Official Rendezvous and Docking video.

From 1:25:25 to 1:25:48 something flies from the bottom left corner to the top middle. Is that Dragon still shedding ice?

From 1:27:57 to 1:28:28, the popup in the bottom right implies we are getting a Windows screen-share from space!

Departure will be televised.

(I looked it up because I was vaguely wondering whether broadcasting this would be too embarrassing!)

In recent months it became clear that if Maezawa's mission happened, it would not occur until at least the early 2030s—at least a decade after the original plan.

The original target was 2023, so is Berger saying he already had inside information that it wouldn't fly before 2033?

If, yesterday, you'd told me 2027, I'd have believed you!

We might actually find out, because there was a 2nd circumlunar tourist trip planned. If that's still going ahead, maybe it'll just be promoted to the 'slot' that was previously allocated to Dear Moon?

Are all rocket missions a "disgusting extravagance" or just the SpaceX ones?

The dozens of launches to the ISS? The Intuitive Machines moon lander from couple of months ago? All those TV satellites servicing various parts of the world? The hundreds of communications satellites?

A tweet from Musk

Upper stage restart to raise perigee resulted in an engine RUD for reasons currently unknown. Team is reviewing data tonight to understand root cause.

Starlink satellites were deployed, but the perigee may be too low for them to raise orbit. Will know more in a few hours.

Not really. There's a hover test vid uploaded in 2016 but they cheated. (It's held up by a rope!)

Or you could play the first 17 seconds of the pad abort test in reverse ...

I don’t mean SpaceX, I mean Elon Musk

Neither your comment, nor the article you are commenting about, mentions Elon Musk once! What am I supposed to think?

And if it's him you're talking about, then what does your term "disgusting extravagance" apply to? All those super yachts and private islands he owns and spends so much time on? /s

At 52:05, Stephen Clark asked about this. The start of Gerst's answer is:

We've actually flown it on several other dragon flights before this. This is the first time it flies on a NASA mission.

So, perhaps Inspiration 4? Presumably Polaris Dawn? And I guess the Axiom missions are being counted as non-NASA in this context, so some of those?

Before doing something like this I think you should ensure that it reduces the overall risk to the crew. So you'd need to have an estimate of how likely it is that all the parachutes fail, and how likely it is that the SuperDracos could save lives in that situation, but also an estimate of how likely this capability is to go wrong. For example, could there be a bug in the software or in some sensor(s), that causes the SuperDracos to fire when they weren't needed? Would the SuperDracos otherwise be in an inactive state during re-entry, and if so, what are the risks of having them active? Etc..

Those 2 sentences from Gerstenmaier suggest to me that SpaceX had already decided that, on balance, this capability should be enabled. Whereas NASA have only just reached that conclusion.

So in the time that this single Falcon 9 first stage has flown and landed 35 times, its competitor company [ULA] has made 29 total launches. Put another way, this rocket has put more mass into orbit than more than two dozen expendable rockets over half a decade of effort.

This paragraph feels like bullying :)

This would be a nuclear option and, in reality, probably would do more harm than good to SpaceX,

It would probably set back their more ambitious targets by decades. But even Starship is now far enough along to no longer really need Musk's stewardship, and the US government would be happy enough just with control of the Falcon programme. They don't care much / at all about Making Life Multi-Planetary.

So I consider a move like this pretty plausible.

Interesting! They're talking about unnecessary aborts, and how they want to do as much analysis as possible of the abort criteria, to prevent them.

This will remain an issue for Flight 6 which, it seems, will happen the moment SpaceX decides it's sufficiently ready. Unlike previous flights ...

"Given this is the first launch in a long time ... well really ever ... that we've not been FAA driven ..."

Cost Plus contracting (including hybrids thereof) should probably be banned (in anything other than a war economy).

If companies can't compete and that's undesirable, subsidize them - but be up front about it.

One option would be to have them bid as normal, but then have central government pay X% of the money so that it doesn't come out of the budget of the specific department (e.g. NASA), if the struggling company wins the contract. And so the department would be incentivized (and required) to treat the struggling company's bid as if it was actually X% lower.

Keep increasing X until you're satisfied with the level of dissimilar redundancy.

I wonder if they considered sacrificing one of the contactable satellites, trying to send it back towards the 2nd stage in the hope of getting some useful camera views, or anything like that.

Aren’t there several realistic scenarios ...

Scenario 1

Emergency on board ISS. 1) One aspect of the emergency (e.g. noxious air) has incapacitated many of the crew, including all the ones trained to operate Starliner. 2) Another aspect of the problem (e.g. electrical faults that are expected to lead to fire) leaves no doubt that evacuation is essential.

Those ISS crew who managed to don emergency breathing apparatus quickly enough now move the incapacitated Starliner crew to their seats, strap them in and exit Starliner (closing the hatches on their way out), before proceeding to their own vehicle(s).

Scenario 2

Serious MMOD strike upon a docked vehicle, causing damage that makes it very unlikely to be safe for its crew to return in, and also at significant risk of posing a danger to the ISS.

Wouldn't the least bad option be to command an uncrewed undocking and hope for the best?

Scenario 3

During a flight test, a spacecraft is able to dock with ISS, but only after encountering significant problems. The first job of engineers is to consider whether it is sufficiently safe for the crew to return to Earth in, in the event of an emergency. Their decision is either 'no', or 'barely'.

An alternative provider of crewed LEO access services, known for its proficiency and speed of operations, announces that they will be able ready to send a replacement vehicle by the time of a suitable launch opportunity in 4 days' time.

There are no spare docking ports.

No, that's this one, funded by a crypto billionaire, announced a week ago and launching in ~4 months.

Polaris Dawn is funded by a payments processing billionaire, announced 2.5 years ago, and launching this month.

The SpaceX officials in the audio said they were “trying to focus on booster risk reduction versus ship envelope expansion” for the next flight.

For the "ship envelope expansion", do you think they will/should do an in-space engine relight test? Or are the seemingly successful flip-landing maneuvers on flights 4 and 5 sufficient? (Has this been covered elsewhere?)

Animation of a 'land landing': https://youtu.be/Cf_-g3UWQ04?t=1m32s

We’ll move a Dragon recovery vessel to the Pacific some time next year

What do you think will happen to the other one? Do you think they'll maintain a Florida splashdown capability indefinitely, as a backup (e.g. in case of bad weather in all the new West Coast splashdown zones)?

Or just keep it going for a while, until they're happy with the new arrangements? Would they then decommission the other recovery vessel? (There are just two of them, right?) Or move it to the West Coast to join its sister?

When next launch? (Flight 8) NET April, “4 to 6 weeks” after Flight 8. (Elon)
When previous launch? (Flight 7)? Booster 15 and Ship 34 launched on 2025-03-06.

I think the numbers in the parentheses need incrementing.

Turns out that some of the later parts of the video I posted largely negated my above comment.

What do you think will happen to the other one? Do you think they’ll maintain a Florida splashdown capability indefinitely, as a backup

Question at 43:08.

43:56 "There may be a small transition period as we're moving vessels through the Panama Canal ... where we can support either Coast ..." (implying not indefinite)

e.g. in case of bad weather in all the new West Coast splashdown zones

51:15 "one benefit of moving to the West Coast is much better weather"

Also of interest ...

30:39. Sounds like they didn't bother with a Public Safety Determination in the end, and just went directly to full(?) approval.