XB-70A

-33 -

Being a diesel engine-like, I woke up at 4 this morning so I could attend Starlink 5. Smooth ride to Titusville, only to learn the National Seashore was close until further notice as a precaution (COVID-19). All the other spots I knew around were closed too, so I decided to go back to Port Canaveral, and to seat on the river's bank. More than the launch, I was happy to find a person I had already met at this same spot during the launch of Solar Orbiter last month. Also, the river was smoother than I ever seen it before. (Taken 21 km / 13 mi away South)

Four Ariane 62 for Galileo. Whole article: https://spacewatch.global/2020/03/esa-and-the-european-commission-preorder-four-more-ariane-6-launches/

Because everything is doing good is this world, let's add some sparkles to the story. First emergence of this year was declared in early February. https://www.physiciansweekly.com/china-reports-first-h5n6/ Right now, the Filipino's authorities are trying to contain it: https://www.philstar.com/business/2020/03/16/2001314/philippines-reports-cases-h5n6-bird-flu-nueva-ecija-quails

To be honest, I was a bit worried about the launch of CFOSAT (Chinese-French Oceanography Satellite, or Zhongfa Haiyangxue Weixing) on a CZ-2C, in October 2018. Turned out, the launch was a success, and because the CNES was part of the project, they gave us what is to this date the only whole shot of a Long March launch:

Apart of the CZ-7A failure insert_name mentioned, - CZ-4C failed to reach orbit due to a 3rd stage failure (Yaogan 33 - 22 May 2019) - CZ-3B/E failed to reach the correct orbit due to a failure of the 3rd stage. Payload deployed lower than planned (Chinasat 9A - 18 Jun 2017) - CZ-5 failed to reach orbit due to an anomaly on the 1st stage (Shijian 18 - 2 Jul 2017) - CZ-2D failed to reach the correct orbit. Deployed payload lower than planned (Superview 1-01/02 - 28 Dec 2016) - CZ-4C failed to reach orbit, reason still unpublished (Gaofen 10 - 31 Aug 2016) - CZ-4B failed to reach orbit due to a 3rd stage early shutdown (CBERS-3 - 9 Dec 2013) - CZ-2C failed to reach orbit due to a loss of control. 2nd stage Vernier engines structure broke during the flight (Shijian 11-04 - 18 Aug 2011) Edit: Counting all launches since 2010, the Long March family lifted-off 207 times, counting 2 partial failures, and 6 failures*. As a whole, that's still a 96.14% rate of success. * Counting CZ-7A.

That is all I found:

That's what I thought too. I mean, it's not like I was taking picture of an F-35, with its weapon-bays opened and perfectly showing some last-gen' weapons. I'm aware of the (in)famous 100 ft rule. None is allowed to take pictures less then 100 ft off the AFB, NAS, MCAS, and CGAS fences. However, the case at Patrick is a bit confusing: The parking I was spotting from was more than 200 ft away from the fence, but Satellite Beach is considered a property of the AFB, so I'm wondering if I wasn't totally in the wrong.

