Keith’s update: From SpaceX; “Elon Musk will make an important SpaceX announcement today, Friday, April 25th at 1:00PM ET at The National Press Club – 529 14th Street, NW – Washington, DC.” We’ll live tweet at @NASAWatch – Marcia will no doubt be busy at @SpcPlcyOnline too.

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member...

15 replies on “Big SpaceX Announcement Today?”

  1. Given the time-line, it could be the crew for the first crewed flight.

    Alternatives are a solid customer for Falcon Heavy flight 1 or some firm details about the MCT.

  2. I predict he will announce they recovered the 1st stage largely intact. At least that what I’m hoping it will be..

    1. That’s more likely the sort of thing they’d announce on their Twitter feed or Facebook page. You’d have to book the NPC months in advance so this is probably something that’s been in the works for a while.

      1. Ben:

        Are you sure about that? If that’s true, than my notion that it’ll be the crew Dragon reveal would hold water. Was the Pad 39A lease deal predictable enough that Spacex could book the NPC in advance with confidence?

        But remember… this is Elon Musk we’re talking about here. If he got on the phone and begged, my guess is he could book any room on short notice! 🙂

        tinker

  3. SpaceX are sending their new Raptor engine for testing at the NASA Stennis Space Center. The meeting could be to official announce the Raptor or its launch vehicle.

  4. Folks:

    Surely someone can get a video of this announcement for us to watch later. Following on Twitter can be such a chore.

    What could it possibly be that we won’t be disappointed with:

    – Dragon 2 (crewed) reveal?
    – Raptor launch vehicle reveal?
    – Pictures of the booster stage floating in the Atlantic?
    – Announcement that next booster will land at Shuttle Landing Facility?

    My guess is the first one. This was delayed from last year because of monkey wrench thrown into the Pad 39A lease by Blue Origins and their ‘friends’ last December. Now that that’s out of the way… Elon Musk can now paint Unicorns on the wall of the flame trench! 🙂

    tinker

    1. Maybe all 4 points you stated. Except the booster landing site will be near the SLC-36.pad for water immersion in case of mishaps.

  6. The big news from the announcement was that SpaceX is filing suit in federal court over the EELV block buy. Musk sounded pretty upset about it.

    Also they fished pieces of the 1st stage out of the ocean, got video of the landing, and are going to hire bigger boats for the next launch. It sounded like they might be considering re-flying floating Falcons.

  7. Two announcements, the falcon 9 did a successful soft land, waves sunk it. Next one will land closer to shore and will have more and bigger recovery boats.
    Filing a lawsuit protesting the Airforce’s uncompeted block buy. Says the military can save over a billion utilizing falcon heavy.

    1. The thing is, Falcon heavy has yet to fly. I thought the Air Force had said something like a vehicle had to fly at least 3 times with the last 2 successes. As the military has said, they aren’t going to put a multi billion dollar satellite with high national security value on an untried vehicle.

      1. SpaceX isn’t asking for heavy launches to be competed, just ones that they can loft with F9R, like GPS satellites.

        1. They are suing the contract that lets the Air Force use the Atlas 5 which will let them launch payloads into LEO from 9,800–18,810 kg. The last Atlas 5 variant used was the 541 which can lift 17,443 kg into LEO. The Falcon 9 can only carry 13,150 kg into LEO which means they would need the Falcon heavy. There were 14 launches that were going to be bid competitively. Seems like these would be for known low mass spacecraft that the Falcon 9 could carry.

          1. The majority of recent Atlas V launches have been in the 401 configuration, which has less capacity than the Falcon 9. The 541 configuration has only launched twice ever. I don’t think DoD has released the numbers of each variant that were part of the block buy. Has anyone seen them?

  8. It is 2:11

    I have just heard about MR. Musks law suit

    Lol

    Do any of you recall the movie starring Jimmey Stewert called Mr. Smith goes to Washington??

    I think I’m going to find it and watch it again!!!!

    🙂

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