SpaceX Monthly News Summary for March 2015

Sorry abou that. I was trying to make a recomendation to make future versions of this more readable on cell phones, but see now that it came across as sounding rather ungrateful. I've typed up this month's:

  • Elon Musk announces upgrades to Falcon 9, starting on the SES-9 flight, will increase thrust by 15%, introduce propellant chilling and see the second stage's tank volume increase by 10%. This will allow recovery of the first stage on GTO missions.

  • Unconfirmed details that SpaceX plans to being helicopter recover of Falcon 9 fairings later this year due to a predicted production shortfall emerge. A redesigned fairing would feature RCS to allow for stabilization before parachute deployment.

  • Gwynne Shotwell confirms SpaceX will attempt first stage barge landings on the next two CRS missions, CRS-6 & CRS-7. Current planning indicates a successfully landed CRS-6 booster would be outfitted for reusability tests at Spaceport America.

  • SpaceX have identified the Jason 3 mission, launching from Vandenberg in July, as the first possible land landing attempt. The 2nd SpaceX launch to fly from California would see the first stage boostback and land at SpaceX's new SLC-4W landing pad.

  • A core switch sees TurkenAlem 52E and CRS-6 swap places in SpaceX's launch manifest due to Helium issues on the former core. Also attached was a 3 day push back to April 13, 8:33PM ETC for CRS-6, while NASA orders 3 more missions as an…

  • The much postponed Dragon 2 Pad Abort Test is now scheduled for after the TurkenAlem 52E launch, as a 2 engine SuperDraco test occurs at McGregor, simulating the pad abort test profile.

  • Construction at SpaceX's handling facilities in Florida continues apace. The HIF at PAD 39A is now rising out of the ground ahead of the late 215FH debut, while SpaceX announce LC-13 has been revamped into Landing Complex 1.

  • At the GPU Technology Conference, SpaceX demonstrates full scale simulations of the next generation Methane-powered Raptor engine, running on Nvidia GPU's – computation that would otherwise take months on traditional architectures.

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