Monday, December 3, 2018

SpaceX, LACMA Art Project Heads Into Space

Hawthorne-based SpaceX successfully launched yet another payload into space on Monday morning, carrying 64 satellites into space on the Spaceflight SSO-A: SmallSat Express mission. Among the 64 satellites on the flight is one of the more unusual payloads for SpaceX: an art project for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). According to the SpaceX webcast of the launch, the art piece, "ENOCH", is a 24-carat gold jar in the shape of cars used in Egyptian mummification, celebrating Robert Henry Lawrence Jr., one of the first African American astronauts, who dies in 1967 in a training accident. The art project--created by Tavares Strachan--was funded in part by SpaceX. SpaceX isn't a total stranger to unusual payloads: its first ever launch of a Dragon Capsule into space was a wheel of cheese.

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