Rockets, history & technology, remote places, extreme weather &the blues. AIS Station operator (MarineTraffic). NASA Spaceflight (NSF) camera custodian.
Cape Canaveral, FL USA
Joined December 2016
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Flight 15 - Rocket Zones Update 🚀⛴️🌎
Ocean Infinity’s OSV Armada 86 03 has reached the Chilean Contigency Zone for Flight 15. It appears she has spent the last 1.5 hours running camera equipment / instrument drop and recover practice for Friday’s planned flight of Ship 42. Now stationary.
GO Beyond is making good ~8 knot progress to the Hawaii area early return Contingency Zone. Should arrive early tomorrow.
Again, hopefully neither of these warning zones are out to use, but they have assets standing by! 🤞🍀🧧
Starship Flight 15 Weather Info
We don’t have an actual launch weather criteria checklist for Starbase like SLD 45 uses over here at the Cape. SpaceX has its own weather team.
A site called StageSep.com makes an effort to reverse analyze past launches and delays to guess at condition forecasts. They DO NOT specifically list catch predictions.
Good News: 93.98% Go! - Friday looks very good for launch & Super Heavy catch!
Bad News: 26.73% Go! Both Saturday & Sunday may look iffy for Starship catch ~22 hours after launch.
Still a few days to go, so nothing concrete yet. Just something to watch.
Flight 15 - Rocket Zones Update 🚀⛴️🌎
GO Beyond has left Honolulu and is now underway with AIS destination “LZ 10NM CPA” (Landing Zone 10 Nautical Miles Closest Point of Approach) and an ETA of 12 Nov 12:00 UTC.
Looks like SpaceX will be using GO Beyond staged for the early (T+01:27:46) and late (T+20:41:55) Hawaii Contingency windows this time. Hopefully nominal Ship 42 return to Starbase will make all this irrelevant! 🤞
Have added a Google Maps version of all Flight 15 warning zones for reference in comments.
All current official NOTAM and Nav Area warning zones for Starship Flight 15. Details included on clicking polygons.
google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1…
JohnCn retweeted
Maybe you'll like THIS. it's a Cover of Gordon Lightfoot's "Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" by Billy Strings
JohnCn retweeted
Anderson: "Fitzgerald, we are about 10 miles behind you, and gaining about 1 1/2 miles per hour. Fitzgerald, there is a target 19 miles ahead of us. So the target would be 9 miles on ahead of you."
Fitzgerald: "Well, am I going to clear?"
Anderson: "Yes. He is going to pass to the west of you."
Fitzgerald: "Well, fine."
Anderson: "By the way, Fitzgerald, how are you making out with your problem?"
Fitzgerald: "We are holding our own."
Anderson: "Okay, fine. I'll be talking to you later."
They never did speak later...The 29 men onboard the Fitzgerald will never again speak with anyone outside of the ship.
Starting tonight at 1 AM, we’ll be sharing the real radio transmissions from the night the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was lost on Lake Superior, 50 years ago.
These posts will follow the timeline as it happened, from the first reports of rough seas to the ship’s final transmission.
We share them in remembrance of the 29 men who were lost, and in respect for all who work the Great Lakes.
Transmissions from: ssedmundfitzgerald.org/fitz-…
JohnCn retweeted
Space jellyfish alert!
Starship Flight 15 could produce a space jellyfish during its November 13, 2026 launch window from Starbase: 4:45–6:00 PM CST. Visibility will depend strongly on liftoff time and viewing location.
A space jellyfish occurs when sunlight illuminates a rocket’s expanding exhaust against a darker sky.
This video shows how the forecast changes at one-minute intervals across the 75-minute window. City angles show the rocket’s predicted peak elevation above the horizon while sunlit during powered flight.
Explore the forecast for your location and different launch times:
jellyfish.johnkrausphotos.co…
Information as of November 10, 2026, 18:50 UTC. Forecast does not account for real-time weather, cloud cover, or atmospheric visibility.
