New blueprints of Long March 9’s factory reveal that it will have a 16-meter diameter fairing! To show how massive that truly is, I have compared it to past, current, and future launch vehicles that are also huge in size.
I honestly do not see a reason why a rocket would ever need a fairing this large 😭
A nearly five-month-old Lufthansa Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner at Frankfurt, preparing for a flight to Los Angeles, experienced a nose landing gear collapse at the gate.
Some LC-36 updates. Now that we’ve had access to the pad and integration facility we can share a bit of good news. The propellant farm, oxygen, liquid hydrogen and LNG tanks are all in good shape. This is good luck because these are very long lead items. The water tower is also good. The big support tower is damaged, but it can be repaired in place rather than torn down and replaced. The booster “Never Tell Me The Odds” and the three GS-2s that were onsite in the integration facility also look good.
I’ve seen some speculation that we might move directly to the 9x4 configuration, but we won’t do that. Rate manufacturing of 7x2 is going well, and we’re going to continue that at pace as planned and store the stages for use. In addition, we had already been working for some time on eliminating our transporter-erector in favor of an alternative vertical conop, and we’ll now go directly to that; so we don’t need a new transporter-erector.
We will fly again before the end of this year. Gradatim Ferociter.
SPACEX: Today, SpaceX was awarded a $4.16 billion contract by the U.S. Space Force to accelerate the Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator (SB-AMTI) program.
The contract will develop and integrate space-based sensors to detect and track airborne moving targets. It aims to replace the Air Force's aging E-3 Sentry and planned E-7 Wedgetail aircraft systems.
The initial award targets a satellite constellation by 2028 to address operational blind spots for the Joint Force.
Per Col. Ryan Frazier, Acting Space Force Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Space Based Sensing & Targeting, "We are beginning development and integration efforts immediately to meet the program’s rapid deployment milestones and address emerging national security requirements."
SpaceX was one of nine companies selected in April 2026 under an Other Transaction Authority (OTA). Additional awards are expected in the coming year.
Pic is of the E7 Wedgetail aircraft the system will replace.
NEWS: @SpaceX has won a contract for more than $4 billion to build satellites to track foreign aircraft and missiles as part of Donald Trump’s Golden Dome defensive shield
Weather conditions have gone NO GO due to anvil clouds moving too close to the launch pad.
We will be extending this hold an additional few minutes to await improvement.
https://t.co/8kjGxH9cYg
United Launch Alliance has initiated the countdown for today's launch of the Atlas V rocket to deploy 29 advanced broadband satellites into space for Amazon Leo. Our launch opportunity opens at 7:33:30 p.m. EDT (2333:30 UTC) for liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
The launch countdown is a tightly scripted sequence of procedures and steps over the next seven hours that will complete pre-launch testing, fill the rocket with propellants and put systems into flight mode.
Our live status blog begins at 4:30 p.m. EDT (2030 UTC) prior to the start of fueling operations and the livestream starts 20 minutes before launch.
https://t.co/5bAKrECLty
All personnel are accounted for and safe. It’s too early to know the root cause but we’re already working to find it. Very rough day, but we’ll rebuild whatever needs rebuilding and get back to flying. It’s worth it.
Overview of the New Glenn explosion this evening. By Ryan Caton (@dpoddolphinpro), who has a video overview of this coming shortly.
https://t.co/NX0D2XIOvj