Friday Fact: The flower radiating in five petals at the heart of a sand dollar is a breathing bouquet, drawn by hundreds of tubular tentacles extending from within the dollar’s shell, like so many miniature snorkels to oxygenate its insides.
SpaceX prepares for return to flight launch from Vandenberg.
For the first time in over four months, SpaceX is preparing a Falcon 9 rocket for launch. Carrying ten next-generation IridiumNEXT communications satellites into orbit, this is the first Falcon 9 launch since the Amos-6 incident on September 1.
That anomaly - caused when oxygen particles embedded in the wall of a second stage fuel tank ignited - grounded the rocket fleet for the remainder of 2016. The Federal Aviation Administration only accepted SpaceX’s incident report January 6, granting the Iridium launch license the same day.
SpaceX completed a static fire of the Falcon 9 rocket January 5 and attached the payload fairing a week later. The static fire test no longer occurs with the payload attached, protecting it from any unforeseen events like what destroyed Amos-6.
This is the first of seven flights the Iridium company purchased to carry their 81-constellation of communications satellites by 2019. Liftoff is scheduled for Saturday, January 14, at 9:54am PST from SLC-3E at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Eight minutes later, the rocket’s first stage will attempt to land on the droneship Just Read the Instructions. SpaceX has yet to successfully land a barge from one of their west-coast launches.
WATCH LIVE:
For SpaceX’s standard launch broadcast, click here.
For SpaceX’s technical launch broadcast, click here.
See the mission’s press kit here.
Programming Submissions now open!
Share with us what you want to see at CONfabulation! Remember, you don’t have to be registered yet to submit programming! We hope to see each and every one of you at the con, but we know you may not have had time to buy your ticket yet. If you’re planning to come, or just considering it, submit some stuff you’d like to see!
Programming submissions will be open till February 16, so you do have some time to think (and discuss), but if you have an idea ready to go, go for it!
Don’t forget to check out the Brainstorming post to see if you (or others) want to collaborate on an idea!
aliens being confused by how humans deal with scents
human: “gonna have to wash this blanket to get rid of that new smell,”
alien: *makes a note that humans prefer to mark objects with familiar scents*
human: “gotta love that new car smell”
alien: *scratches out previous note and replaces it with a question mark*
human: “old books smell so good,”
alien: *increasingly frustrated note taking*
human: “mmm love that new book smell,”
alien: “WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS?”
Well I didn’t work on my sad time travel fic at this weekend like I planned to, but I sure did cut the leg off of another fictional teenage boy so I think I can say I was still productive.
why do i relate to this so much?
deepintheshadyglen