SpaceX

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SpaceX will try to launch most powerful rocket ever Monday
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-spacex-po ... onday.html
A prototype of Starship, a huge rocket made by SpaceX, sits on a launchpad in Boca Chica, Texas in February 2022.

SpaceX plans to carry out its first test flight on Monday of Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, designed to send astronauts to the Moon and eventually beyond.

The launch is scheduled to take place at 7:00 am (1200 GMT) from the sprawling Texas base of the private space company owned by billionaire Elon Musk.

Fallback times are scheduled later in the week if Monday's attempt is postponed.

The US space agency NASA has picked the Starship capsule to ferry its astronauts to the Moon as part of the Artemis III mission, set for late 2025 at the earliest.

Starship consists of a reusable capsule that carries crew and cargo and the first-stage Super Heavy booster rocket.

The 164-foot (50-meter) tall Starship spacecraft sits atop the 230-foot tall Super Heavy rocket.

SpaceX conducted a successful test-firing of the 33 Raptor engines on the first-stage booster of Starship in February.

The Super Heavy booster was anchored to the ground during the test-firing, called a static fire, to prevent it from lifting off.

The rocket has never flown in its full configuration, powered by the first stage.

"Success maybe, excitement guaranteed!" Musk tweeted late Friday.

NASA will take astronauts up to lunar orbit itself in November 2024 using its own heavy rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS), which has been in development for more than a decade.
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SpaceX scrubs launch of Starship's first integrated test flight from Texas
Source: USA Today
SpaceX scrubbed the Monday morning liftoff of the first test launch of the company's fully integrated Starship vehicle minutes before it was scheduled to occur. The company pivoted to a "wet dress rehearsal" of the launch, broadcasters said on SpaceX's live stream, continuing with preparations right up until 10 seconds before the scheduled launch. The launch will be postponed at least 48 hours.

"A pressurant valve appears to be frozen, so unless it starts operating soon, no launch today," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted.


If everything goes according to plan with the postponed launch, it will mark the first time the combined system – Super Heavy booster below and Starship vehicle on top – takes flight from Starbase, a SpaceX-owned facility just outside Brownsville, Texas. Previous test flights, which often ended explosively, only featured the Starship vehicle itself, but this time the combined 400-foot vehicle is taking flight.

After liftoff from Starbase, Starship and Super Heavy will fly east over the Gulf of Mexico. Once the booster's job is done, it will attempt a soft landing in the waters of the Gulf. Starship will continue on through the Straits of Florida, perform nearly one orbit, and end in the Pacific Ocean with a controlled water landing of its own.
Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... 680619002/
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SpaceX's Starship Rocket Ends in Explosion After Launch
Source: New York Times

The most powerful rocket ever built got off the launchpad in South Texas, but did not achieve its most ambitious goals on Thursday.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/04/20 ... ticleShare

SpaceX successfully launches largest ever space rocket
By David Szondy
April 20, 2023
https://newatlas.com/space/spacex-succe ... -starship/
History was made today as a private company leapfrogged ahead of NASA by launching the largest, most powerful rocket ever. At 8:36 am CDT, SpaceX's uncrewed Starship lifted off from the company's Starbase at Boca Chica, Texas, on an orbital test flight that came to an explosive end four minutes into the flight.

Under mostly clear skies and moderate winds, the Starship lifted off as its 33 Raptor liquid-fuel engines in the Falcon Heavy first stage built up 16,700,000 lb of thrust. At the one-minute-20-second mark, the rocket passed through Max Q or the point of maximum mechanical stress.
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