Did they perform the first stage test this week as planned? It's starting to look like SpaceX will miss their July 9th target date. They seem to be falling farther behind schedule. My opinion: Too much focus on reuse and not enough focus on customers. SpaceX needs to remember who is paying their bills.
Will CASSIOPE use the big fairing?
You get industry scuttlebutt in these threads. Although considering that the first stage at least, is still sitting in Texas, I'd be more a little skeptical of July 20 at this point. Things/milestones we are still waiting to hear about in this thread:* Stage testing completed in TX* Stage shipped from TX, arrives at VAFB* First time stage integration at new facility* First ever WDR of 1.1 and of the SLC-4E pad* First time SpaceX integrates a satellite payload on a F9* First time SpaceX has dealt with the F9 fairing as part of integration/launch prep* Pad static-fire?
Who says the pad isn't complete? A lot of the v1.1 pad work they were doing even before the last v1.0 rocket launched.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 05/20/2013 07:40 pmWho says the pad isn't complete? A lot of the v1.1 pad work they were doing even before the last v1.0 rocket launched.At Vandenberg?
Because SpaceX would have crowed about it?
We're going with To Be Determined on all SpaceX Falcon 9 launches for this year at least, because that's what the internal range information on L2 is going with.
It sounds like Elon may be directing too much resources to achieving his dreams of e.g. reusability and not enough to achieving his customers' dream of payloads in orbit in a timely fashion.