SpaceX Planning To Launch Starlink 6-58 Sunday Evening

SpaceX Planning To Launch Starlink 6-58 Sunday Evening

Another day that ends in “y” and that means SpaceX is planning another Starlink launch from The Cape. Sunday evening, from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, the Starlink 6-58 mission is scheduled to liftoff, with a launch window from 8:11 PM EDT Sunday evening to 12:11 AM EDT on early Monday morning. The first stage will land offshore, meaning there will be no sonic booms in the Space Coast Area.

Axiom Space Plans To Test Orbital-Based Data Center Tech on ISS This Year

Axiom Space Plans To Test Orbital-Based Data Center Tech on ISS This Year

A typical data center on Earth.
Photo: Leonardo Rizzi, Creative Commons

In the modern world, data centers are everywhere. They house the IT infrastructure for building, running, and delivering applications and services over the Internet and also through private networks such as the ones that corporations have for their employees. This website — and almost every other website in existence — resides in a data center somewhere, where it is maintained and monitored by the folks that Florida Media Now has engaged to provide that service. “The cloud” is another term we use for data centers — your email, photo backups, and so forth are all in a data center too. And now, data centers are starting to move to orbit.

Jason Aspiotis, Director of In-Space Infrastructure & Logistics, Axiom Space.
Photo: Spacecom Expo 2024

Jason Aspiotis, Axiom Space’s Director of In-Space Infrastructure & Logistics, says this only makes sense as the space economy grows. “Earth’s orbital economy is evolving with the proliferation of thousands of commercial, U.S. government, and allied satellites addressing needs in Earth observation, next generation communications, positioning, and navigation, space domain awareness, and security.”

New EIS Suggests More Than One Starship Pad Planned For KSC/CCSFS

New EIS Suggests More Than One Starship Pad Planned For KSC/CCSFS

SpaceX Starship lifting off on the IFT-2 test from Boca Chica Texas.
Photo: Chris Leymarie, Florida Media Now
SpaceX Starship lifting off on the IFT-2 test from Boca Chica Texas.
Photo: Chris Leymarie, Florida Media Now

The Federal Aviation Administration, NASA and other parties have published a notice of intent to conduct an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for SpaceX Starship launches from Pad LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center, where it anticipates up to forty-four launches and landing at the facility.

Atlas V Valve Issue Scrubs Starliner; Launch Date Now NET May 17

Atlas V Valve Issue Scrubs Starliner; Launch Date Now NET May 17

Atlas V and Starliner sits on Launch Complex 41 Monday night.
Photo: United Launch Alliance

UPDATE: Several sources are now reporting that Starliner will have to be rolled back from the pad with a new launch date NET May 17th.

Cape Canaveral It was all going well until it wasn’t. That’s often the story with launch attempts: tens of thousands of things must work perfectly, perform as planned, and operate normally, and only one thing has to go wrong for the attempt to be called off.

SpaceX Planning Starlink 6-55 Launch For Tonight

SpaceX Planning Starlink 6-55 Launch For Tonight

Another 23 Starlink satellites are set to be sent to orbit aboard a Falcon 9 this evening from SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The launch window opens at 09:49 PM EDT and extends until 01:17 AM EDT Friday.

If tonight’s planned liftoff does not happen, according to SpaceX, “If needed, additional opportunities are also available on Friday, May 3, starting at 9:03 p.m. ET.”

Axiom Space Tests Lunar EVA Suit At Neutral Buoyancy Lab In Houston

Axiom Space Tests Lunar EVA Suit At Neutral Buoyancy Lab In Houston

Unoccupied AxEMU lunar EVA suit underwater at NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory in Houston, Texas. Date unknown.
Photo: Axiom Space on X.com

Houston, Texas One of the critical tasks for the upcoming Artemis missions is completing new spacesuits for astronauts to wear while on the lunar surface. The suits are critical, as they must protect astronauts from severe temperatures, the moon’s lack of a meaningful atmosphere, and sharp, jagged lunar regolith. In September 2022, NASA awarded Axiom Space a $228.5 million contract to develop the next-generation spacesuit for the Artemis III mission to the moon. 

Astroscale Japan Catches Up To Space Junk, Will De-Orbit It

Astroscale Japan Catches Up To Space Junk, Will De-Orbit It

A spent second stage as imaged by Astroscale Japan’s Adras-J spacecraft in April 2024.
Photo: Astroscale Japan
A spent second stage as imaged by Astroscale Japan’s Adras-J spacecraft in April 2024.
Photo: Astroscale Japan

In his classic book “The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy” writer Douglas Adams once said that “Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.”

Starliner Flight Test Readiness Review: “Go” For Launch

Starliner Flight Test Readiness Review: “Go” For Launch

Starliner's second uncrewed flight test launched last year. Photo: Charles Boyer / FMN
Starliner’s second uncrewed flight test launched last year. A crewed flight test is scheduled for May 6, 2024 Photo: Charles Boyer / FMN

NASA’s Commercial Crew directorate has announced the results of the Readiness Review for the planned launch of Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner flight test: they are “go” for launch at 10:34 PM EDT on May 6.

Sargussum Is Coming Soon To A Florida Beach Near You (Probably)

Sargussum Is Coming Soon To A Florida Beach Near You (Probably)

Cocoa Beach in Florida
Photo: Charles Boyer / FMN

In what has become a rite of summer, it’s nearly Sargussum season on Florida beaches. In many recent years, thick brown mats of a macroalgae named Sargussum start washing up on the shorelines, sometimes reaching several inches in depth in early summer, and those mats linger until well into the season.

Sargassum often comes with a pungent stench attached to it — something between sewage and rotten eggs — due to the mats off-gassing Hydrogen Sulfide and Ammonia, among others. Hydrogen Sulfide smells like rotten eggs, and ammonia is most commonly linked to a stale urine smell. This makes a sargassum-covered beach a wholly unpleasant experience, and that’s before the brown water is created in the surf by Sargassum decaying in the water.

Falcon 9 launching in 2022

SpaceX Planning Starlink 6-51 Launch Today – How and where to watch

A recent Starlink launch as viewed from Playa Linda Beach. Photo: Charles Boyer/FMN
A recent Starlink launch as viewed from Playa Linda Beach. Photo: Charles Boyer/FMN

SpaceX is planning to launch the first of three Falcon 9 missions over the next five days today. There’s another launch scheduled for tomorrow, Thursday, April 18, and a final one set for Monday, April 22nd. All three will be ferrying a tranche of Starlink Group 6 satellites to orbit. Today’s launch is from Pad LC-39A at Kennedy Space Center.

SpaceX Launches Starlink 6-49, Booster B1062 Completes 20th Mission

SpaceX Launches Starlink 6-49, Booster B1062 Completes 20th Mission

For a time, Falcon 9’s plume illuminated the whole rocket body as it ascended to space, powered by nine Merlin engines.
Photo: Ed Cordero / Florida Media Now

SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 tonight from Pad SLC-40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and sent another twenty-three Starlink satellites to orbit. Liftoff occurred at 09:22 PM EDT on a crisp, clear spring evening on the Space Coast.

Note: Originally published by Charles Boyer at Talk of Titusville