Bill Gerstenmaier says the first orbital Starship launch will occur “in the next several weeks or months” during his 2022 Durand Lecture at #AIAAscitech
Fifty years ago today, President Richard Nixon signed a bill authorizing @NASA to develop a reusable space shuttle. In 1975, Stennis began testing engines that would help power the new spacecraft.
6:21 PM · Jan 5, 2022·Twitter Web App
"Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande." - Voltaire
Zitat SpaceX’s first launch of 2022 is scheduled for Thursday afternoon, Jan. 6, when a Falcon 9 rocket is set to lift off with 49 more Starlink internet satellites.
Launch from pad 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center is set for 4:49 p.m. EST (2149 GMT), and the Falcon 9 will track southeast from Florida’s Space Coast just north of the Bahamas, rather than the more typical northeasterly route to orbit.
LAUNCH SITE: LC-39A, Kennedy Space Center, Florida LAUNCH DATE: Jan. 6, 2022 LAUNCH TIME: 4:49 p.m. EST (2149 GMT) WEATHER FORECAST: 80% probability of acceptable weather BOOSTER RECOVERY: “A Shortfall of Gravitas” drone ship north of the Bahamas LAUNCH AZIMUTH: Southeast TARGET ORBIT: 210 miles by 130 miles (339 kilometers by 210 kilometers), 53.2 degrees inclination
"Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande." - Voltaire
Zitat SpaceX plans to land a Falcon 9 rocket booster back at Cape Canaveral around eight-and-a-half minutes after launch Thursday in the company’s first onshore rocket recovery since last June.
The launch company warned Central Florida residents they could hear one or more sonic booms as the 15-story-tall booster makes its way back to Landing Zone 1 at Cape Canaveral, following a planned launch at 10:25 a.m. EST (1525 GMT) Thursday.
The booster, a veteran of nine previous missions, is set to loft a batch of 105 small satellites from customers in 20 nations. The mission is designated Transporter 3, SpaceX’s third large-scale dedicated small satellite rideshare launch.
For its 10th launch, the booster will head southeast Cape Canaveral, then turn south to fly parallel to the east coast of Florida, taking aim on a polar, sun-synchronous orbit.
MISSION STATS: 136th launch of a Falcon 9 rocket since 2010 144th launch of Falcon rocket family since 2006 10th launch of Falcon 9 booster B1058 120th Falcon 9 launch from Florida’s Space Coast 78th Falcon 9 launch from pad 40 133rd launch overall from pad 40 80th flight of a reused Falcon 9 booster
Zitat Cape Canaveral’s busy January to continue with another Starlink launch
January 15, 2022
Forecasters expect brisk winds and chilly temperatures for a prime time, full moon launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with another batch of Starlink internet satellites Monday night from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
There’s a 70 percent chance of good conditions for launch at 7:26 p.m. EST Monday (0026 GMT), according to a forecast issued Saturday morning by the U.S. Space Force’s 45th Weather Squadron. There’s a backup instantaneous launch opportunity at 9:24 p.m. EST (0224 GMT).
The mission, designated Starlink 4-6, will carry around 49 Starlink internet satellites into orbit for SpaceX’s global internet network.
PS 20:44.
Zitat Greg Scott 1 Std. ·
SpaceX is delaying the launch of the Falcon 9 Starlink 4-6 rocket with 49 Starlink satellites from #NASA until 7:04pm EST Tues to wait for better weather conditions in the booster’s downrange recovery zone. #SpaceX ScottPhotoMedia.com
A package of 49 Starlink satellites that rode a Falcon 9 rocket into orbit Tuesday night from Florida included the 2,000th spacecraft to launch into SpaceX’s broadband internet network.
The successful orbital deployment of SpaceX’s newest 49 satellites brought the total number of Starlink spacecraft built and launched to 2,042, including prototypes and testbeds no longer in service.
Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, tweeted Saturday that the company has 1,469 active Starlink satellites, plus 272 spacecraft still maneuvering to their operational orbits. He added the laser inter-satellite links, used to beam internet traffic from spacecraft to spacecraft without going through a ground station, will activate soon.
SpaceX has a long-term plan to launch as many as 42,000 Starlink satellites, according to a company filing with the International Telecommunication Union. The company’s initial focus is on deploying thousands of satellites into five orbital “shells.”
