Looks ready to go after the static fire test:

Yes, looks like they have the handle bars extended, and all.

some how Dr Strangelove comes to mind. Yeeeehaaaaaw

Paint it another colour and it would not look out of place in Thunderbirds.

They're trying for Feb 6th launch date, I'll be able to see it from here, about 140 miles as the crow flies.

You'll prolly be able to hear it from there, lak.

Meanwhile, there is a Falcon 9 launch scheduled for later today:

The launch window opens on Tuesday, January 30, at 4:25 p.m. EST, or 21:25 UTC...

Watch live here

Made of Stars wrote:You'll prolly be able to hear it from there, lak.

Possible, I imagine. We lived in Daytona Beach during the Apollo program, about 90 miles from Cape Kennedy. You could definitely hear the Saturn 5s. Best launch I saw was STS7, we were just across the lagoon from the pad. You could see the shock wave come across the lagoon, the water started rippling as it rolled towards us. Saw a night launch from there too, I think it was STS8. Lit the sky up like a sunrise. Those solid boosters put out one hell of a lot of light and noise.

Standing down for today - second stage sensor needs fettling. Try again tomorrow.

Launch update: "Wednesday, January 31, at 4:25 p.m. EST, or 21:25 UTC. ..." watch live at the same link as in post #328

I wonder how many fish die in the splashdowns.
This is my first Spacex launch viewing.

So, if humans ever make a moon station, can some of the space junk be reused or repurposed there?

I was surprised that stage 1 (a 2nd-time reused stage) did not attempt another landing. The commentator said that each 1st stage was due for 10s of reuses initially and rising to hundreds in future.

newolder wrote:I was surprised that stage 1 (a 2nd-time reused stage) did not attempt another landing. The commentator said that each 1st stage was due for 10s of reuses initially and rising to hundreds in future.

I think I read this was an older model with only a handful of reuses possible.

Looks like it survived its water landing.

Elon Musk wrote:This rocket was meant to test very high retrothrust landing in water so it didn’t hurt the droneship, but amazingly it has survived. We will try to tow it back to shore.

This stage was an older Block 3 variant. SpaceX now have 3, I think, of these older boosters in storage and are planning to shift their fleet to the latest Block 5 model. Another factor was the launch to geostationary orbit, with a higher velocity return. The return was also significantly downrange, requiring a long transit and return for the drone landing ship and tug. They've no doubt prioritised their resources for the impending launch and planned return of the Falcon Heavy cores too.

As indicated above, they've used this older Block 3 core to test some variation (hotter landing) on the usual landing model, apparently successfully. Funny to see something the size of a 12 storey building floating like that.

Elon Musk has confirmed on Twitter that SpaceX trialled a three engine landing burn with this one (usually only one engine for landing).

Old and retired or not, it seems to have survived better than some of the earlier hard surface landing attempts.

Yes, speaking of which:

Not spacex but NASA's RS-25 engine static test fire live in a few minutes... https://www.nasa.gov/nasalive

Check this out:

https://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/ ... ource=link