SpaceX Completes Its Seventh Successful Mission of 2018 With Launch of CRS-14 (youtube.com)

Longtime Slashdot reader lalleglad writes: SpaceX today launched a Falcon 9 with its 14th Resupply Services mission. I saw it went well, and I hope it will also attach to the International Space Station (ISS) in good order. Incidentally, it carries the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM), which is an European Space Agency (ESA) project to investigate Earth-to-space lighting and thunder. Let's hope that it will enable better weather movement understanding, and for us plain people, better weather forecasts! "The Falcon 9 rocket, whose first stage launched ISS supplies last August, fired nine Merlin main engines again to roar from Launch Complex 40 at 4:30 p.m.," reports Florida Today. "Ten minutes later, the unmanned Dragon capsule, which launched to the ISS two years earlier, floated free of the rocket's upper stage to start a two-day journey back to the orbiting research complex. It was the second time a recycled Falcon 9 and Dragon had launched together, and the 11th time in just over a year that SpaceX had re-launched a used -- or what the company prefers to call 'flight proven' -- rocket." CNBC notes that the CRS-14 launch was the company's seventh successful mission this year. You can watch the recorded livestream of the launch here.

Comments

Re:Reliability..

[ColdWetDog]

Well, it's not like Falcons need to get liked on Facebook. The people that make decisions on multimillion dollar satellite launches are a bit better grounded in statistics than the average twitter user.

Re:Elon's little empire is going bankrupt

[MrKaos]

Out if interest I had a look at the way spaceX is funded or at least seed funded and it's clear that Musk has risked the fortune he earned from paypal (100 million) to get spaceX going. There is no doubt there is risk however he has his own skin in the game so I've never understood why people give him a hard time, just because he is living every kids dream and having a go? It say's a lot about the hater mentality that wants us to sit around doing nothing, not wearing deodorant criticizing people reaching for the stars.

I can't see him doing this without some sort of government funding and the la times seems to thinks so however I don't really see this as grounds for criticism, how could he do it without government funding and contracts?

Should Musk expect government funding to continue to develop rocket systems via spaceX. Why not? If his companies are meeting the specified goals to receive funding then why shouldn't they receive funding. We've been told for years by Boeing and Lockheed Martin that re-usable launch systems were not possible however clearly that is not true.

So while I don't think I fall into the category of being a fanboy, I certainly don't want to see him fail. So if you are going to make up allegations about the companies financial state, let's have a look at what you've got so we can evaluate it.

One thing is for sure, whatever you think of the guy, Musk has generated a lot of interest in space flight. There is nothing boring about a pair of launch boosters making a double sonic boom before they land.