The 53.2-degree inclination shell, the target for Tuesday night’s launch, is one of the five orbital shells at different inclination angles that SpaceX plans to fill with around 4,400 satellites to provide high-speed, low-latency broadband connectivity around the world. The first shell, at 53.0 degrees, was filled with its full complement of satellites last May.
2000. Um die Zahl mal in Perspektive zu setzen: Insgesamt beläuft sich die Zahl der in den jetzt 64 und 3 Monaten Jahren gestarteten Satelliten auf rund 9000, von denen sich noch rund 5000 in der Umlaufbahn befinden und knapp 2000 aktiv sind.
"Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande." - Voltaire
Zitat von Ulrich Elkmann im Beitrag #1072000. Um die Zahl mal in Perspektive zu setzen: Insgesamt beläuft sich die Zahl der in den jetzt 64 und 3 Monaten Jahren gestarteten Satelliten auf rund 9000, von denen sich noch rund 5000 in der Umlaufbahn befinden und knapp 2000 aktiv sind.
Und wo sind die 4000 hin, die nicht mehr in der Umlaufbahn sind?
Verdient Musk damit überhaupt Geld? Mein Eindruck ist, daß er mehr Flops produziert als marktgängige Erfolge. Paypal war sehr gut, Tesla nur wegen der Ausgleichssubventionen der Verbrennerhersteller. Das macht ihn natürlich nicht zu einem schlechten Unternehmer. Die meisten Ideen enden in der Entwicklung oder im Marketing. Aber Musk geht mit unausgegorenen Ideen in die Öffentlichkeit, die andere Unternehmer lieber erstmal stillkschweigend reifen lassen.
Zitat von Emulgator im Beitrag #108Und wo sind die 4000 hin, die nicht mehr in der Umlaufbahn sind?
Die sind Staub in der Atmosphäre. Sputnik 1 ist am 4. Januar 1958 verglüht, Sputnik 2 ("Muttnik") am 14. April 1958, Explorer 1 am 1. März 1970, usf. 7 sind vom Boden aus als Testziel abgeschossen worden; immerhin 8 sind mittlerweile karamboliert.
Starlink hat zurzeit 145.000 Nutzer weltweit. Die Nutzungsgebühren belaufen sich auf 99 USD monatlich oder das Äquivalent; für deutsche User je nach Serviceauswahl zwischen 50-100 €. Musk hat verkündet, daß sich das ab 2025 finanziell tragen soll. Vor einem Jahr waren das 10.000, im Juni 2021 69.000.
"Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande." - Voltaire
Das Zitat von 2020 war mir bislang durch die Lappen gegangen. Elon Musk zum Projekt "Neuralink":
Zitat von 29. August 2020"Elon Musk Compares Neuralink to “a ‘Black Mirror’ Episode” "You could basically store your memories as a backup, and restore the memories, and ultimately you could potentially download them into a new body or a robot body."
The remark came when he was replying to an audience question about whether the technology could eventually allow users to save and replay memories.
“Yes, I think in the future you’ll be able to save and replay memories,” he said. “I mean, this is obviously sounding increasingly like a ‘Black Mirror’ episode. But I guess they’re pretty good at predicting.”
After his meditation about “Black Mirror,” Musk went on to speculate that the technology could eventually be used for mind transfer.
“You could upload, you could basically store your memories as a backup, and restore the memories, and ultimately you could potentially download them into a new body or a robot body,” Musk said. “The future’s going to be weird.”
Das Konzept "geistige Inhalte", Erinnerungen, die Struktur einer ganzen Persönlichkeit zu scannen und in elektronischer Form zu speichern und bei Bedarf als Kopie entweder an eine Kopie - ob auf biologischer oder künstlicher Grundlage - oder innerhalb einer simulierten Realität laufen zulassen, als Form eine tehnologisch ermöglichten Reinkarnation, ist in der SF seit den 1950er Jahren ein immer wiederkehrender Topos. Zum letzten Mal ausgiebig als Motiv genommen in Neal Stephensons vorletztem Roman "Fall, or Dodge in Hell," 2019 (dt. 2021 als "Corvus").
Ich persönlich sehe diese technischen Weiterentwicklungen eher als Chance denn als Risiko.
Jede Technologie hat ihren beängstigenden Effekt.
