Hey there, this is the first episode of the Space Shot. 
This podcast and video feed will be a daily exploration of space history, current events, and the occasional coffee talk thrown in for good measure. And no, don’t worry it won’t be “Coffee Talk” with Linda, although that is one of my favorite SNL bits.  Each day I’ll be taking you on a short (because we’ve all got things to do) and educational journey into what happened in space history, and what’s going on with space news.
For the first episode, May 15th, 2017, I’ve got two things to cover. 
First up is SpaceX and their launch earlier this evening (at the time of this recording) of the Inmarsat-5 F4 commercial communications satellite into a GTO.  The Falcon 9 lifted off from LC-39A right on time and delivered its payload to a successful parking orbit a short time later.  The Falcon 9 that launched tonight was an expendable version of the launch vehicle, so there was no landing attempt for this flight.  
In the next 6-8 weeks, SpaceX has three launches on the manifest.  Two of the three Falcon 9s will be recovered, either at LZ-1 or on the autonomous drone ship (Of course I still love you).  The Commercial Resupply Services or CRS-11 mission for NASA will resupply the International Space Station. 
While the BulgariaSat-1 mission will provide Direct-to-home television services for the Balkans and other European regions.  BulgariaSat-1 will be launched on a “flight proven” booster NET than the middle of June.  The booster that will be delivering BulgariaSat-1 was used this January when SpaceX launched the first 10 Iridium Next satellites from Vandenberg Air Force Base.   
SpaceX is currently 6 for 6 launches this year.  And if they keep up their launch cadence, they will surpass the number of successful flights they had in 2016 by the end of June to early July.    
Today in space history- 
On the morning of April 15th, 1963 astronaut Gordon Cooper’s Mercury-Atlas lifted off from Launch Complex 14 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.  
This was the final flight of the Mercury program and the first time that Cooper flew in space.  
Leroy Gordon Cooper Jr. or “Gordo” was born in 1927 and came to NASA after being stationed at Edwards Air Force Base in California as a test pilot for cold-war era interceptors.  The aircraft he tested were designed to counter Soviet long-range bombers, most notably the Tupolev Tu-95, which is still in use today and is intercepted from time to time off the coast of Alaska by American aircraft.  
After Cooper had gone through the selection process for NASA, he was chosen as one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts.  Cooper served as CAPCOM during Alan Shepard’s flight, which was America’s first suborbital manned mission into space.  Project Mercury helped pave the way for Gemini and Apollo so longer and longer missions were needed.  Alan Shepard’s first Mercury flight only lasted about 15 and a half minutes, while Cooper’s final Mercury flight ran about 2,044 minutes longer.  
Cooper’s mission completed 22 orbits, traveled almost 475k Nautical miles, or 546k statute miles, and lasted 34 hours, 19 minutes, and 49 seconds.    
The Faith 7 capsule was modified in a few ways to allow for a day plus mission in Earth orbit.  The removal of the periscope and other extraneous systems saved space and weight.  That saved space allowed for extra fuel, the addition of a cabin camera, and extra space for consumables.    
Earlier Mercury missions had topped out at 9 hours and 13 minutes, which was for Wally Schirra’s Sigma 7 capsule.  Cooper and his Faith 7 capsule stayed in orbit longer than all the other Mercury missions combined.  It was even longer than the first manned Gemini mission which flew with two astronauts instead of one.  
Tomorrow we will talk about what Gordo did while in space and later this week I will be talking about weather satellites, Apollo 10, and missions to Venus. 
Thanks for checking out the first episode of the Space Shot. I can’t promise you that future episodes won’t be photobombed by one of my cats, but I can promise you a quick dose of space history and news you can listen to or watch anywhere.  It would be fantastic if you would leave a review for the show, share this video on Facebook, insta, Twitter, or whatever your social network of choice is.  
I’m John Mulnix, and I’ll catch you on the flip side.