SpaceX completes static fire test of three engines on Superheavy prototype #7
Capitalism in space: SpaceX yesterday successfully completed the first static fire test of more than one engine on its Superheavy prototype #7, firing three engines for five seconds.
NASASpaceflight livestreamed the test, and its footage suggests that only two engines may have fully lit up, with the third perhaps aborting. Whether or not the third Raptor joined the party, however, it was still the first multi-engine Super Heavy static fire that SpaceX has performed.
I have embedded that footage below. Expect more such tests in the coming days. If all works as planned (something we should not expect as this remains a development program), the tests will culminate in an orbital test flight sending Starship on a one orbit mission around the Earth. At present SpaceX wants that flight to occur before the end of this year.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Capitalism in space: SpaceX yesterday successfully completed the first static fire test of more than one engine on its Superheavy prototype #7, firing three engines for five seconds.
NASASpaceflight livestreamed the test, and its footage suggests that only two engines may have fully lit up, with the third perhaps aborting. Whether or not the third Raptor joined the party, however, it was still the first multi-engine Super Heavy static fire that SpaceX has performed.
I have embedded that footage below. Expect more such tests in the coming days. If all works as planned (something we should not expect as this remains a development program), the tests will culminate in an orbital test flight sending Starship on a one orbit mission around the Earth. At present SpaceX wants that flight to occur before the end of this year.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
HLLVs take time and commitment. Blowing up otherwise conventional Falcons every other landing attempt in the early days? That was one thing. This demands a less cavalier approach.
It’s been crudely enjoyable watching SpaceX drive the rest of the industry into involuntary fits of innovation.
Once again, really smart people who have to play catch-up.
Embarrassing that they all need to be buying vowels.
What are we paying them for?
GaryMike wrote: “It’s been crudely enjoyable watching SpaceX drive the rest of the industry into involuntary fits of innovation.”
It hasn’t been just SpaceX. Blue Origin thought that they were leading the way, but then they bogged down. Rocket Lab is also eager to lead innovative ideas. There have been other attempts to implement ideas that have yet to be used, such as the aerospike engine. Reaction Engines Ltd. in the U.K. is innovating an air-breathing rocket engine to save weight on the O2 carried in the lower atmosphere, and they intend to use it on their Skylon single stage to orbit rocket.
The main innovations that are needed would be to reduce prices and increase availability of launches. This is why Robert noted that if SpaceX meets its goal of 100 launches next year then it, by itself, will have launched more than the whole world’s annual launches for almost three decades, from 1991 through 2017.
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/in-2022-freedom-continues-to-fuel-the-launch-industry-towards-new-records/
In the 1990s, it was believed that if launch prices dropped to $2,000 per pound then there would be a great demand for launch services, and this seems to be the case. Commercial use of space is expanding beyond just communications, and communications is expanding, too.
It remains to be seen whether sheer mass or volume of payload on a single Starship launch vehicle drives the market, but in the meantime SpaceX plans to put up an extremely large number of satellites in constellations, so it is currently its own customer (is there a word for that?) and only customer (monopsony) for large-mass payloads. Hopefully, other companies will soon launch their heavy space station modules on Starship or a future heavy-launch competitor.