeller: we decided to go direct to consumer with Starlink, but we will keep an open mind about third-party relationships as we grow internationally. #WSBW
Read 4 tweets
Jeff Foust Profile picture
9 Nov
Israël also skeptical about a purely commercial market for “microlaunchers”, noting Rocket Lab’s work with US Gov’t agencies: If they were relying only on commercial market, they would have a problem with the business case. #WSBW
Mowry: we’re responding to customer demand with New Glenn, and they want to fill its 7-meter payload fairing to launch dozens of satellites at a time. #WSBW
Shotwell: despite operating our own constellation, would love to get launch business from Telesat LEO and other constellations. #WSBW
Read 7 tweets
Jeff Foust Profile picture
9 Nov
Up next at #WSBW: a launch panel with SpaceX, ULA, Arianespace, ILS, Blue Origin and MHI. Should be interesting…
SpaceX’s Gwynne Shotwell: had a great win rate on satellite launch competitions this year. Perhaps demand for connectivity will stimulate more satellite and launch orders. #WSBW
ULA’s Tory Bruno: we’ve sold more than 30 Vulcan launches already. Progress on the vehicle is going great. #WSBW
Read 8 tweets
Jeff Foust Profile picture
9 Nov
Panel of satellite operators CEOs at #WSBW is largely optimistic about their businesses; pandemic has demonstrated the importance of broadband, they argue, and satellite’s role as a provider.
Intelsat’s Steve Spengler says everything “on track” right now to meet accelerated clearing milestone for C-band spectrum; he expects FCC to commence auction of that spectrum for 5G on Dec. 8. #WSBW
Hughes Network Systems CEO Pradman Kaul says he expects OneWeb (in which Hughes is an investor) to exit Chapter 11 bankruptcy in a couple weeks. #WSBW
Read 4 tweets
Jeff Foust Profile picture
9 Oct
Tuned in to AvWeek webinar with former NASA administrators. Charlies Bolden has some frank words on commercial crew, arguing that had Boeing not gotten involved in the program, Congress would never have agreed to fund it. [Boeing was involved from the very first CCDev awards.]
Bolden adds that a business case for commercial human spaceflight is “hard to make” even now [he’s an adviser to a company, Axiom Space, that hopes it can be closed.]
Dan Goldin, meanwhile, is worried that China’s space program is moving at “the speed of light” and NASA will “fall way behind” at current rate. Advocates for human exploration beyond Earth orbit, including using nuclear propulsion.
Read 10 tweets
Jeff Foust Profile picture
27 Apr
Elon Musk is giving a presentation at a public meeting of an Astro2020 astrophysics decadal survey cmte meeting on efforts to mitigate brightness of Starlink satellites. First “VisorSat” satellites, with sunshade to block reflections off antennas, planned to be on next launch.
Musk also says that SpaceX is implementing an “orientation roll” on those satellites whose orbits are being raised to reduce reflections off solar panels.
Musk estimates the existing Starlink satellites, including those without any brightness mitigations, will be deorbited in 3-4 years, in part because they’ll be rendered obsolete by v2 satellites with
“far greater throughput.”
Read 7 tweets

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