Loren Grush
20.3K posts
@lorengrush
Space reporter at Bloomberg @business | Order my book The Six, out now! | Send me news tips: Signal username lorengrush.56 or email [email protected]
🚨 We’re actively monitoring and analyzing the breakup event in #LEO involving a Chinese rocket body, CZ-6A. Our radar data indicates this event occurred on 6 August at ~20:10 UTC at ~810 km. It resulted in at least 700 debris fragments and potentially more than 900.
Flight 5 Starship and Super Heavy are ready to fly, pending regulatory approval. Additional booster catch testing and Flight 6 vehicle testing is planned while waiting for clearance to fly
We are targeting no earlier than August 26 for the launch of Polaris Dawn
This forward module validation test is fun to see. Our four fins on New Glenn are about the size of a car—roughly 16 feet long at the base and sticking out 6.5 feet from the body of the rocket. They’re responsible for steering the rocket on ascent and descent. Most of the structure is aluminum, which is protected from reentry heating by a durable fabric thermal protection system we invented and refer to internally as ‘Comet.’ The aerodynamic forces pushing on the fin during flight are roughly equal to the weight of a 737 aircraft. #newglenn @blueorigin
Cygnus NG-21: At ISS crew wakeup today, Mike Barratt asked mission control if the onboard Cygnus capture timeline for Tuesday was still good or if a revision was expected. The MCC CAPCOM replied, "it's a good timeline for tomorrow." Barratt: "OK, superb, we're really looking forward to that." (1/2)
The #Starliner crew and ground teams completed a test of the spacecraft’s reaction control system thrusters today. The jets were fired for short bursts, one at a time, to provide data for analysis of the systems. Teams will evaluate the results of the test firings over the next few days as they work through overall studies ahead of an agency readiness review.
