Tag: SpaceX

Musk: Starship will likely attempt a chopstick landing on the eighth test launch

9:57 am

UPDATE: The original post below is incorrect. I misread Musk’s tweet, not realizing he was refering exclusively to Starship when he wrote “ship.” He and his company now routinely use “ship” to refer to Starship and “booster” for Superheavy.

The real story behind this tweet is that SpaceX is working to attempt a chopstick catch of both Superheavy and Starship on the eighth test flight, after the as-yet unscheduled seventh flight. This means the eighth flight of Starship will be a full orbital flight, will use its Raptor engines to do a de-orbit burn to bring it back to Boca Chica, and that the company expects to have two launchpad towers ready to make the two catches.

Won’t that be an exciting event?

Original incorrect post:
———————————–
According to a tweet by Elon Musk on November 19, 2024, SpaceX will not attempt a chopstick landing of Superheavy on the seventh test orbital launch of Starship/Superheavy.

We will do one more ocean landing of the ship. If that goes well, then SpaceX will attempt to catch the ship with the tower.

According to an update on the SpaceX website, the decision to abort the chopstick landing during this week’s sixth test flight was made because of issues at the launch tower:

Following a nominal ascent and stage separation, the booster successfully transitioned to its boostback burn to begin the return to launch site. During this phase, automated health checks of critical hardware on the launch and catch tower triggered an abort of the catch attempt. The booster then executed a pre-planned divert maneuver, performing a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.

At this moment SpaceX has not provided any additional information on what those issues at the tower were, and might never do so since this is proprietary information. Nonetheless, it could be that more work is necessary to make sure the tower is healthy after launch, which is why they won’t attempt a chopstick landing next time.

As for when that seventh test flight will occur, we as yet have no word. The timing is going to depend on many factors, including the need for upgrades, the final flight plan decision, any changes then required to SpaceX’s FAA launch license, and finally the impact the new Trump administration will have on that red tape.

14 comments

Russia and SpaceX complete launches

9:16 am

Both Russia and the American company SpaceX successfully completed launches this morning. First, Russia sent a new Progress freighter on its way to ISS, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan. The cargo ship is planned to dock with ISS in two days.

Next SpaceX put another 24 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The first stage completed its 20th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

119 SpaceX
53 China
14 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 137 to 80, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 119 to 98.

0 comments

FAA approves revised launch rate for Boca Chica; schedules public meetings

10:42 am

The FAA today announced that it has issued a revised draft environmental assessment [pdf] of SpaceX’s operations at Boca Chica in which the agency approves the company’s request to increase its Starship/Superheavy launch rate from 5 to 25 launches per year.

This does not mean that SpaceX can now launch that many times in 2025. The draft still has to go through more red tape, including public meetings and a comment period, then reviewed again by the FAA. In this announcement the FAA rescheduled those public meetings, as follows:

  • Tuesday, January 7, 2025; 1:00 PM–3:00 PM & 5:30 PM–7:30 PM CDT at the Texas Southmost College, Jacob Brown Auditorium, 600 International Boulevard, Brownsville, TX 78520
  • Thursday, January 9, 2025; 1:00 PM–3:00 PM & 5:30 PM–7:30 PM CDT at the Port Isabel Event & Cultural Center, Queen Isabella Room, 309 E Railroad Avenue, Port Isabel, TX 78578
  • Virtually on Monday, January 13, 2025; 5:30 PM–7:30 PM CDT. Registration Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_6f5su5mtTne_vBr8MqJOLA
    Dial-in phone number: 888-788-0099 (Toll Free),
    Webinar ID: 879 9253 6128, Passcode: 900729

I strongly suggest that local businesses and citizens in the Brownsville area organize to show up en masse at these meetings to express their approval of SpaceX, because I can guarantee that the fringe anti-Musk activists groups SaveRGV, Sierra Club, the Friends of Wildlife Corridor, and the fake Indian Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas (which never existed in Texas) are organizing to be there to demand SpaceX be shut down.

3 comments

NASA to award SpaceX and Blue Origin contracts to deliver cargo to the Moon

9:14 am

Capitalism in space: NASA yesterday announced that is planning to award both SpaceX and Blue Origin contracts to use their manned lunar landers as cargo freighters to deliver supplies to its planned lunar base.