"Alles nun, was ihr wollt, daß euch die Leute tun sollen, das tut ihr ihnen auch. Das ist das Gesetz und die Propheten." (Matthäus 7,12) "Das andre ist dies: »Du sollst deinen Nächsten lieben wie dich selbst« (3. Mose 19,18). Es ist kein anderes Gebot größer als diese." (Mark. 12,31)
Hearing that the SLS rollout for the wet dress rehearsal is now March 8, or thereabouts. NASA was trying for Feb. 15, but that's apparently been delayed.
Gestern: Falcon 9-Start von Cape Canaveral, COSMO SkyMed Radarsatellit, Italien. Heute, gerade eben: Falcon-9-Start von Vandenberg, NROL-87-Satellit für das national Reconnaisance Office. Morgen: Falcon-9-Star, nächste Startlink-Tranche, Gruppe 4-7, der erste von 4 für den Februar vorgesehenen Starts; die Zahl der im Orbit befindlichen Starlink-Satelliten erhöht sich dann auf 1920.
Zitat von Ulrich Elkmann im Beitrag #31 PS. Hrmpf. Grmbl. Bei dem Schlag-auf-Schlag von SpaceX fiel mir der alte Satz des Obergenossen Nikita Chruschtschow ein, die Soffjetunion könne Interkontinentalraketen "wie Würstchen" produzieren. Irgendwie habe ich das Zitat immer mit seinem Auftritt in der UN-Vollversammlung und der Schuhklopf-Episode am 12. Oktober 1960 in Verbindung gebracht, weil in diversen Abrissen zur russischen Raumfahrt zu lesen ist, daß Sergej Koroljew & seinen Stab, die in Moskau die Rede live auf Langwelle mithörten, da das Entsetzen gepackt haben soll, weil die R7 erst vier Starts hinter sich hatte, die alle als Fehlschlag endeten. Kleine Suche nach "советские заводы могут производить ракеты, как сосиски" (ich hatte zunächst nach колбаски statt сосиски gesucht), zeigt, daß das Zitat auch im Russischen ohne Datum & Ort herumschwirrt: "seit dem Start von Sputnik 1," "auf dem Höhepunkt des Kalten Kriegs..." und ähnlichem). Es dürfte sich somit um eine kolportierte Wendung handeln, die so nie gefallen ist, aber als Stafette immer weitergereicht wird, à la "Equal goes it loose."
PPS. Die taz meint, der Satz sei 1958 nach einem Besuch im Kombinat Южмаш / Juschmasch gefallen, die neben Traktoren auch Mittelstreckenraketen produzierten; aber auch da geben die russischen Quellen nichts her.
Hmphf redux. Hier meint man, der Satz sei bei einem der beiden Auftritte von der UN in New York am 12. & 13. Oktober 1960 gefallen; in die Überschrift hat es der Satz jedenfalls geschafft: "Мы печем ракеты как сосиски".
Air Force Magazine/Space Digest, April 1962, Bd. 45, S. 37-38, Arnold L. Horelick, "Power and Politics in the Soviet Space Effort."
Zitat Khrushchev chose the occasion of the UN General Assembly debate on disarmament in October 1960 to announce that in the USSR "rocket after rocket is coming off our factory lines, like sausages from an automatic machine." (Pravda, October 12, 1960.) On four separate occasions, the Soviet Premier has asserted that the USSR's strategic missile capability is so large that, if employed, it could "wipe form the face of the earth all of our potential enemies." (Pravda, November 18 and December 2, 1959; and March 7, 1961.) The first time Khrushchev boasted of this awesome capacity for destruction, in November 1959, he offered in evidence ... the USSR's successful earth-to-moon shot. (Pravda, November 18, 1959.) (S.37)
PPS. Der Satz lautet also in originaler Formulierung "теперь мы делаем ракеты на конвейере, как сосиски".
"Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande." - Voltaire
Mit dem heutigen Start ist die Falcon 9 die erfolgreichste Startrakete in der 64-jährigen Geschichte der Raumfahrt, gemessen an erfolgreichen Starts gegenüber Fehlschlägen.
Zitat The Falcon 9 may now be the safest rocket ever launched
SpaceX has been launching Falcon 9 rockets thick and fast of late. With 10 launches since the beginning of December, the company has flown rockets at a rate greater than one mission a week. And another launch could happen as soon as today, shortly after noon (18:13 UTC), with a Starlink satellite launch planned from Florida.
