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1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Sure about that? :wink:  No US gov’t agency has claimed the thing, only that the gov’t arranged the launch thru subcontractor SpaceX. IIRC, the UK gave up on its own orbital launcher once upon a time cuz it was cheaper to buy launches from America, so wouldn’t be the first time the US has launched a payload for an ally...

Well in that case I call it dashed careless of the Yanks to lose our top secret Venus probe. How are we supposed to keep an eye on that rotten Mekon blighter now, what? The Daily Mail shall be hearing of this, you mark my words!

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Some new (here) info on Wednesday’s FH test, as per NasaSpaceFlight:

Test window opens at 1300 EST, 1100PST, 0000 UTC. It’s planned to be a wet dress rehearsal, first time the monster has actually been fully fueled. If everything goes well with that, they may proceed directly to a static fire. If everything goes well with the static fire, which may last as long as seven seconds (:o), launch could be as soon as the 25th.

Tho even if everything goes perfectly, static fire or launch may be delayed for further testing. 

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3 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Sure about that? :wink:  No US gov’t agency has claimed the thing, only that the gov’t arranged the launch thru subcontractor SpaceX. IIRC, the UK gave up on its own orbital launcher once upon a time cuz it was cheaper to buy launches from America, so wouldn’t be the first time the US has launched a payload for an ally...

Not likely. The UK does have a decent-sized space industry, including major satellite and defence firms like Thales and Airbus, so they would be unlikely to use a foreign contractor like Northrop Grumman.

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6 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

Not likely. The UK does have a decent-sized space industry, including major satellite and defence firms like Thales and Airbus, so they would be unlikely to use a foreign contractor like Northrop Grumman.

Making a great way to hide what they did. :wink: All we really know for sure about NG Anyway is that they procured the launch and maybe provided the decoupler.

”hey Northrop Grumman, we need some plausible deniability for one of our trusted allies can to loft a secret bird, will y’all take one for the team? No? Ok, then, here’s some money from all those $40,000 hammers we bought way back when, and next time we have a contract bid yours just might end up on the top of the stack...”

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How Fake News and Elon Musk Sent South Africa's Currency Haywire

Quote

Here’s what happened: Shortly before 6:00 a.m. New York time, false reports suggested South African President Jacob Zuma had unexpectedly resigned. Since Zuma isn’t much loved by investors, the rand shot up on speculation a new government led by the leader of the ruling African National Congress, Cyril Ramaphosa, was on the way in.

But, the report was false. The embattled leader will face an effort from within his party to oust him from office, perhaps as early as Wednesday, but that’s a far cry from a resignation.

News-reading algorithmic traders may have been further confused by reports on the wires of a U.S. congressional aide saying that Zuma was lost. But this Zuma wasn’t Jacob -- but rather the code name for the seemingly failed mission by Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp. to launch a military satellite. (Musk, coincidentally, was born in South Africa.)

Coincidence? I don’t think so!

Edited by sh1pman
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20 minutes ago, TheEpicSquared said:

:0.0:

And of course it happens at 1am where I live so I can’t see it... dammit. 

I'd be very surprised if they livestream it at all. It's a 6 hour window, so could be any time within that. If they go ahead with it.

5 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

How Fake News and Elon Musk Sent South Africa's Currency Haywire

Coincidence? I don’t think so!

Half-Life 4 confirmed! Wake up, sheeple! (I'm out of likes again... :()

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7 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

I'd be very surprised if they livestream it at all. It's a 6 hour window, so could be any time within that. If they go ahead with it.

SpaceFlightNow usually has a camera showing the launchpad, at least for the F9 launches. But yeah, I doubt that SpaceX will have an official livestream of the static fire.

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Three Falcons lifting off at the same time. I can't even begin to imagine such epic roar! And then double sonic boom of re-entering boosters. Man, that will be a LOT of decibels :D And many, many pants will be moved. Followers of EJ_SA and DasValdez on Twitch should recognise this reference. :cool:

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8 minutes ago, _Augustus_ said:

I'm really confused.

So is (almost) everyone else. A few people who are not confused almost certainly want everyone else to be confused.

8 minutes ago, _Augustus_ said:

So the F9 performed properly? Will this failure affect future flights?

What failure? SpaceX says their rocket had no failure.

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3 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Nah, they selected “Control from here” on the wrong probe core

And rammed the upper stage 3 seconds after separation.
Or you put the separator the wrong way and forgot probe core and antenna. 

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8 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

And rammed the upper stage 3 seconds after separation.
Or you put the separator the wrong way and forgot probe core and antenna. 

Or they simply didn’t extend the antenna;.; Or..... Who was in charge of making sure that the battery cables were connected properly?

 

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52 minutes ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Who was in charge of making sure that the battery cables were connected properly?

Hell, who was in charge of checking the staging and reading the engineer's report? Didn't they think to revert to launch?

What kind of a space program are they running here?? :D

-Slashy

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1 hour ago, _Augustus_ said:

I'm really confused.

So the F9 performed properly? Will this failure affect future flights?

Yes, the F9 performed properly. No, this "failure" (allegedly) will not affect future flights. IF (and that's a big if) there actually was a failure, it was not on SpaceX's end. They have no intention of doing a review.

HTHs,
-Slashy

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1 hour ago, GoSlash27 said:

Yes, the F9 performed properly. No, this "failure" (allegedly) will not affect future flights. IF (and that's a big if) there actually was a failure, it was not on SpaceX's end. They have no intention of doing a review.

HTHs,
-Slashy

How would you do the review?  This "thing" that was our payload continued on a ballistic trajectory.  We can show it was installed per all instructions.  While I'm sure plenty of people knew a lot about Zuna, most of the people needed for a "full review" certainly don't otherwise have the "need to know".

I once had a coworker who did "work" "upriver" (as a contractor).  That was all we were supposed to know.  Then we were told to forget about the "up river" part (presumably it meant NRO instead of CIA, but with the amount of contractors all over VA I doubt anyone could say for sure).

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EDIT: Nevermind, I think I might've been straying too far off SpaceX and onto politics.

In other news, did I miss the announcement where they delayed one of the launches scheduled for late this month? It seems reasonable, otherwise they would've had three launches inside two days, which would've been pretty exhausting for the SpaceX crew. Of course, I suspect Elon Musk would jump for joy if the market got to the point where he had to hire enough staff to keep up with a daily launch schedule. I know I would.

Edited by Starman4308
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