SpaceX is planning to run a test at our rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas that will be significantly louder than the typical tests we run daily.  The test could run from seconds in duration up to one minute.  The earliest possible date for the upcoming test is Friday, August 9th.

Next, the company has nabbed another launch contract, this time for three German radar reconnaissance satellites to be launched on Falcon 9 rockets in 2018 and 2019.

Where will they launch from? SpaceX is working to increase its number of launch sites as its dance card fills up. One possibility is Pad 39A at Florida's Kennedy Space Center — a former Apollo/shuttle launch area — but there's congressional opposition to that plan, and competitor Blue Origin is looking at both 39A, which it would operate both for its own launches and for other companies to lift off from, and Pad 39B, which it would share with NASA's Space Launch System.

Finally, one small bit of interesting clarification on the matter of Grasshopper testing and where it will happen that came when I was chasing down an online report that the Falcon 9-R would be tested at Spaceport America in New Mexico. Again from SpaceX's Ra: It turns out that the original Grasshopper vertical-landing testbed rocket will actually be staying put in McGregor. What's actually going to New Mexico will be a more advanced Grasshopper-related testbed with greater capabilities, but not a full Falcon 9-R rocket.