Lost amid the flurry of activity are some pretty significant milestones for the Falcon 9 rocket, which made its debut a little more than a decade ago. Number of launches
The Falcon 9 rocket has now launched a total of 139 times. Of those, one mission failed, the launch of an International Space Station supply mission for NASA, in June 2015. Not included in this launch tally is the pre-flight failure of a Falcon 9 rocket and its Amos-6 satellite during a static fire test in September 2016.
Since the year 2020, the Falcon 9 has been the most experienced, active rocket in the United States, when it surpassed the Atlas V rocket in total launches. Globally, the still-flying Russian Soyuz and Proton rockets have more experience than the Falcon 9 fleet. The Soyuz, of course, remains the king of all rockets. It has more than 1,900 launches across about a dozen variants of the booster dating back to 1957, with more than 100 failures.
The Falcon 9 reached a notable US milestone in January, equaling and then exceeding the tally of space shuttle launches. During its more than three decades in service, NASA's space shuttle launched 135 times, with 133 successes. To put the Falcon 9's flight rate into perspective, it surpassed the larger shuttle in flights in about one-third of the time.
Zitat Hearing that the SLS rollout for the wet dress rehearsal is now March 8, or thereabouts. NASA was trying for Feb. 15, but that's apparently been delayed.
10:05 PM · Feb 1, 2022·Twitter Web App
Zitat von February 4, 2022NASA says the first rollout of the Space Launch System moon rocket is planned for March ahead of a key fueling test on a seaside launch pad at Kennedy Space Center, a delay of several weeks to allow more time for work inside the Vehicle Assembly Building.
The 322-foot-tall (98-meter) SLS rocket was supposed to roll out of the Vehicle Assembly Building on Feb. 15. That’s now expected to happen next month, beginning several weeks of testing on the launch pad, culminating in a mock countdown in which the rocket will be filled with cryogenic propellants.
The delay in the rocket’s first rollout to pad 39B at Kennedy will push back its launch on a test flight around the moon from March until no earlier than April. NASA officials said they are also evaluating launch opportunities in May.
The mission, called Artemis 1, will send the Orion spacecraft to the moon, where it will enter a distant orbit in a multi-week, unpiloted “shakedown cruise” to demonstrate the SLS rocket and Orion are ready to carry astronauts. The next mission, known as Artemis 2, will send a crew of four around the moon and back to Earth, paving the way for future lunar landing flights.
Pressemitteilung von heute. Ein indisches Startup aus Bangalore kündigt die Entwicklung einer Schwerlast-Mondrakete an.
Zitat EtherealX
5 Std. · Bearbeitet
We are proud to announce our presence through the country's and the world's most powerful partially reusable vertical landing medium-lift launch vehicle yet - The Razor Crest Mk-1. Razor Crest Mk-1 is scheduled tentatively to launch by 2026.
We are India's first to build a medium-heavy lift reusable launch vehicle. As a global space and defense company, we are at the moment being incorporated and will be headquartered in Bangalore, India.
The EtherealX Razor Crest Mk-1 will house 9 of the most powerful to-be operational liquid rocket engines in all of Asia, Europe, Australia, Africa, South America, and Antarctica yet - Stallion. EtherealX's single Stallion engine will be capable of producing an enormous 925 kilonewtons of thrust, enabling the Razor Crest Mk-1 to carry 24.8 tonnes to LEO. Making it one of the most powerful to-be operational medium-lift reusable launch vehicles ever.
40 oder mehr Space-X Satelliten wegen Sonnensturm zerstört https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60317806 Der Sonnensturm erhöht die Dichte der erdnahen Bereiche, und so haben die gerade ausgesetzten Satelliten zum Teil nicht ihre Umlaufbahn erreicht und werden abstürzen.
Zitat von Martin im Beitrag #11740 oder mehr Space-X Satelliten wegen Sonnensturm zerstört https://www.bbc.com/news/world-60317806 Der Sonnensturm erhöht die Dichte der erdnahen Bereiche, und so haben die gerade ausgesetzten Satelliten zum Teil nicht ihre Umlaufbahn erreicht und werden abstürzen.
Zitat Two days before launch a CME [koronarer Massenauswurf, also Materie wird von der Sonne fortgeschleudert] hit Earth's magnetic field. It was not a major space weather event. In fact, the weak impact did not at first spark any remarkable geomagnetic activity. However, as Earth passed through the CME's wake, some sputtering G1-class geomagnetic storms developed. It was one of these minor storms that caught the Starlink satellites on Feb. 4th.