NASA expects to assign demonstration missions to current human landing system providers, SpaceX and Blue Origin, to mature designs of their large cargo landers following successful design certification reviews. The assignment of these missions builds on the 2023 request by NASA for the two companies to develop cargo versions of their crewed human landing systems, now in development for Artemis III, Artemis IV, and Artemis V.

…NASA plans for at least two delivery missions with large cargo. The agency intends for SpaceX’s Starship cargo lander to deliver a pressurized rover, currently in development by JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), to the lunar surface no earlier than fiscal year 2032 in support of Artemis VII and later missions. The agency expects Blue Origin to deliver a lunar surface habitat no earlier than fiscal year 2033.

The contracts however have not been issued. This is merely an announcement of NASA’s intent to do so, which suggests to me that NASA management has already recognized that the entire Artemis program is facing a major restructuring and wants to indicate it will support such a change. That does not mean these contracts won’t be issued — both rely on the privately owned rockets of both companies — but that NASA now realizes that its manned program — which now relies on SLS/Orion — will likely to be changed significantly, likely by the elimination of SLS/Orion and its replacement by private rockets and private manned spacecraft.

Because of this looming restructuring, NASA management probably intended this press announcement — which really announces little that is new — as a signal of its support for such a change, because the announcement focuses on these private companies rather than NASA’s government-built rocket.

0 comments

Flights into Brownsville sold out prior to SpaceX’s sixth test flight of Starship/Superheavy

8:57 am

If anyone thinks the anti-Musk activists groups that have been using lawfare to try to shut down SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility have any local support, this story should put a quash on that. According to the airport director for the Brownsville-South Padre Island Airport, all flights sold out leading up to the sixth test flight of Starship/Superheavy.

Airport director Angel Ramos told Channel 5 News he’s noticed traffic increases whenever SpaceX does a flight test. “People are excited,” Ramos said. “They’re wearing SpaceX hats and SpaceX shirts [when they come] in to the airport.”

Ramos said flights were sold out between Sunday and Tuesday, and 700 people have been arriving daily at the airport since Sunday. “There is no launch that happens that we don’t see lots of people coming in and out of the airport, and now that they continue to be more frequent and more successful, people are paying more interest and actually coming days before,” Ramos said.

The story was reported by the local ABC television affiliate, and reflects the very positive impact SpaceX is having on the local community that is recognized quite clearly by everyone who lives there. The Brownsville area had been economically depressed for decades. Now the economy is booming, all because of SpaceX.

The public wants SpaceX there. The nay-sayers represent practically no one. That many local news organizations not only don’t report these facts when they cover the lawfare of these activists but instead often frame their stories as if the opposition is general throughout the region is shameful and an indication of the bankrupt nature of these press outlets.

0 comments

Freedom wins again: SpaceX completes the 6th orbital test flight of Starship/Superheavy

3:50 pm

Starship/Superheavy at T+6 seconds

SpaceX today successfully completed the sixth orbital test flight of its Starship/Superheavy heavy lift rocket, only forty days after its previous test flight, the shortest turn-around so far, mainly because the FAA imposed no red tape to hold SpaceX back.

Before describing details of the flight, it is essential to note that this giant rocket, bigger than the Saturn-5 that sent Apollo astronauts to the Moon and intended to be completely reusable and being designed to be able to relaunch in mere hours, has been conceived, designed, built, and tested entirely by a private company and free American citizens, funded almost entirely by private investment capital hoping to make a profit from the rocket. The government and NASA has played almost no part, except possibly using its regulatory power improperly to slow development down by a year or two.

Even more important its development has cost a tiny amount compared to similar government programs, and has been accomplished in less than a third of the time.

Thus this rocket is a perfect example of freedom in action. Get the government out of the way and allow humans the freedom to follow their dreams, and they will do astonishing things.

As for the flight, Superheavy worked perfectly in getting Starship off the launchpad and on its way into orbit. However, engineers canceled a second tower catch attempt and instead diverted Superheavy to complete a soft splashdown just off the coast in the Gulf of Mexico. The booster touched down on the water quite softly, and then fell over into the water. Expect SpaceX to quickly do salvage operations to recover it.

Starship reached its orbit as planned, carrying for the first time a payload, a single plastic banana suspended by cords in the center of the Pez deployment payload bay where SpaceX hopes to soon begin deploying Starlink satellites. Though somewhat silly, the banana is being used by SpaceX and the FAA to certify future payload operations.

