SpaceX

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weatheriscool
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Re: SpaceX

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SpaceX Launchpad Repairs and Upgrades in Progress
May 4, 2023 by Brian Wang

SpaceX is repairing and upgrading the launchpad that was damaged. There are images and video from NASA Spaceflight.

Lab Padre is also has cameras at Boca Chica, Texas where the SpaceX Starbase rocket launch facility is located.
weatheriscool
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Re: SpaceX

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Vast and SpaceX plan to launch the first commercial space station in 2025
The duo will have to compete with Blue Origin and other big rivals.
https://www.engadget.com/vast-and-space ... 56156.html
Another company is racing to launch the first commercial space station. Vast is partnering with SpaceX to launch its Haven-1 station as soon as August 2025. A Falcon 9 rocket will carry the platform to low Earth orbit, with a follow-up Vast-1 mission using Crew Dragon to bring four people to Haven-1 for up to 30 days. Vast is taking bookings for crew aiming to participate in scientific or philanthropic work. The company has the option of a second crewed SpaceX mission.

Haven-1 is relatively small. It isn't much larger than SpaceX's capsule, and is mainly intended for science and small-scale orbital manufacturing for the four people who dock. Vast hopes to make Haven-1 just one module in a larger station, though, and it can simulate the Moon's gravity by spinning.
I'd put my money on space-x betting blue. Blue sucks.
weatheriscool
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Re: SpaceX

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SpaceX Launched Over 80% of All Orbital Payload Mass in Q1 2023
May 10, 2023 by Brian Wang
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/05/s ... -2023.html
The recent Bryce Tech quarterly report on the global space industry shows SpaceX launched over 80% of all payload mass to orbit.
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SpaceX launched 233 tons to orbit while second place, the country of China, launched less than 24 tons to orbit. SpaceX launched about 5 times more than China and Russia combined.
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SpaceX launched 763 satellites or spacecraft while everyone else launched 106.

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Today’s SpaceX Starlink launch:
• 233rd launch by Falcon rocket family
• 83rd launch primarily dedicated to Starlink network
• 31st SpaceX launch of 2023
• 9th launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base in 2023
weatheriscool
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Re: SpaceX

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SpaceX Raptor 3 Engine is Test Fired and Has 10% More Thrust

May 13, 2023 by Brian Wang
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/05/s ... hrust.html
SpaceX Raptor 3 is an improved and more powerful rocket enigine. It has reached 350 bar of pressure and 269 tons of thrust.

Raptor 2 engines were achieving 230 tf (510,000 lbf) of thrust consistently by February 2022, although SpaceX expects to be able to tune engine parameters and design over time to achieve at least 250 tf (550,000 lbf). Moreover, Musk indicated that the engine production cost was approximately half that of the Raptor 1 version SpaceX had been using in 2018–2021. In June 2022, Musk tweeted that 250 tons was achievable.

The Saturn V rocket generated 34.5 million newtons (7.6 million pounds) of thrust.

The Starship Super Heavy Booster with Raptor 3 engines would have 2.56 times the thrust of the Saturn V.

SpaceX is making a water spraying metal plate for the launch pad.
weatheriscool
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Re: SpaceX

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SpaceX Falcon 9 Booster Is Being Certified for 20 Reuses
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/05/s ... euses.html
May 18, 2023 by Brian Wang

SpaceX is certifying its Falcon 9 booster for 20 reuses. Several SpaceX Falcon 9 Boosters have been reused dozens of times each and one has been used 15 times.

SpaceX plans to launch up to 100 missions in 2023, which is nearly double what it launched in 2022. Reusability will enable the company to complete the ambitious launch manifest.

More reuses lowers the cost to SpaceX for its launches. The first stage booster is 70% of the cost of the Falcon 9.

SpaceX’s vice president for build and reliability, Bill Gerstenmaier, described the Falcon 9 goals at the Axiom Space’s press conference on May 15. Axion Space plans the second all-commercial mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on May 21st, 2023.
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raklian
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Re: SpaceX

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I'm guessing they're testing a solution to the problem caused by that Starship launch earlier.

To know is essentially the same as not knowing. The only thing that occurs is the rearrangement of atoms in your brain.
weatheriscool
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Re: SpaceX

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weatheriscool
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SpaceX launches 4 private citizens to the space station
SpaceX on Sunday launched a crew of private astronauts, including two representing Saudi Arabia, in a mission to the International Space Station that was chartered by another private space company, Axiom Space.

The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off at 5:37 p.m. from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, marking the second group of private citizens to fly with Axiom to the space station and offering a reminder of how quickly human space flight is evolving from the days when only national governments had the wherewithal to train and launch people into space.

The crew is expected to arrive at the space station at about 9:30 a.m. Eastern Monday for an eight-day stay, performing research and science experiments. Axiom has not said how much the mission cost, but members of the previous mission paid as much as $55 million each.

Axiom conducted the training for this flight and commissioned the SpaceX launch. Axiom’s long-term goal is to build its own space station in low-Earth orbit and continue to send people from all over the world to it. It also holds a contract from NASA to build the spacesuits that astronauts will wear on the surface of the moon as part of the space agency’s Artemis program.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technolo ... ss-launch/
weatheriscool
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Improved Renderings of the SpaceX Water Cooled Steel Plate Launch System

May 22, 2023 by Brian Wang
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/05/i ... ystem.html
Ryan Hansen completely redid all his models related to SpaceX water cooled steel plate launch system. The supply pipes and manifolds have been measured and accurately modeled. He was able to gather enough reference photos to get many of the dimensions for the plates and have sized those accordingly.
Image
weatheriscool
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Re: SpaceX

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Improved SpaceX Starship Should Lift 300 Tons Expendable and 180 Tons Reusable #spacex
May 25, 2023 by Brian Wang
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/05/i ... pacex.html
Elon says SpaceX Starship with improved Raptor 3 engines should lift 300 tons in expendable mode which should mean mean 180 tons in reusable mode.

The International Space Station weighs about 420 tons and took about fifty space shuttle launches to build. The Starship upper stage has more volume than the International Space Station. A larger, stretched Starship upper stage could be built and launched to enable larger space stations by just leaving Starships in orbit.

An older SpaceX design was the Interplanetary Transport System. This older design was larger than the Starship Superheavy. ITS would outperform the Saturn V by a factor of 4.1 on the mass delivered to Low Earth Orbit. In a fully expendable configuration, ITS would loft a LEO payload of 550 metric tons while the reusable booster can send 300 metric tons into orbit. The improving Raptor engines are getting to 60% of the proposed ITS capability.

If SpaceX achieved a further 20% improvement in the Raptor engines could enable about 360 tons in expendable mode and 216 tons in reusable mode.
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