SpaceX

Post Reply
weatheriscool
Posts: 12972
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: SpaceX

Post by weatheriscool »

SpaceX launches Dragon cargo capsule to space station, lands rocket at sea
By Josh Dinner
last updated about 2 hours ago

Dragon is scheduled to dock with the orbiting lab early Tuesday morning (June 6).



SpaceX launched its 28th cargo mission to the International Space Station for NASA on Monday (June 5) after a two-day weather delay.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched a robotic Dragon cargo capsule toward the orbiting lab on Monday at 11:47 a.m. EDT (1547 GMT) from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Nine minutes later, the Falcon 9's first stage came back to Earth for a pinpoint touchdown on the SpaceX droneship A Shortfall of Gravitas, which was stationed off the Florida coast. It was the fifth liftoff and landing for this particular booster, SpaceX said in a mission description.
https://www.space.com/spacex-crs-28-car ... -june-2023
User avatar
Time_Traveller
Posts: 2105
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 4:49 pm
Location: Clermont, Indiana, USA, October 7th 2019 B.C.E

Re: SpaceX

Post by Time_Traveller »

SpaceX Starship problems likely to delay Artemis 3 moon mission to 2026, NASA says
about 13 hours ago

NASA is worried that SpaceX's giant new Starship vehicle won't be ready to carry astronauts to the surface of the moon in late 2025, as currently planned.

In 2021, the agency selected Starship — the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built — to be the first crewed lunar lander for its Artemis program of moon exploration.

Starship will put astronauts down near the ice-rich lunar south pole on the Artemis 3 mission, in humanity's first return to the moon since the Apollo program ended in 1972. Artemis 3 is currently targeted to lift off in December 2025, but it's unlikely Starship will be able to meet that timeline, NASA officials said.

December 2025 "is our current manifest date, but with the difficulties that SpaceX has had, I think that's really, really concerning," Jim Free, NASA's associate administrator for exploration systems development, said on Wednesday (June 7) during a joint meeting of the U.S. National Academies' Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board and its Space Studies Board.

"So, you can think about that slipping probably into '26," he added.
https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-p ... socialflow
"We all have our time machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories...And those that carry us forward, are dreams."

-H.G Wells.
weatheriscool
Posts: 12972
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: SpaceX

Post by weatheriscool »

weatheriscool
Posts: 12972
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: SpaceX

Post by weatheriscool »

SpaceX Starship Second Orbital Launch Attempt in 6-8 Weeks
June 14, 2023 by Brian Wang
SpaceX will finish the water cooled steel plate and complete reconstruction and construction of other launch structures. SpaceX will be ready and approved for another Starship orbital launch attempt in 6-8 weeks.


https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/06/s ... weeks.html
weatheriscool
Posts: 12972
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: SpaceX

Post by weatheriscool »

SpaceX Starship Never Stops Thrusting With Hot Staging
June 24, 2023 by Brian Wang
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/06/s ... aging.html

Elon Musk told Ashlee Vance on a Twitter Space, that SpaceX had recently decided to switch to a “hot-staging” approach where the Starship upper stage will ignite its engines while still attached to the Super Heavy booster.

Musk said, describing the switch to hot staging. “There’s a meaningful payload-to-orbit advantage with hot-staging that is conservatively about a 10% increase.” This will be done on the next Super Heavy Starship launch. This was discussed 36 minutes into the Twitter Space.

Hot-staging hasbeen used on Russian launch vehicles for decades. The engines of one stage are ignited while still attached to its lower stage. Musk said that, for Starship, most of the 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster would be turned off, but a few still firing, when the engines on the Starship upper stage are ignited. Doing so, he said, avoids the loss of thrust during traditional stage separation, where the lower stage shuts down first.
weatheriscool
Posts: 12972
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: SpaceX

Post by weatheriscool »

Musk outlines major upgrades for Starship rocket
https://spaceflightnow.com/2023/06/25/m ... ip-rocket/
June 25, 2023 William Harwood
SpaceX will need another six weeks or so to finish implementing hundreds of changes to its Super Heavy-Starship rocket and the gargantuan booster’s Texas launch pad before it will be ready for a second attempt to reach orbit, company founder Elon Musk said Saturday.

