News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:SpaceX Plans Facility Expansion at Kennedy Space Center by greglindahl on Friday June 08, 2018 @07:38PM (#17270617)
Note that the USAF launches Delta IV Heavy payloads from Vandy on a regular basis. Vandy is also occasionally used to launch retrograde.
Re:SpaceX Plans Facility Expansion at Kennedy Space Center by walrus01 on Friday June 08, 2018 @07:53PM (#17270673)
Vandenberg is also used for westbound, retrograde launches for ballistic missile tests and anti-ballistic missile tests, to Kwajalein.
Re:SpaceX Plans Facility Expansion at Kennedy Space Center by JshWright on Friday June 08, 2018 @07:51PM (#17270664)
BFR is projected to have ~5X the lift capacity of the DIVH. That's just a crazy amount of mass. I really don't see the call for single payloads of that size to the orbits that Vandy serves. I certainly could be wrong, but I just don't see enough current or future demand to warrant constructing a pad capable of supporting BFR on the west coast.
Re:SpaceX Plans Facility Expansion at Kennedy Space Center by walrus01 on Friday June 08, 2018 @07:54PM (#17270681)
If you give the NRO the ability to put 14,000 kilogram satellites in orbit they will certainly use it. Even if most of the extra mass is extra propellant for orbit-maintenance ion or hall effect thrusters. A lot of "big satellite" applications that use buses the size of current 6500 kilogram, largest possible telecom satellites, would be very happy to have a few thousand kj of extra propellant tanks available for the same launch cost.
Re:SpaceX Plans Facility Expansion at Kennedy Space Center by garmaine on Saturday June 09, 2018 @02:36AM (#17271843)
There is stuff that big already. The F9 can launch 22,800kg to LEO. The BFL would launch 150,000kg to LEO. Who needs that outside of human missions?
Re:SpaceX Plans Facility Expansion at Kennedy Space Center by _ph_ on Saturday June 09, 2018 @05:29AM (#17272223)
“This is not a moon...”