About 38 minutes into the flight engineers did the first re-light of one Raptor-2 engine while in orbit, the burn lasting about three-four seconds. This burn demonstrated that Starship is capable of doing a de-orbit burn so that in a future flight it can be launched into a full orbit and use the engines to bring it back to a precise location on Earth, including possibly a return to the launch tower for its own chopstick catch.

Starship splashing down vertically
Starship splashing down vertically

During re-entry the flight plan called for pushing Starship beyond its technical margins in order to learn exactly what those limits were. Even so, it appeared that — unlike the previous flights — there was very little evidence of damage to the flaps from the heat of re-entry. One flap appeared to have damage at one pointed end, and even that burn-through appeared far less than the previous flights.

During final descent and moving slower than the speed of sound they pointed the ship nose down in order to stress the flaps the most. Even so, the ship performed as planned, and splashed down softly and vertically in the Indian Ocean.

Though the flight plan for this Starship flight as well as the previous flights was purposely designed to bring it back to Earth before it completes an orbit, this was still essentially a successful orbital launch, and thus I am including it in my launch totals. The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

118 SpaceX
53 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 136 to 79, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 118 to 97.

23 comments

SpaceX successfully completes two launches today

11:40 am

SpaceX successfully completed two launches today, one from each coast.

First in the early morning the company sent 20 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California. The first stage completed its 20th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific. Of the 20 satellites, 13 were configured for direct-to-cell service.

Next, SpaceX launched GSAT-20, a geosynchronous communications satellite for India’s space agency ISRO, which hired SpaceX because the satellite was too heavy for its own rockets. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral, with the first stage completing its 19th flight, successfully landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. Of the two fairings, one completed its fifth flight while the second completed its first flight.

If we include the afternoon launch yesterday by SpaceX from Kennedy, the company did three launches from three locations in less than 24 hours. And it hopes to launch again tomorrow, this time flying Starship/Superheavy on its sixth test orbital flight, launching from the company’s launchpad in Boca Chica. I have embedded the live steam here.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

117 SpaceX
53 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 135 to 79, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 117 to 97.

With these two launches today, the all-time global record for successful orbital launches in a year, set only last year at 213, has been broken, and there are still about five weeks left in 2024.

1 comment

Oh no! Starship/Superheavy is loud!

9:21 am

Superheavy after its flight safely captured at Boca Chica
Superheavy after its October flight, safely captured at Boca Chica

Time for another Chicken Little report: A new study of the sound levels produced by SpaceX’s Superheavy booster during its fifth launch and landing at Boca Chica in October 2024 suggests that it produces more noise than predicted.

Overall … Gee et al. note that one of the most important conclusions from their data is the differences between Starship’s launch noise levels and those of SLS and Falcon 9. The team found that Starship produces significantly more noise at liftoff than both SLS and Falcon 9 in both A-weighted and Z-weighted (unweighted) noise metrics.

When compared to Falcon 9, the noise produced by a single Starship launch is equivalent to, at a minimum, 10 Falcon 9 launches. Despite SLS producing more than half of Starship’s overall thrust at liftoff, Starship is substantially louder than SLS. More specifically, one Starship launch is equivalent to that of four to six SLS launches regarding noise production. As has been hypothesized by numerous other studies into the noise produced by rockets, this significant difference in noise levels may be due to the configuration of first-stage engines on the rockets. For example, although the Saturn V produced less overall thrust than SLS, it produced two decibels more noise than SLS, which may be due to the clustered engine configuration on Saturn V’s first stage.

We’re all gonna die! Despite the doom-mongering of this study (which you can read here), the only issue noted by the paper from this noise was car alarms going off. And even here, the spread of the noise was asymmetrical, occurring in only one direction.

The concern about sonic booms has always been the annoyance they cause to residents near airports. In the case of Superheavy, it is very unlikely it will ever fly at a frequency to make its noise intolerable. More important, the nature of a spaceport versus an airport reduces the concern considerably, since a spaceport requires a much larger buffer area, and at both of SpaceX’s Starship launchsites in Florida and Texas almost everyone living close by works for the company or in the space business. They are not going to complain.

