Other News A Falcon 9 launch remains on schedule for this evening. The Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral at 8:28 p.m. Eastern, the beginning of a four-hour window, carrying the Turksat 5A communications satellite. Forecasts project a 70% chance of acceptable weather. The Airbus-built satellite will provide Ku-band services over portions of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. [Spaceflight Now] SpaceX tested the Raptor engines of its newest Starship prototype Wednesday. The company performed a brief static-fire of the three Raptor engines on the SN9 Starship vehicle at Boca Chica, Texas. SpaceX appeared to be preparing for a second static-fire test later in the day, but scrubbed it late in the day. SpaceX is preparing SN9 for a test flight, similar to the one flown by SN8 last month, which could take place as soon as Friday. [Teslarati] Dynetics said Wednesday it performed a review with NASA of its lunar lander concept. The company announced it completed a "continuation review" with NASA as part of its Human Landing System (HLS) contract awarded last April. At that review, the company provided more information about the lander design and test activities. Dynetics confirmed it also submitted a proposal for Option A of the HLS program, which will fund full-scale development of a lander for missions starting as soon as 2024. NASA is expected to make decisions on Option A awards in the next few months. [Dynetics] Virgin Galactic said it completed an investigation into an aborted SpaceShipTwo flight last month. In a pair of tweets early Thursday, Virgin said it carried out post-flight inspections and a root cause analysis of the abort during the Dec. 12 flight, when an onboard computer lost connection around the time the suborbital spaceplane ignited its hybrid rocket engine. Virgin didn't disclose details of that investigation, but said that corrective actions are underway and, once completed, it will announce a date for the next flight. [Twitter @virgingalactic] |
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