Comments on: SpaceX prepares for its next ISS mission while Orbital inches closer to flight

By: Jeff Foust

Jeff Foust — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:35:01 +0000

He did tweet earlier this week about the successful static fire of the Falcon 9 in advance of this Friday’s launch:
http://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/306193893890863104

By: Stuart

Stuart — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 11:34:06 +0000

Has anyone noticed Elon Musk’s Twitter page deafening silence with 1. Friday’s launch 2. Yesterday’s Inspiration Mars launch event noteven raising a comment.

He appears to be primarily focussed upon his electric car company, which I might add is entirely his right to do so.

A problem being a super genius is I suppose that there are only so many hours in the day and so much to do.

By: Charles Lurio

Charles Lurio — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 18:50:06 +0000

Just to note that whatever Suffredini “suggested,” I’ve reason to believe that the extra testing had nothing to do with the problem in flight with the engine that shut down.

By: John Laury

John Laury — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 01:42:53 +0000

You have to hand it to SpaceX, after a rough start, they’ve been nearly flawless. Hopefully things will continue along that path for them. I haven’t followed Orbital as closely, but it appears they’re about to start taking some pretty big steps soon, and I think it’s in the best interest of the country that they succeed as well to help further the fixed-price model. A big hit to the “cost plus” crowd, but, they’re big boys with deep pockets, if they’re smart, they’ll be able to move toward a business model that requires business acumen instead of alot of accountants to simply count the money. It’ll be especially nice to see Dragon on orbit for a full month! The more operational hours logged in space are a big plus to show SpaceX has the Moxie to operate in the harsh environment of space.

By: Coastal Ron

Coastal Ron — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 21:29:37 +0000

So if things go as planned, by the end of the year two major accomplishments will have happened:

1. NASA will have completed the COTS program on budget even though it went over schedule, since the COTS participants have fixed-price milestones. Pretty good considering the 5-10X budget increases some NASA programs have gone through recently. I hope they go out of their way to highlight this.

2. NASA, and the U.S. in general, will have a redundant cargo resupply capability for the Low Earth Orbit (LEO) in support of the ISS and future commercial space ventures. I would imagine both the Cygnus and the Dragon could be used beyond LEO too, and if so, they could support future HSF missions to lunar orbit (like a proposed EML outpost).

Cargo Now, Crew Next