JohnCn retweeted
Holy crap the pianist fell off the Ovation of the Seas near Catalina Island off Cali and SURVIVED treading water 9 hours!! Sean Norton and Grant Garrett spotted the dude 20 miles offshore while returning from a marlin trip. He went over around 2:30 a.m and he was found noon
SpaceX Falcon 9 pricing vs. Inflation (2021–2026) 🚀📈
Interesting article by @SciGuySpace :
•Rideshare: $5,000/kg => $7,000/kg (~40% increase)
•Dedicated Launch: ~$62M => $74M (~19% increase)
The Economics Breakdown:
Cumulative U.S. CPI inflation over this period was roughly 23%. This means Falcon 9's dedicated list prices are actually flat-to-lower in real, inflation-adjusted terms. Meanwhile, the real increase for rideshare slots is only around 17%.
Because SpaceX's internal cost for a reused Falcon 9 is estimated in the mid-teens of millions, these list prices reflect strategic demand and capacity allocation, not cost recovery. Rocket Lab bumping its upcoming Neutron price from $55M to $70M mirrors the exact same constraint.
A classic simultaneous shift in supply and demand. I tried to visualize this shift here:
Economics in Action: Breaking the Launch Squeeze 🚀📉
The current market bottleneck is clearly driving up launch prices. But high prices inevitably invite aggressive competition. To flip this trend, the market needs a massive, supply-side shock.
Here is what happens when the next generation of mega-capacity hits the launch manifest:
• Between Rocket Lab’s Neutron, Blue Origin's New Glenn, and third-party logistics handlers aggregating almost inevitable Starship Rideshare slots, a historic wall of reusable capacity will heading to orbit.
• Buyers of lift aren’t just sitting around taking price hikes. AST SpaceMobile announcing its own "Blacklift" rocket project is textbook vertical integration. When buyers build their own lift, they yank massive demand out of the commercial market.
• When capacity eventually floods the market (S₁ → S₂), pricing power swings away from the launch providers and back to the satellite operators.
Volume expands. Prices crash. The bottleneck breaks. Have faith in the economics. Change is coming.
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JohnCn retweeted
Starting tonight at 1 AM, we’ll be sharing the real radio transmissions from the night the SS Edmund Fitzgerald was lost on Lake Superior, 50 years ago.
These posts will follow the timeline as it happened, from the first reports of rough seas to the ship’s final transmission.
We share them in remembrance of the 29 men who were lost, and in respect for all who work the Great Lakes.
Transmissions from: ssedmundfitzgerald.org/fitz-…
JohnCn retweeted
Another milestone for #DreamChaser!
The @FAANews has issued Sierra Space a license authorizing Dream Chaser to reenter and land at Vandenberg Space Force Base.
Thank you to the FAA for its collaboration and support of commercial space innovation.
RT @JoeTegtmeyer: The end of the nice flagship USS United States is near.
This is the ship that brought me to the US from England shortly…
This quoted post is unavailable.
Flight 15 - Combined Contingency / Warning Files 👍🚀🌎🌍🌏
Monday for a Friday launch with 14 orbits & a double catch. There is LOTS to track. I’ve combined all the latest official Starship Flight 15 warnings & coordinates into a shared Google Earth project. Enjoy!
Link in the first comment. 👇🏻
Polygons taken from the official notices. Hawaii zones are split at the dateline so they render correctly. Toggle any layer on/off in the Map contents panel. Open to all with the link.
earth.google.com/earth/d/1WZ…
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Likely Camera / Instrument support vessels:
Armada 86 03 (Chile) - Confirmed- Covered Chile for Flight 14 - She is on her way!
GO Beyond (Hawaii) - Likely - came from West Coast
Melissa C (Hawaii) - Possible - Did cams & instruments for Flight 14
Early & late Hawaii zones do crisscross, but with less than a one-day timeline they may need two vessels.
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