War also kein besonders starkes Ereignis. Ihren Orbit können die Satelliten nicht korrigieren, oder?
Zitat The satellites hit by the solar storm were in a temporary position. SpaceX deliberately launches them into this unusually low orbit so that any duds can quickly reenter the atmosphere and pose no threat to other spacecraft.
Zitat Operating in low-Earth orbit comes with benefits such as rapid transfer of information between the satellites and the Earth, known as latency. At the same time, operating relatively close to Earth means that the satellites are constantly being slightly slowed down by what's left of our planet's atmosphere at their operating height—around 210 kilometers or 130 miles.
These storms also have the effect of heating up the atmosphere, which in turn increases the density of the atmosphere where the Starlink satellites operate. According to SpaceX, the fresh batch of Starlink satellites faced atmospheric drag up to 50 percent higher than during previous launches.
Faced with this extra atmospheric resistance, the fresh batch of Starlink satellites entered a "safe-mode" in which they flew edge-on with the atmosphere to minimize drag. Unfortunately for SpaceX, the satellites were unable to leave "safe-mode" in time to correct their orbits.
Auch ohne Aufheizung und entsprechende Ausdehnung der obersten Straosphärenschichten ist der Bremseffekt bei einer Umlaufbahn unter 180 km nur wenige Stunden vor dem "Rücksturz zur Erde" kreisen kann. Für die ersten bemannten Raumflüge (zumindest für das amerikanische Mercury-Programm; für die Wostok-Kapseln müßte ich mir die Bahndaten raussuchen) sind extra solche niedrigen Umlaufbahnen gewühlt worden, damit bei einem Versagen der Abbremstriebwerke der Astronaut (oder was von ihm übrig war) da in kurzer Zeit wieder unten sein würde.
Zitat All satellites in Earth orbit are subject to various perturbing influences which can alter their orbit. Satellites in low Earth orbit, with perigee altitudes below 2000 km, are predominantly subject to atmospheric drag. This force very slowly tends to circularise and reduce the altitude of the orbit. The rate of 'decay' of the orbit becomes very rapid at altitudes less than 200 km, and by the time the satellite is down to 180 km it will only have a few hours to live before it makes a fiery re-entry down to the Earth. The temperatures attained during this re-entry are usually great enough to vapourise most of the satellite, but if it is particularly large, or under certain conditions, component pieces may reach the ground.
The rate at which a low satellite orbit decays is a function of atmospheric density at each point along the orbit together with a satellite's effective cross sectional area A, mass m, and drag coefficient CD. In many cases, these last three parameters cannot be independently determined and a ballistic coefficient [ B = CD A/m ] is used instead. This has the units of metres squared per kilogram.
The average m/A for an orbital object is around 100 kg m-2 with most objects lying between 50 and 200 kg m-2. This equates to A/m values between 0.005 and 0.02, with an average value of 0.01 m2 kg-1.
The air density varies along the orbit, being a function of latitude and longitude, time of day, time of year and season. However, at a fixed point in space, if we average the short term variations, we find that the density can be expressed in terms of two space environmental parameters. These are the solar 10 cm radio flux (F10) and the geomagnetic index Ap. As each of these increase we find a corresponding increase in the atmospheric density at altitudes above about 120 km.
Over long time intervals the geomagnetic index Ap has an average value that is quite low, and is of no significance to lifetime predictions. It is only over timescales of a day or two that high geomagnetic activity can cause a significant increase in satellite drag, and then only for altitudes below about 400 km.
The following table provides a very rough guide to the lifetime of an object in a circular or near circular orbit at various altitudes.
Satellite Altitude Lifetime 200 km 1 day 300 km 1 month 400 km 1 year 500 km 10 years 700 km 100 years 900 km 1000 years
Zitat von Emulgator im Beitrag #118War also kein besonders starkes Ereignis. Ihren Orbit können die Satelliten nicht korrigieren, oder?
Ich habe da keine Expertise. Mir war dieses Phänomen und der Mechanismus auf die Dichte der Erdatmosphäre bisher nicht klar. Den Starlink-Leuten müsste es aber doch bekannt sein, und da frage ich mich, ob die da ein dummes Risiko eingingen. Oder ist das ein Lotteriespiel?
Zitat von Martin im Beitrag #120Oder ist das ein Lotteriespiel?
