41–50 of 65 posts
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They cut the live feed when an issue came up on one of their dragon capsule launches.
You don't think NASA wouldn't have cut the feed on the Challenger disaster if they could have?
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They cut the live feed when an issue came up on one of their dragon capsule launches.
There is a little bit of hyperbole involved when you have an issue with them cutting the live feed on one of their missions and then claiming: "SpaceX seem to cover up any hiccups or issues they have and always present this saccharine sweet 'flawless' report of their missions. " You may want to dial it back a few notches - trust me, I tend to reach for the hyperbole a little too quickly myself. (Note - I read subscri…
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This is made even more complicated by the fact that SpaceX isn't launching from the equator, which means the satellite will need to change its orbital inclination. Inclination changes are less expensive the 'higher' up you are, so SES8 is in an orbit with an apogee almost twice as high as its eventual orbit. This allows it to use less fuel to correct the inclination. I haven't read up on the burn plans, but it's poss…
Bi-elliptic transfer sounds like a plausible explanation but my math gives it a bigger delta-v requirement than a straightforward Hohmann transfer. Bi-elliptic transfer: (2.713240 + 0.908982 + 0.485255) = 4.107477 km/s Hohmann transfer: (2.335977 + 1.431307) = 3.7672853 km/s This alone does not explain why they did so. But this is all assuming that the trajectory is planar. If there was a plane change coupled with th…
It's easy to miss how important this launch is. SpaceX builds rockets but lots of organizations around the world have built and continue to build rockets that do everything that this rocket did, and sometimes more. But in some ways that's also why this launch is impressive. SpaceX is a private company that has developed its launch vehicles outside of a conventional government procurement program, on their own terms.…
Just makes me sad that they're not publicly traded, because I would have placed a big bet (investment) on the company last week. Then again, perhaps it's for the best so that Lockheed, Boeing and ULA friends don't just buy them and shut them down. I hope our 21st century Howard Hughes gets rich off this and starts even more disruptive companies with the spoils.
I used to think that too, but then I read about Elon's opinion on that and changed my mind. Being privately owned allows them to take huge risks and whether the inevitable catastrophic failure. You can't really do that when you have to be accountable to millions of shareholders and market pressures.
It's easy to miss how important this launch is. SpaceX builds rockets but lots of organizations around the world have built and continue to build rockets that do everything that this rocket did, and sometimes more. But in some ways that's also why this launch is impressive. SpaceX is a private company that has developed its launch vehicles outside of a conventional government procurement program, on their own terms.…
It's cool to see so many people excited about this launch. Just wanted to remind people that we have a lot of software job openings right now. People are often surprised to learn that SpaceX is hiring web developers - http://www.spacex.com/careers/position/3890 . There are some interesting internal tools projects that are critical parts of each mission. We have embedded developer, PM, and test roles open as well.
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The fact that SpaceX is hiring web developers is not surprising per-se. The fact that it is a 'frontend' position and that page says it's 'avionics' - that is surprising indeed.
I think there might actually be a bit of a scope for some public-side web development that interfaces (indirectly!) with the avionics. Some other launch providers do animations based on vehicle telemetry once the vehicle is out of range. Last night, SpaceX just showed a static image. Given that there's a lot of interest in their webcasts, I imagine they'd like to do better at some point... [Edit: kind-of wonder if th…
SpaceX should just provide an API for that, we'll build the rest ;)
It's easy to miss how important this launch is. SpaceX builds rockets but lots of organizations around the world have built and continue to build rockets that do everything that this rocket did, and sometimes more. But in some ways that's also why this launch is impressive. SpaceX is a private company that has developed its launch vehicles outside of a conventional government procurement program, on their own terms.…
Just makes me sad that they're not publicly traded, because I would have placed a big bet (investment) on the company last week. Then again, perhaps it's for the best so that Lockheed, Boeing and ULA friends don't just buy them and shut them down. I hope our 21st century Howard Hughes gets rich off this and starts even more disruptive companies with the spoils.
It's easy to miss how important this launch is. SpaceX builds rockets but lots of organizations around the world have built and continue to build rockets that do everything that this rocket did, and sometimes more. But in some ways that's also why this launch is impressive. SpaceX is a private company that has developed its launch vehicles outside of a conventional government procurement program, on their own terms.…
Just makes me sad that they're not publicly traded, because I would have placed a big bet (investment) on the company last week. Then again, perhaps it's for the best so that Lockheed, Boeing and ULA friends don't just buy them and shut them down. I hope our 21st century Howard Hughes gets rich off this and starts even more disruptive companies with the spoils.
If SpaceX went public, became a wildly successful earth-orbit rocket company and made Musk very rich, I believe he would consider that a failure.
SpaceX is the company that really makes Elon Musk a role model for me. I find everything they do inspirational. I must have watched that video of their employees outside mission control watching the falcon 9 launch a dozen times [1]. You should see the lines of students at my university's career fair when they come, you almost can't even see the recruiters behind the sea of undergrads swarming their booth. [1] http:/…
OK, staying up and watching Neptune All Night in 1989 as our first and last probe for it, Voyager 2, flew past it, and we received the first pictures was cool, but Space-X is about seriously getting out into space potentially in an long term economical way.