USAF X-37B Space Plane breaks records yet again.

                                                                  10/28/19

Photo credits: USAF 45th Space Wing

 Sunday morning Space Coast residents here in Florida where awakened or not depending on who you talk to, by the US Air Force's super secret X-37B OTV-5 spaceplane.

Photo Credit: SpaceX

The X-37B returned from its 780 day flight in LEO (Low Earth Orbit), breaking World Records yet again. The OTV-5 lifted off from LC-39A at KSC on September 7, 2017 at 10:00 am EDT on board the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. The Falcon 9 booster landed safely at LZ-1 around 8.5 minutes later.

Photo Credit: SpaceX

At 3:51 am EDT the X37b landed safely breaking the sound barrier and creating those beautiful Sonic booms over the spacecoast that so many people got used to when the Shuttle Orbiters returned to launch site (RTLS) on the former Shuttle Landing Facility runway at Kennedy Space Center on Merritt Island. An event that has  been re-invigorated by SpaceX's Falcon 9 booster's with their landings on SpaceX Landing Site 1.

Photo credits: USAF 45th Space Wing

Since the Space Shuttle programs retirement in 2011, the landing facility has  been used by numerous agencies to test automobile driving tests and speed records for Starfighters a long term tenant of the SLF for their F-104 Starfighter jet aircract,  to United Launch Alliance and Lockheed Martin among others.

Artemis / SLS Core Stage Pathfinder test article arrives at Kennedy Space Center via the Pegasus Barge.

30/09/2019

 On Saturday the 27th of September and seemingly non-eventful day on Florida's Space Coast where thousands were enjoying a typical end of Summer day on the Atlantic shore something truly eventful was unfolding. The NASA Pegasus barge was winding its way up the Intercoastal waterway that accesses the Banana River a Brackish (saltwater mixed with freshwater) waterway filled with Flora and Native Fauna. Everything from Atlantic Bottle Nosed Dolphins to Alligators to Great Blue Herons.

This seeming unimpressive grayish barge was carrying something special. Inside was the Artemis / Space Launch System Pathfinder Test article. A 212 ft. long, 27.6 foot-diameter Core stage that will be used to accomplish stacking tests and harness attachment tests in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) High Bay 3 up until the first Flight worthy Artemis / SLS booster arrives for assembly and mating to the crawler Transporter and rolled out to the LC-39 B for the Artemis 1 flight carrying the 2nd crew worthy unmanned Orion Spacecraft. This mission was formerly known as the Exploration Mission 1.

Fast forward to September 30th, 2019 where members of the media were invited from various outlets and were on hand for the Pathfinders un-barging onto dry land at the loading-unloading dock to the north of the NASA Press site parking lot.

 The Pegasus barge got a new lease on life with a full refurbishment specifically to carry the SLS Core stages from the Michoud Assembly Facility in Bay St. Louis, New Orleans, Louisiana to Florida's space coast. The barge was designed to replace the Poseidon and Orion barges built in the '40s and refurbished in the '60s for the Apollo Program. Pegasus carried the External Tank for the STS or Space Transportation System or Space Shuttle Program.

NASA’s Pegasus Barge arrives at the Launch Complex 39 turn basin wharf at Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Sept. 27 to make its first delivery to Kennedy in support of the agency’s Artemis missions. Photo credit: NASA/Mike Downs

That which has lifted hopes and dreams to the Cosmos, has happened yet again.

 On the evening of March 30, 2017 SpaceX conducted a launch from Kennedy Space Center's Launch Complex 39A or LC-39A. This launch pad was made famous during the Apollo era as the launch pad of the historic Apollo 8 being the first Manned mission to the Moon in December 1968 and again in July of 1969 it was used again for historic Apollo 11 Saturn V launch as the first Manned mission to land on our nearest heavenly body, the Moon.

 SpaceX has made history once again by taking a flight proven rocket that lifted  the CRS-8 Dragon spacecraft into Low Earth Orbit (LEO) for its rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS). And around 9 minutes later, the same Falcon 9 booster landed under its own power successfully for the first time on the Automated Spaceport Droneship (ASDS) the " Of Course I Still Love You " (OCISLY).

 This this is a major milestone in SpaceX's grand plan for launch vehicle re-usability and affordability. This is also further pushing SpaceX's mission of being the first commercial company to put colonists on a planetary body by sending humans to the red planet, with SpaceX's Mars Interplanetary Colonial Transport system or ICT.

 

(Photo: SES-10 - Michael McCabe / SpaceFlight Insider)

 Up next for SpaceX is the NROL-67 mission on April 30th,2017 at 7 a.m. eastern Daylight Time LC-39A, launching SpaceX's first classified payload for the National Reconnaissance Office. Around 9 minutes later SpaceX will attempt to land once again the Falcon 9 booster at LZ-1. This will make the 4th successful landing at LZ-1 if all goes to plan. 

 We have had 3 land-based Falcon 9 booster recovery successes at LZ-1 so far. These were the Orbcomm OG-2 M2, CRS-9 and CRS-10 missions the Commercial Resupply Contract under NASA. For a total of 13 successful landing between ocean landing, ASDS, and Landing Zone 1. There have been many naysayers since the inception of Space Exploration Technologies. Founder and CEO/CTO Elon Musk and his Company President and COO Gwynne Shotwell have slapped every naysayer in the kisser with most righteous success after success. SpaceX is a company that takes no and makes it a historical and resounding YES! In a post mission press briefing SpaceX Founder Elon Musk and Martin Halliwell, Chief technology officer for SES stated that the Falcon 9 Booster F9-S1-021, the first to fly land and re-fly and re-land will be made a display piece for all the world to see at Cape Canaveral. Now whether that will be refined to Kennedy Space Center or Cape Canaveral Airforce Station will depend on further discussions between the powers that be. Well done on a most excellent mission success and here is to many more.

Ad Aspera Per Astra -  "through hardships to the stars"

                                                       (Photo: SpaceX CRS-8 SpaceX)