Watch as SpaceX Launches Another Firecracker—And it Could Blow Up
In which the customer is always right, especially when you’re late.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is a lot like Elon Musk’s Tesla: they’re as much in the service business as they’re about breaking technological barriers. So although SpaceX made huge news last December by successfully recovering its rocket booster, this time around—tonight, in fact, at precisely 6:46:17 p.m. EST—you can expect no such success as you watch the webcast.
That’s because the customer, Luxembourg’s SES, a satellite company that provides mobile and video bandwidth to Asia and South Asia as well as to trans-Pacific Airbuses supplying the Internets to cramped coach passengers, was expecting this satellite to go into orbit last September.
That didn’t happen. Two months earlier, the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that was supposed to resupply the International Space Station blew up, jumbling the rest of SpaceX’s schedule for 2015.
- RELATEDSpaceX Who? Watch NASA Astronauts Spacewalk to Fix a Rail CarAttention, Silicon Valley and El Segundo: This is how it’s done.READ NOW
- RELATEDWatch SpaceX’s Falcon 9 Rocket Explode While Attempting to LandSo, so close…READ NOW
- RELATEDDrive Wire: SpaceX's Falcon 9Elon Musk's other success.READ NOW
- RELATEDNASA’s Giving Away Brilliant Space Travel Posters For FreeThese WPA-style artworks from NASA’s design studio are wonderful. And they’re free, too.READ NOW
- RELATEDVideo: Did Hal Needham’s Budweiser Rocket Really Break the Sound Barrier?A brief history of a potentially supersonic tricycle on the anniversary of its grand attempt.READ NOW