One week later, incredible progress. It’s a 24/7 operation with a solid path forward to launch this year, helped by a lot of luck. @NASA and @USSpaceForce have both been extremely helpful.
This team. Never tell them the odds.
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.
Less than a year ago, Ship 36 and the test stand had a really bad evening, and I was delivering pizzas. A year later, V3 launched and now I typically deliver coffee & donuts. A lot of progress can happen in a year. This was a setback, but I have no doubt Blue will bounce back well. NASA will be there to help find solutions, and this time next year, excitement will be building for Artemis III.
@0ecufdCJ@DJSnM how the hell did you come to that conclusion. If he says it will make it hard to catch, he’s meaning that it will be hard to catch if they need to do a roll