Ja. Die Vorhersage über Eintreffen und die Auswirkungen vom CMEs laufen darauf hinaus. Man weiß weder, wie große und dicht das genau ist, noch in welchem präzisen Winkel das von der Sonne auf uns zuschießt; und ob uns das nicht vielleicht völlig verfehlt. Deswegen sind Voraussagen von Polarlichtern immer ein Ratespiel; 2 von 3 Voraussagen laufen ins Leere. Vor allem ist der Zeitpunkt des Eintreffens nicht genau festzulegen: es heißt dann immer: in den nächsten 2 Tagen ist damit zu rechnen... Bei dem "Spaceweather"-Link oben kann man das gut nachverfolgen, wenn man das regelmäßig im Auge behält.
Bei den Starlink-Satelliten gibt es dagegen enge Startfenster, weil die ja am Ende genaue Positionen in einem Mosaik beziehen müssen und nicht endlos Treibstoffvorräte an Bord haben, um da viel Luft bei der Änderung des Delta-V zu haben.
"Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande." - Voltaire
In Boca Chice sind heute zum ersten Mal der Falcon Heavy-Booster 4 und das Starship SL20 zu einer Einheit montiert worden.
Kulisse hierfür:
Zitat Elon Musk will give a status update on SpaceX's huge Starship rocket tonight (Feb. 10), and we expect the company will stream it live online.
The presentation will begin at 9 p.m. EST (0200 Feb. 11 GMT). If SpaceX shares a webcast, you'll be able to watch live here at Space.com, or directly via the company.
There will be some eye candy to reel you in as well: Musk will speak at Starbase, the South Texas facility where SpaceX builds, tests and launches Starship vehicles, and he'll have a fully stacked Starship behind him as a visual aid.
Starship consists of two elements: a giant first-stage booster known as Super Heavy and a 165-foot-tall (50 meters) upper-stage spacecraft called Starship. Both of these pieces are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable, the breakthrough that Musk and SpaceX believe is necessary to make Mars colonization and other ambitious spaceflight feats economically feasible.
The fully stacked Starship that will serve as Musk's backdrop tonight will get off the ground soon, if all goes according to plan. The vehicle is scheduled to launch on the Starship program's first-ever orbital test flight, a milestone that could occur early next month, provided the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration wraps up an environmental assessment of Starbase by Feb. 28 as planned.
Tonight's presentation should be relatively meaty, for it'll be the first formal Starship update that Musk has given since September 2019. (The billionaire entrepreneur regularly doles out small Starship details via Twitter, however.)
Zitat In a series of Twitter posts late Wednesday and today (Feb. 9 and 10), Musk showed off new views of the Starship rocket as it was attached its massive Super Heavy booster at the company's Starbase facility near Boca Chica Village. Altogether, the Starship-Super Heavy duo stands 395 feet tall (120 m). That's more than 30 feet (9 m) taller than NASA's massive Saturn V moon rocket.
Musk posted the photos overnight with no comment, apparently to let the epic scope of the sight sink in as the billionaire prepares to give a major update tonight on SpaceX's Starship program. SpaceX is expected to webcast the Starship update, which you'll be able to watch here if it's available, beginning at about 9 p.m. EST (0200 GMT).
Zitat Musk foresees Florida as a home for Starship operations
SpaceX plans to transform parts of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center to become an operational base for the company’s super-powerful Starship launcher, while keeping a sprawling complex in South Texas as a research and development location for the heavy-lift rocket program, Elon Musk said Thursday.
Musk, the founder and chief executive of SpaceX, said in December that SpaceX had started construction of an orbital launch site for the Starship on Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, but his comments Thursday suggested the company has carved out long-term roles for the government-owned Florida spaceport and the privately-run test site in Cameron County, Texas, also known as Starbase.
SpaceX currently operates two launch pads at Cape Canaveral for its Falcon rockets.
At pad 39A, once home to NASA’s Saturn 5 moon rocket and space shuttle launches, SpaceX launches astronaut crews to the International Space Station and Falcon Heavy rockets, made by combining three Falcon rocket cores together to generate some 5.1 million pounds of thrust, more than any other operational launcher in the world.
The Starship dwarfs all of those rockets, with the ability to haul up to 100 tons of cargo into a “usable” orbit a few hundred miles above Earth, Musk said.
