SpaceX Flight 4 Planned for Next Week

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's well past time for me to get back to some actual space news. Well here you go.

SpaceX announced today that barring any unforseen issues, the fourth attempt to fly a Falcon 1 rocket will proceed next week, sometime between Tuesday and Thursday. I'm certainly glad they gave us a bit more warning time than Flight 3's surprise launch and failure.

Also, SpaceX has announced that Flight 5 will likely happen in January, and Flights 6 and 7 are in the works. They anticipate having a flight every four months until 2010, when they will ramp it up to every two months.

If Flight 4 succeeds, it will be SpaceX's first successful launch, as Flights 1, 2, and 3 all ended in spectacular disasters.

In other SpaceX news, they have officially received an operational license from the Air Force to launch from Cape Canaveral. This is another in a long list of steps leading up to the launch of the first Falcon 9, and later, the manned Dragon capsule. I wish them luck!

Progress: 4.03%  Flight Time: 0:06:05