Rockets, history & technology, remote places, extreme weather &the blues. AIS Station operator (MarineTraffic). NASA Spaceflight (NSF) camera custodian.
Cape Canaveral, FL USA
Joined December 2016
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JohnCn retweeted
Behold: The US Defense Intelligence Agency has released a report on challenges to security in space, including an NEI image of China’s spaceplane from Maxar, taken in 2024.
JohnCn retweeted
Meanwhile at Starbase:
Ship 42 single-engine static fire at Massey's
Ship 43 catch testing on the tower.
They really are doing everything everywhere all at once.
@NASASpaceflight
JohnCn retweeted
Chapter 2: Meet Big Iron
Our 1 MW satellite design:
• 5 racks of GPUs
• 6 laser links at 1.2 Tb/s each
• About 132 meters across when deployed
• The upper stage becomes the satellite
A deployed span longer than an American football field.
JohnCn retweeted
Leo Vulcan 1 (LV-01) payload on the move.
LV-01 is the first of 38 Leo missions on @ulalaunch’s heavy-lift Vulcan rocket, and last week, teams successfully transported the 40-satellite payload—encapsulated inside a 70-foot-tall fairing—to the new Amazon Vertical Integration Facility (VIF-A) at Cape Canaveral.
JohnCn retweeted
With support from @SpaceX, the AFRL agile cargo pods were recovered after splashdown in the Pacific Ocean. Each pod contained representative mission equipment to study the effects of temperature, shock, and vibration of the cargo environments during launch and reentry. #Readiness
ALT AFRL agile cargo pod recovery after splashdown in the Pacific Ocean
ALT AFRL unpacking and assessing agile cargo pod contents after recovery in Long Beach, CA
AFRL conducted a test of preliminary Rocket Cargo capabilities via @SpaceX Bandwagon-5 on a Falcon 9 launching from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station @SLDelta45. This test involved a SpaceX Starfall capsule loaded with #AFRL agile cargo pods for point-to-point delivery missions.
JohnCn retweeted
S43 departing Masseys entrance on the right and S42 arriving on the left. @NASASpaceflight
JohnCn retweeted
The team also made progress at LC-36B yesterday. Roughly 450 truckloads of concrete, lined up bumper-to-bumper and stretching nearly 3 miles up the coast, supported a 4,500-cubic-yard pour for the pile caps. Three more placements to go for a total of 15,000 cubic yards. This is the foundation for our New Glenn 9x4 pad.
JohnCn retweeted
Starship Flight 15: Booster 22 Static Fire!
youtube.com/live/BlyqwOjCJzA
JohnCn retweeted
@SpaceX Super Heavy Booster 22 static fire. 🔊 🚀🇺🇸
With Jetty Park fishing pier closed and partly submerged, the annual King Tides made it up to the dune line at high tide this morning.
The sea oats in the dunes, however, are doing their job so far! 💪🏖️🌊
JohnCn retweeted
⚠️JETTY PARK BEACH ACCESS AND FISHING PIER CLOSURE: Due to current high tide and wind conditions at Port Canaveral, Jetty Park Beach Access and Fishing Pier are closed until further notice. These facilities will reopen as soon as conditions are safe.
JohnCn retweeted
Humanity’s orbital outpost and our moon. Can you spot it???
Captured at 1:56:41 a.m. EDT from Florida's Space Coast, the @Space_Station and her crew of 7 were seen crossing the disc of our moon.
On board are @NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins, Luke Delaney, and Anil Menon; @csa_asc astronaut Joshua Kutryk; and Roscosmos cosmonauts Pyotr Dubrov, Anna Kikina, and Sergey Teteryatnikov.
📸 - @NASASpaceflight
JohnCn retweeted
These days are coming to an end. 🥲
With the transition to Starship underway in Florida, the sight of SpaceX's Falcon 9 boosters and fairings returning to Port Canaveral has become rare. 🚀
The Falcon 9 rocket once launched from Florida multiple times per week on Starlink missions. The rocket's booster lands on drone ships in the ocean, and on any given day a returned booster could be spotted at Port Canaveral.
The signs have been building all year. As SpaceX looks to the first Starship from Kennedy Space Center, Starlink missions on Falcon 9 are now exclusively from California.
Make no mistake, Falcon 9 still launches from Florida, but it's less common. Plus many booster returns are back to the Landing Zone, where the public cannot see it.
Starship will return the booster and ship to the launch tower.
One chapter is closing, but an exciting one is looming.