SpaceX is building a Starship pad just southeast of the Falcon rocket’s launch mount within the fenced-in perimeter of pad 39A, which officials hope to complete later this year. The company is also interested in developing another Starship launch pad, known as Launch Complex 49, a few miles to the north.
Musk presented an update on the huge Starship rocket program Thursday, standing in front of a towering fully-stacked Starship rocket, the tallest launch vehicle and most powerful ever built. SpaceX did not say whether the rocket used as a backdrop Thursday, which was once intended to blast off on the first Starship orbital launch attempt, is still expected to actually fly. ... The privately-funded rocket, made of shiny stainless steel, will be the most powerful to ever fly. Future versions of the Super heavy will have 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines producing some 17 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. It’s also designed to be fully reusable, with the Super Heavy booster and Starship — essentially part upper stage and part in-space transporter — capable of returning to Earth with a vertical landing back on its launch pad, and then flying again.
The Starship itself will have six Raptor engines initially, but that could grow to nine engines — three designed for landing propulsion on Earth, and six for use in the vacuum of space.
The Starship’s first orbital test flight, though audacious in scale, will aim to prove out the rocket’s basic launch and re-entry capabilities without fully testing out the complicated landing and recovery systems, according to a SpaceX filing with the Federal Communications Commission last year.
On the first orbital mission, SpaceX plans for the Starship to re-enter the atmosphere after one trip around Earth, heading for a controlled landing at sea in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii. The Super Heavy booster will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico.
Zitat Elon Musk expects Starship to deliver launches at lower costs
Elon Musk said his space company’s enormous rocket should soon be able to reach orbits at a fraction of traditional launch costs.
Starship should be able to reach orbits for less than $10 million a flight within two to three years, Mr. Musk said during a presentation Thursday at SpaceX’s southern Texas facility, where the company plans to launch the spacecraft.
He said the company has continued to make improvements to Starship to support future missions. A second version of the spacecraft’s engine, called Raptor, costs about half as much as a prior version, even though the newer edition is more powerful, Mr. Musk said.
Under its current agreement with the FAA, the company can conduct suborbital launches that don’t send Starship prototype vehicles more than 18 miles from the ground, according to the agency. The company cannot pursue a broader testing program for Starship until it obtains certain permissions from the FAA’s commercial-space office.
Mr. Musk said SpaceX doesn’t know the status of the FAA review but said there could be an approval in March.
"Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande." - Voltaire
Zitat Jared Isaacman, the billionaire founder of payments company Shift4 who flew on the first private SpaceX flight to orbit last year, purchased as many as three more flights from Elon Musk’s company.
Called the Polaris Program, the first mission — known as Polaris Dawn — is scheduled to launch a crew of four led by Isaacman in the fourth quarter of this year with the company’s Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft. According to the program’s website, this will be the first of up to three missions, with the third set to be the first crewed spaceflight of SpaceX’s Starship rocket.
saacman was among those who were at Musk’s Starship presentation last week at the company’s facility in Texas. SpaceX has already booked a private Starship flight to the moon for Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, and Musk on Thursday alluded that more such spaceflights were in the works.
The Polaris Dawn mission will spend up to five days in orbit and will attempt new firsts for the company — including the first-ever private spacewalk with SpaceX spacesuits, testing of Starlink satellite communications in space and conduct scientific research on human health.
Notably, Polaris Dawn effectively marks the start of SpaceX’s own astronaut corps. Isaacman is the commander of the mission, with his longtime colleague Scott Poteet as the pilot, while two SpaceX employees are flying along as missions specialists: Sarah Gillis and Anna Menon. Gillis and Menon are lead space operations engineers at SpaceX, with the former overseeing the company’s astronaut training program and the latter managing the development of its crew operations.
Zitat Jared Isaacman, the billionaire businessman who bankrolled the first human space mission with all private citizens last year, announced plans Monday for up to three more SpaceX flights, a privately-funded program that will include the first commercial spacewalk, and ultimately a ride on the giant Starship rocket ship.
The first of the missions is scheduled for launch in November or December of this year on a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule. That flight, called Polaris Dawn, will attempt to reach the highest Earth orbit ever flown by humans, and the farthest anyone has traveled from Earth since the last Apollo moon mission in 1972.
“We’re going to go farther into space than humans have gone since we last walked on the moon,” Isaacman told NBC News, which unveiled the Polaris missions on the Today Show Monday morning.
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