Falcon 9 Block 5

This year, I broke the sound barrier 4 times! Following my L2 certification in high power rocketry on May 21st, 2023, I successfully flew my rocket Spirit 4 times, reaching a peak altitude of 11,403ft! Happy New Year!

The @SpaceX is unreal. Facing only a 15% chance of good weather this morning and an incoming major hurricane, we still went for (with a plan to roll the rocket back in the hangar for safety if we didn’t launch). Good launch, good orbit, and good payload deploy. Sayonara HERA and Booster 1061!!!

View from Falcon 9's second stage during the Hera mission

A few minutes till Falcon 9 stage 2 restart - this is the first St2 in orbit restart since the Crew-9 issue. Target escape specific energy (C3) is 31.36 km^2/s^2 which will result in a 0.99 x 2.27 AU x 2.3 deg solar orbit

Propellant load has begun for today’s Falcon 9 launch of the @ESA Hera mission from Florida. Weather is currently 60% favorable for liftoff at 10:52 a.m. ET

Most of these shots were taken on flight day 3 after the EVA. We would have been in a ~190x730km orbit.

From the FAA: "The SpaceX Falcon 9 vehicle is authorized to return to flight only for the planned Hera mission scheduled to launch on Oct. 7 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. The FAA has determined that the absence of a second stage reentry for this mission adequately mitigates the primary risk to the public in the event of a reoccurrence of the mishap experienced with the Crew-9 mission. Safety will drive the timeline for the FAA to complete its review of SpaceX’s Crew-9 mishap investigation report and when the agency will authorize Falcon 9 to return to regular operations."

The last time the spacecraft will be seen in person...😢 Travel well, friend!

@GregScott_photo @torybruno @MarcusHouse @LockheedMartin Incredible photo!!

Sparks fly off ULA's Vulcan Cert-2 mission just after liftoff this morning. An unusal site but beautiful at the same time. #ULA #NASA @torybruno

ULA's Vulcan rocket sits on the pad this afternoon being prepared for tomorrow mornings launch time of 6am EDT. This is the 2nd & final Certification mission for the new #VulcanRocket qualifying it to be able to carry military & classified missions for the govt. #ULA #NASA @ulalaunch @torybruno

Beautiful morning setting up remote cameras for @earthskyscience ahead of Friday's ULA Vulcan Cert-2 launch. Weather is currently 80% favorable. @ulalaunch @torybruno #launch #Vulcan #space

Long story short

You litterally landed 6km outside of your planned landing zone on IFT-4 and the FAA said, "yep all good here!" moronic old man

This document is so sad and infuriating. NASA once made the near impossible possible. It seems irreparably lost now. caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2024/10/02/sls…

American superiority. We win those. 🦅🇺🇸

Two pretty — and wildly different — shots to kick off Vulcan’s first two flights!

An engine shot of the 2 @blueorigin #BE4's & 2 GEM 63XL solid rocket boosters (SRB's) at launch of the ULA Cert-2 mission earlier this morning. for more pics hit that follow button... #ULA @torybruno

I'm assembling a team.

Teams encapsulated @NASA 's Europa Clipper spacecraft into Falcon Heavy's fairing earlier this week ahead of next week's Falcon Heavy launch from pad 39A in Florida