That’s assuming Federal Aviation Administration clearance to fly in the wake of the Super Heavy’s dramatic maiden launch April 20 in which the rocket blew itself up after multiple engine failures and the Starship upper stage’s failure to separate from the first stage booster.

In a Twitter Spaces discussion with author Ashlee Vance, Musk said SpaceX is implementing “well over a thousand” changes,” and “I think the probability of this next flight working, getting to orbit, is much higher than the last one. Maybe it’s like 60 percent. It depends on how well we do at stage separation.”

The reusable Super Heavy first stage is equipped with 33 methane-powered Raptor engines while the Starship second stage features six. The original design called for the Super Heavy’s engines to shut down after boosting the Starship out of the lower atmosphere. The Starship then would separate and ignite its own engines to continue on to orbit.
weatheriscool
Posts: 12972
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: SpaceX

Post by weatheriscool »

SpaceX Is Making More Than 1,000 Changes to Starship Before Next Launch
CEO Elon Musk isn't promising when the next launch will happen, but it'll be a different rocket by then.
By Ryan Whitwam June 28, 202https://www.extremetech.com/aerospace/spacex-is ... xt-launch3

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is a chronically online billionaire, which leads to abundant controversies. An upshot of this behavior is that we get to hear about what SpaceX engineers are doing on an almost daily basis. In a recent Twitter Spaces stream, Musk talked about some of the 1,000 changes coming to the Starship before its next test flight.

Starship is SpaceX's big bet on the future—emphasis on big. At 394 feet (120 meters) tall, it's the largest rocket ever to fly. Imagine a mid-sized apartment building lifting off the ground and flying into space. That's Starship. It needs a lot of power to reach escape velocity, so it's also the most powerful rocket, with more than 16 million pounds of thrust at launch. However, the vehicle's first flight in April of this year ended abruptly at an altitude of 24 miles. Instead of dropping the Super Heavy first stage and continuing on to space, Starship lost control and began spinning. SpaceX opted to destroy the vehicle remotely, but officials still consider the test a success.

The fate of that first launch-ready Starship is probably due to many factors, including the flying concrete. SpaceX chose not to have a flame diverter in place, and the rocket's exhaust was so intense that it obliterated the launchpad, hurling bits of concrete thousands of feet away. Several of the Super Heavy's 33 Raptor engines were out by the time the rocket lost control, but Musk notes that the vehicle had a "hodgepodge" of engines built and tested at various times. The next test flight will include all-new engines with several improvements, like electric thrust vector controls and improved manifolds to keep hot gas from leaking back into the system.
User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8733
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: SpaceX

Post by wjfox »

weatheriscool
Posts: 12972
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: SpaceX

Post by weatheriscool »

Successful SpaceX Booster 9 Static Fire With Water Deluge Protection
August 7, 2023 by Brian Wang
SpaceX had a static fire of 29 out of 33 Raptor 2 engines and the test also used the water deluge launch pad protection system.

The water protected steel plate and launch pad were undamaged after the 29 engine static fire
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/08/s ... ction.html
weatheriscool
Posts: 12972
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 6:16 pm

Re: SpaceX

Post by weatheriscool »


SpaceX Lunar Starship Prototype Is Being Built Now

August 15, 2023 by Brian Wang
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/08/s ... built.html
There is clear evidence that the modified Starship upper stage that SpaceX has been working upon for months is the first version of human landing system lunar Starship.

This system has different door openings and other modifications.

TheSpaceEngineer has a rendering of what is believed to the first lunar starship prototype.

Youtuber Felix Schlang at WhatAboutIt has brought together all of the pictures of the SpaceX lunar starship prototype construction.
Image
Post Reply