I'm really confused (and angry) right now... Long story short: Pretty much every day, I'm passing next to Patrick Air Force Base, in Cocoa Beach. Most of the time, its parking areas are empty, but sometime an interesting aircraft is on the ground. I even had the chance to take some (bad) pictures of a C-5M recently. Today, I passed by once again, but as I was going to shot some ships leaving Port Canaveral, my camera was with me. I saw a 757-200 with her navigation lights turned on, so I decided to wait for her to take-off. I was waiting in my car, when I saw a KC-135 coming-in for landing or going-around. I jumped out of my car, and took a dozen of pictures of her. I was pretty happy, as I haven't seen any Stratotanker in the air for a while. Then, the 752 left. I took some picture of her too, and decided to stay a bit more for the KC-135 which was coming back. However, right at the time I took pictures of the 752, I saw an old-man staring at me strangely from inside his truck. At first, I guessed he thought I was some kind of a "bad guy" taking pictures for "spying". I was wearing flashy clothes, while standing 70 m/225 ft next to an Air Base's fence, and right into the sight of the control tower, talk about the perfect discretion... Anyway, I was about to leave when the guy decided to pass by my car. He took a picture of my plate, then a picture of me (I was staring at him while wondering), and he middle fingered me before leaving. I must admit, I'm extremely bad at holding back my anger with insults. Right now, and about two hours after it happened, I still have my fingers' tips shaking slightly, and the will to make this old man pay for his gesture. Also being worried about the reason why he did that, I stopped by one of the AFB's entrance gates to ask a Military Police officer, if what I did was illegal. He told me it was if my pictures had military installations in them; which they don't, as I only caught the two airplanes while they were flying. Anyway, I told him I will erase all pictures; which I have done. Looking at some posts on aviation photographers forums, it seems like taking pictures of military aircraft in the US is legal as long as no military installations appear in them. Now, I'm just wondering if I'm going to have some visit in the next hours*, and also why that crazy old man did that to me... He could have rightly come to me, and tell me what I was doing wrong, instead of flipping me off. * Which will be a waste of ressources. I'm not the first having taken pictures of a Stratotanker climbing from an AFB and flying over the sea.

Some Austrian private pilot decided to share a message through his flight track:

Already posted in the Arianespace's thread, but I realized it would be more interesting to share it here. https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/03/16/launches-from-french-guiana-suspended-due-to-coronavirus/

Let's keep on with the good news. https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/03/16/launches-from-french-guiana-suspended-due-to-coronavirus/ Official statements (FR only),

I wish my dad took that into consideration when he asked me to take this shot:

Confirmed by the 45th traditional forecast.

I'm going to spam this topic a bit... Here are some of the shots I've taken this morning. I was standing about 4 km/2.5 mi NNW of the SLC-39A, and some mist was present all morning long. Looking closer, it seems like only one engine lighted-up and earlier than others. Those pictures are heavily cropped, and I had to lower their white balance to get some contrast, but I thought some of you will be interested. Bonus shot, B1048.4 fairing emerging from the noise suppression system's cloud.

*Laugh while using the 2020-03-14 format* Seriously, I turned myself to use YYYY—MM-DD years ago, and wouldn’t go back to any of the two others. I also like how it easily lists files per date with computers.

People on KSP Forum when it’s March 14th: People using DD-MM-YYYY on KSP Forum when it’s 14 March:

I went to a local supermarket this morning. Just standard grosseries and a single pack of toilet paper for the next two months; that's what I expected, at first. All rows were full, excepted the toilet paper one... That's the kind of situation reminding me how utterly dumb people are in this world. I'm almost hoping they will end entrenched in their own place, surrounded of toilet paper rolls.

Well, well, well... Now I'm wondering... could this partly be the consequence of the Ministry of Defense's needs? The MiG-27s are now out of service, but the Jaguar and Bison are costly in maintenance, as well as the Su-30MKI. While the navy benefits from a high budget for the development of its SSBNs. In addition, the BJP (in power since 2014) does not necessarily place space adventure among its priorities.

That Moss is incredible! Same for the Tu-144.

True, Central America is most commonly regarded as a sub-continent. The consideration of what is and isn't a continent is relative to geographical convention, however. The problem is, shouldn't the whole continent of Americas be considered, or should we consider North, and South-America distinctively, instead? Now, there are even conflicts in the geography community on the idea to consider Central America as a continent, or a sub-continent. Similarly, the problem exist between some promoting Eurasia as a single continent, rather than a landmass. Edit: My little recommendation would be to use Oceania instead. It is not a considered as a continent strictly talking, but that way anybody from New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, West Papua, and many other sovereign states could be included.

I don't want to touch those old cartridges. I know, they were overly produced, and I could find another one for less than $10 easily. However, I already messed up in my teen years, and I wouldn't like to lose any of those.