A couple of nice milestones on tonight’s mission: the 100th flight of the Falcon 9, and the first time a booster has been flown 7 times. Otherwise, a perfectly ordinary mission putting up another 60 Starlink satellites, bringing the total to around 900.
As for Starlink itself, Ars Technica had a good roundup of an AMA on Reddit with Starlink people:
Nothing too revolutionary in there, but it’s good to hear they have no plans for data caps, just prioritization.
Aye; was a good launch tonight. Ya know, it still feels kinda weird having a private space program but I gotta say it is wonderfully exciting to have an active space program.
I think the hybrid approach gets the best of both worlds. I love NASA, and their planetary exploration programs are second to none. They are also the only ones that can justify a human presence in space. But they are not the best people to serve the launch market; not today, at least. NASA is just too obligated to Congress; lowering the cost of access to space requires elevating physics and engineering above all. You can’t, even for a second, consider “Senator X wants more jobs in his state; we have to stick with technology Y” if you really want to lower costs.
The more SpaceX (and other NewSpace companies) lowers launch costs, the more NASA can do with their budget. We can have even more probes and landers, more space telescopes, and more Earth observation satellites. And now, SpaceX can shuttle humans to space for a better price than before.
I agree, it’s very exciting and the shared accomplishments between NASA and SpaceX have been a bright spot in 2020. Starlink is solely a SpaceX effort, but Falcon 9 would not be where it is without NASA’s support.
I hope Biden picks an administrator that continues the partnership. I was worried about Bridenstein initially, him being a Trump pick and a maybe-or-maybe-not climate change denier, but he successfully continued the commercial partnership programs started by Bush and Obama, and for that I give him credit. Fortunately, it’s hard to deny the success of these programs, so I expect to see continued positive results.
I agree: right now we appear to be getting the best of both worlds; they are working together like someone was writing a novel about a triumphant new scheme. 
Starlink, in particular, I think is a really excellent and worthy effort.
Bridenstine has been fine, IMO, because I never hear from him or about him. He appears to be simply doing his job to the best of his ability. I haven’t seen anything yet about a Biden pick yet but he has former NASA people on his transition team so I’m confident whoever he picks will be a good fit for the job.
Agreed on all points. This is a good time to be a fan of the U.S. space program.
We seem to be on the verge of the Starship flight test:
This should be substantially more impressive than the previous hop! First, it should reach an altitude of 12.5 km (instead of just 150 m). Second, it will be a far more complete test article, with nosecone, body flaps, three engines, and a few other things. And most importantly, it will attempt the “bellyflop” maneuver, where it spends most of its time falling on its side, using the flaps for maneuvering–until the last moment, where it rotates to vertical and lands the “normal” way (how cool is it that vertical landings are now normal?).
Musk gives it a 1/3 chance of fully succeeding. But it’ll be exciting regardless of the outcome, and SpaceX already has several vehicles under construction past this one, given the high probability of lithobraking and a Rapid Semi-expected Disassembly.
The flight will take place tomorrow at the earliest, but maybe a bit later in the week.
Freaking awesome; thanks for that update!
Sure thing! Unfortunately, I don’t yet know of a good way to keep track of exactly when it happens without just leaving a livestream open in the background. YouTube has a reminder link for the official stream here:
But I don’t know if the stream will just be on all day or what. There are a bunch of rocketspotters down in Texas now, doing their own livestreams–but again they’re just kinda sitting around until something happens, since there’s no fixed schedule. Hopefully, SpaceX will only start streaming when they really think they’re ready, so that the YouTube notification is accurate.
Of course, if you don’t care about watching live, there will be plenty of media from all sources afterward.
Aye; the sum it up with a caveat (bolding mine):
That SpaceX feed is dormant but the NASA SpaceFlight channel is showing video with commentary:
The official stream is live!
4 minutes to liftoff.
Last-second abort. Heard “Raptor abort” on the feed. Hopefully they can recycle quickly.
Stream says stand down for today. Well, try again tomorrow!
It was a beautiful camera shot tho
I’m seeing a 1pm (or in about 34 minutes) time now at this feed
You can watch the build up here broadcast live by various enthusiasts with good cameras.
Blessed are the geek.
Michael Baylor just confirmed the WB-57 has a problem and has not been able to take off yet.
The SpaceX feed is live now… great video again!
I highly recommend watching the SpaceX feed but listening to the NASA SpaceFlight commentary.
They had a hold for unknown reasons at T-2:06, but they’re shooting now for 4:40 CST (a little over an hour from now). Ahh, anticipation…
They’ve just started a 45-minute countdown.