Matthew Fontana

Space Enthusiast

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

Falcon 9 lifted a classified Space Force satellite off Vandenberg at 5:01pm PT last night, and booster B1081 nailed landing number 28 on the droneship Of Course I Still Love You. That was the 671st Falcon booster landing ever. Landing rockets on a boat used to be sci-fi.

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

🪄

[Randy Pitchford @DuvalMagic]

I was at the Tesla Roadster event - Just now leaving the Space X facility. I am a magician - I own the Magic Castle in Hollywood. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The demo was real. I was a kid again watching it.

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

Now we’re talking…

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

Big sad.

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

Christina Koch, the first woman to fly to the Moon, is leaving flight status to become NASA's acting deputy chief engineer on Nov 1. Before Artemis II she spent 328 days in space and did the first all-female spacewalk with Jessica Meir. Now she helps keep the next crews safe.

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

Cassini launched 29 years ago today on a Titan IVB from Cape Canaveral. Seven years to reach Saturn, 13 years in orbit, found an ocean under Enceladus' ice and liquid methane seas on Titan, then dove into Saturn on purpose in 2017 so it couldn't contaminate those moons. Legend.

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

Falcon 9 launches a classified Space Force mission from Vandenberg tonight, window opens 4:44pm PT. Booster B1081 is on flight 28. Same booster that took Crew-7's four astronauts to the station in 2023, plus NASA's PACE ocean satellite and 16 Starlink runs. Reuse is wild.

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

Fourteen years ago today Felix Baumgartner jumped from about 127,852 feet over New Mexico and broke the sound barrier in freefall, hitting roughly 843 mph before the chute. Helium balloon, pressure suit, and a human body. Pour your Red Bull out for the man.

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

Rocket Lab just pushed Neutron's first flight into 2027 after a manufacturing defect in the forward dome of its first propellant tank. Peter Beck outlined a three-step fix and said they'd rather nail cadence than rush the debut. Better to catch tank trouble on the ground.

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

NASA finished stacking Artemis III's solid rocket boosters on the mobile launcher and installed all four RS-25 engines on the core stage. Next is a pad 39B tanking test and a crew emergency exit walkdown. Bresnick, Rubio, Douglas, and Parmitano fly that mission.

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

SpaceX says Pad 39A is through the heavy Starship build and into activation testing. Same pad that launched Apollo 8 and 11. First Florida Starship could come as soon as Flight 16. That chopstick tower is meant to catch both stages coming home.

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

Two years ago today, Flight 5's Super Heavy flipped home and got caught by Mechazilla's chopsticks on the first try, about seven minutes after liftoff. The Raptor team lost their minds live watching that.

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

Space Jellyfish

[Sumer Hernandez @sumerhernandez_]

Insane to say this was shot on iPhone @Apple. Gorgeous jellyfish launch by SpaceX this AM!

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

CRS-35 isn't just groceries. Dragon is carrying gear for more than 40 science studies, including unconventional glass that could hit refractive indices higher than diamond and survive lunar habitats. Station research that ends up in better optics and materials on Earth.

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

If you were up early on the East Coast you might've seen a glowing jellyfish hanging in the sky. That was Falcon 9's plume catching sunrise after the CRS-35 liftoff. Still wild that a Tuesday cargo run can look like that from someone's driveway.

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

Falcon 9 lit up the Florida sunrise at 6:33am ET and sent Cargo Dragon C211 toward the space station with 6,300+ lbs of gear. Booster B1096 stuck its eighth landing at LZ-40 a few hundred yards from the pad. Dragon docks Thursday.

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

Starship Ship 40 from Flight 13 is back at Starbase after a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean, weeks of floating and towing, then a ride home on the ship Forte. First upper stage recovered after going to space, so engineers can study a real flown heat shield instead of guesses.

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

NASA picked a mission called GIMLI to check whether the Marius Hills Pit on the Moon opens into a lava tube. The hole is about 65 meters across. If there's a cave down there, future crews could use it for natural shelter from radiation and wild temperature swings.

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

Falcon 9 is vertical at pad 40 for Dragon's 3:33am PT launch to the space station. It's carrying 6,300+ lbs of cargo, including the final solar arrays that finish upgrading station power, plus research on artificial retinas and brain organoids for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

NASA released the Artemis II crew's Moon notes, swamp colors and all. The FCC also cleared SpaceX's phone-satellite network, and Starlink got licensed in Venezuela. Not bad for one week ♥️

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

What a week for space. Crew-12 came home, a stubborn rocket finally flew, and we got a closer look at the Moon. Quick look back 🧵

[Matthew Fontana @MatthewFontana]

Falcon 9 aborted itself a minute before liftoff Monday, slipped twice more, then sent up 21 military data-relay satellites from Vandenberg early Saturday. Persistence counts.