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02/09/2026

10 years ago did a sniper take out a Falcon 9 rocket? While this was one of the possibilities investigated it turns out a failure of a composite overwrapped pressure vessel COPV during testing led to a catastrophic over pressurization and destruction of the rocket. A buckled liner created voids/perforations where super-chilled LOX (or solid oxygen, SOX, enabled by the cold helium loading temperatures) could accumulate between the aluminum liner and carbon-fiber overwrap. When the system was pressurized, friction from breaking fibers ignited the oxygen, rupturing the COPV and triggering the rapid destruction of the vehicle. In the immediate aftermath of the September 1, 2016, pad explosion (during propellant loading for a static-fire test), the root cause was unclear. SpaceX engineers explored hundreds of possibilities. One that SpaceX investigated was that an outside “sniper” had shot the rocket from the direction of a building used by competitor ULA. This was eventually ruled out when microphone and accelerometer data showed the internal COPV failure. The incident destroyed a satellite that was to be leased to Facebook.

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📸Credit: USLaunchReport remote cam

01/09/2026

Here’s some pad camera views of yesterday’s successful Palas-1 flight. It had a liftoff mass of 283 tons. It features 7x throttleable and restartable CQ-50 engines with eventual plans for reuse on later flights. The stated launch market is large swarm constellations of satellites similar to Starlink.

01/09/2026

A new rocket called Pallas-1 just had a successful debut flight out of China startup Galactic Energy. It uses 7 kerosene and liquid oxygen engines in the first stage. The company has reusability in mind for this design with landing attempts expected on subsequent steps using grid fins, throttling engines, and landing legs. Its clear that Chinese startups are taking reusability seriously.

31/08/2026

I sped up this launch footage from Falcon Heavy 15 times all the way up to side booster separation which I play in real time. Both 2 side boosters flew back to Florida’s space coast where they landed successfully and will be reused.

30/08/2026

Falcon Heavy successfully carried NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman telescope to orbit this morning. It is headed to the Sun-Earth Lagrange Point 2 where it is expected to discover at least 1000 new exoplanets around other stars using gravitational microlensing. It will also map dark energy and dark matter.

29/08/2026

10 new launch pads will be built at Starbase Louisiana under a $100 billion dollar investment made by SpaceX. Construction will begin next year with first launches planned for 2029. The stated goal is 30 Starship flights a day. Time will tell whether this launch rate is achievable but excitement is guaranteed.

28/08/2026

SpaceX fired 33 engines for 15 seconds in preparation for the 14th flight of Starship/Superheavy. It will be Starship’s first attempt at a true orbital trajectory and will include a deorbit burn. This static thrust test of Booster 21 paves the way for September launch campaign.

28/08/2026

27 engine Falcon Heavy is preparing to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space telescope. With a mirror the same size as Hubble’s at 7.9 feet in diameter, it will capture images to study dark energy, dark matter and conduct of census of exoplanets. Each image will have Hubble like resolution but will be 100 times larger in field of view. The telescope costs $4.3 billion and will be flown to the L2 lagrange point where it will capture images. Launch is scheduled for NET August 30 at 7:26 am Eastern time from Kennedy Space Center.

27/08/2026

Europe’s Ariane 6 thundered off the pad in French Guiana carrying a Meteosat. As the US and China move to reusable rockets, the Ariane 6 is still expendable with spent stages and solid rocket boosters falling into the ocean after use.

26/08/2026

A Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD) was the fate of this ZQ-3 landing attempt back in 2025. It occurred during the landing burn. Since then, startup LandSpace’s stainless steel methalox rocket landed successfully on 18 August.

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