And while studying these noise issues is useful, we must not be naive about the real purpose of such studies. Underneath its high-minded science goals is a much more insidious one: finding a weapon for shutting down SpaceX. This concern of mine might be overstated, but remember, almost our entire academic community is rabidly leftist and made up of partisan Democrats. They hate Musk for his politics, and have been aggressively looking for ways to hurt him. This sound study is just another tool in that war.

9 comments

SpaceX launches Australian geosynchronous communications satellite

3:37 pm

SpaceX today successfully placed an Australian geosynchronous communications satellite into orbit, its Falcon 9 lifting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The rocket’s two fairings completed their 10th and 20th flights respectively. The first stage completed its 16th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. At posting the satellite had not yet been deployed.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

115 SpaceX
53 China
13 Russia
12 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 133 to 79, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 115 to 97.

1 comment

SpaceX delays 6th Starship/Superheavy launch one day to November 19, 2024

2:42 pm

In a tweet yesterday SpaceX announced that it is now targeting November 19, 2024 for the sixth orbital test flight of its Starship/Superheavy rocket. The thirty minute launch window opens at 4 pm (Central). Though SpaceX will provide a live stream on X, X does not provide a standby service, so I am embedding below the feed of SpaceX’s live stream provided by Space Affairs.

From SpaceX’s webpage for this mission:

The next Starship flight test aims to expand the envelope on ship and booster capabilities and get closer to bringing reuse of the entire system online. Objectives include the booster once again returning to the launch site for catch, reigniting a ship Raptor engine while in space, and testing a suite of heatshield experiments and maneuvering changes for ship reentry and descent over the Indian Ocean.

Starship’s landing will be in daylight this time in order to allow for better observation.
» Read more

9 comments

Orbital tug startup Impulse Space buys three SpaceX Falcon 9 launches

12:53 pm

The orbital tug startup Impulse Space announced yesterday that it has signed a contract with SpaceX for three Falcon 9 launches in order to fly its Helios orbital tug as well as its smaller Mira tug on several commercial missions.

The first launch, planned for mid-2026, will be the first flight of Helios. The transfer vehicle will transport the company’s smaller Mira vehicle, carrying a commercial optical payload, from low Earth orbit to geostationary transfer orbit on the Victus Surgo mission for the Space Force and Defense Innovation Unit. Impulse Space received a $34.5 million contract for Victus Surgo and another mission, Victus Salo, Oct. 3. Impulse Space said the schedule and payloads for the other two Helios launches will be determined later.

This development signals a major shift in the nascent orbital tug industry. Up until now the varous tug companies would buy launch space on rockets as secondary payloads. This I think is the first time a tug company has purchased the rocket itself as the primary payload, giving it the ability to control the rocket in order to make its tug operations more precise for all of its customers.

1 comment

SpaceX scraps its land swap offer to Texas

10:11 am

SpaceX has decided to scrap its land swap offer to Texas, whereby the company would have given the state 477 acres of wildlife land it owns elsewhere in exchange for ownership of 43 acres of state park land adjacent to its Boca Chica facility.

In a Sept. 26 letter seen by Bloomberg News, SpaceX Vice President Sheila McCorkle told the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department that the company “is no longer interested in pursuing the specific arrangement.”

In exchange for SpaceX getting the 43 acres, the company would have given the state some 477 acres of its land near Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, around 10 miles away. The land could have given Texans access for hiking, camping and other recreational purposes, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission said. In March, the commission approved the deal.

Environmental activists worry their fight’s not over with SpaceX and Musk, who has achieved newfound political power through his close ties to President-elect Donald Trump. “We’re concerned that he has something bigger and more disruptive to the beach and to the wildlife in mind,” Bekah Hinojosa, a representative from the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, an advocacy group, said in an interview. [emphasis mine]

The blind opposition of these leftist activists to Musk and anything he does has merely caused them to cut off their nose to spite their face. SpaceX’s proposal would have given the public a much larger wildlife area that was also far enough away from Boca Chica to allow its use all the time. Now the state is stuck with 43 acres of state park land that is going to be useless whenever Starship/Superheavy launches.

The lawsuits against this swap claimed it violated the Texas constitution. My guess is that SpaceX decided it wasn’t worth fighting this battle. Or maybe it is now playing hardball in negotiations. These activists do not have the support of the local community, which wants SpaceX’s operations to be successful. By scrapping the plan now SpaceX might be acting to force the Texas legislature to change the law to make the land swap legally acceptable.

1 comment
1 … 40 41 42 43 44 … 234