SpaceX probably isn't looking forward to April showers. Elon Musk and his team have way too much planned and will need some clear skies to make it all come about. Here's what to keep an eye on from SpaceX in the coming month—including a planned NASA launch and a stepped-up lobbying campaign.
Rocket Launches - Naturally, SpaceX is keen to keep up with its central purpose of rocket launches, especially after the long delay for its most recent cargo flight. On April 8, SpaceX will launch its eighth resupply mission to the International Space Station scheduled to launch at 4:43 p.m. The Falcon 9 rocket will carry a mix of crew supplies, hardware for the ISS and new equipment for scientific research including a new kind of habitat module to be tested. SpaceX is also scheduled to launch another Falcon 9 at some point in April, sending up a communications satellite for a Japanese company. That flight was originally scheduled for December but got pushed back.
Lobbying - SpaceX is clearly eyeing an expanded need to get federal lawmakers on its side and has recently hired two new lobbying companies, S.O. Witt and Associates and Harbinger Strategies, bringing the total lobbying groups contracted by SpaceX to nine. There's an interesting mix, with Harbinger notably an an all-Republican firm. Last year SpaceX spent $1.3 million to lobby Congress and is on track to easily surpass that number this year. The point of the new contracts is to help arrange meetings with officials about satellite launch competition. to hold “meetings with officials regarding issues related to competition of satellite launches.”
Drama with Rival ULA - That competition issue is more relevant than most people realized until recently. The Department of Defense has taken upon itself to open an investigation into SpaceX rival United Launch Alliance over whether the government was trying to tip the scales unfairly on behalf of ULA. Vice president of engineering Brett Tobey made the comments at a talk at the University of Colorado when explaining that the DoD was mad at ULA for opting out of a contract bid after it had "bent over backwards to lean the field" for ULA according to an audio recording from Space News. Tobey has already resigned but there could be some big discoveries in the case this April.
And in between all of this, SpaceX employees may be taking a bit of time to reserve the Tesla Motors Model 3 slated to come out next year. That's because Musk is offering SpaceX as well as Tesla employees priority spots to reserve the car once it comes out next year. A temptation to attract employees who left, perhaps?
↧