Tag: SpaceX

SpaceX launches 21 more Starlink satellites

8:39 am

SpaceX last evening successfully placed another 21 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage completed its eighteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

91 SpaceX
38 China
10 Rocket Lab
10 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 106 to 58, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 91 to 73.

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FAA attempts to justify its red tape

10:06 am

The FAA today responded to SpaceX’s harsh criticism of the licensing process that is delaying the next test orbital launch of Starship/Superheavy, claiming the delays were entirely SpaceX’s fault for changing the flight profile of the mission, likely involving the landing of Superheavy at the launch tower rather than in the Gulf of Mexico.

The agency also claimed that this change meant that the “environmental impact” would cover a wider area, requiring imput from “other agencies.”

An FAA official reiteriated these claims at a conference yesterday, stating that the delay was “largely set by the choices that the company makes.”

All crap and utter rationalizations. The FAA has decided that any change of any kind in the launch operations will now require major review, including bringing in Fish & Wildlife, the Coast Guard, and others to have their say. This policy however has nothing to do with reality, as there is absolutely no additional threat to the environment by these changes. Nor is there any significant increase in safety risks by having Superheavy land at Boca Chica. Even if there were, the only ones qualified to determine that risk are engineers at SpaceX. The FAA is merely rubberstamping SpaceX’s conclusions, and taking its time doing so.

This is America today. Unless something changes soon, freedom is dead. To do anything new and challenging Americans will have to beg permission from bureaucrats in Washington, who know nothing but love to exert their power over everyone else. Under these circumstances, we shall see the end of a great and free nation.

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SpaceX launches AST SpaceMobile’s first five operational cellphone satellites

9:45 am

SpaceX this morning successfully launched the first five operational satellites in the planned constellation by the company AST SpaceMobile’s for providing cellphone service from orbiting satellites, the Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its thirteenth flight, landing back at Cape Canaveral.

AST’s orbital cellphone capability is in direct competition with SpaceX’s own Starlink orbital cellphone service. By launching this competitor SpaceX demonstrates that it is not using its dominance in the launch industry to squelch competition.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

90 SpaceX
38 China
10 Rocket Lab
10 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 105 to 58, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 90 to 73.

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Two astronauts on commercial Polaris Dawn manned mission complete spacewalk

9:37 am

Jared Isaacman during his spacewalk
Jared Isaacman during his spacewalk

Jared Isaacman and Sarah Gillis this morning each successfully completed short spacewalks outside their Resilience capsule, exiting about halfway into space but floating free except for a umbilical tether.

It was very evident that the goal of both EVAs was to check out the engineering upgrades created by SpaceX to make this spacewalk possible. Both astronauts worked very carefully to vent the capsule’s atmosphere, open the hatch, exit, then close the hatch, though Isaacman (who exited first) opened the hatch and Gillis closed the hatch. All in all it took a little less then two hours to complete both spacewalks, with Isaacman outside for about ten minutes, and Gillis for a little less.

Though the actual EVAs were relatively unambitious, they were very comparable to the first government spacewalks by America’s Ed White and Russia’s Alexei Leonov in the 1960s. The engineering data that SpaceX obtained from this spacewalk will allow it to refine its spacesuits, its capsule, and make later commercial spacewalks more complex.

This new SpaceX capability is now something the company can market to other future customers. It not only gives this American private enterprise another skill, it makes SpaceX’s commercial capabilities more valuable.

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Polaris Dawn successfully reaches highest orbit for a human since Apollo

9:23 am

The view from 870 miles
The view from 870 miles. Click for video.

Polaris Dawn yesterday successfully climbed to an altitude of 870 miles yesterday, the farthest any human has been from Earth since the Apollo missions to the Moon, and the highest Earth orbit since Gemini 11 flew an apogee of 853 miles in 1966.

The four members of the Polaris Dawn mission, riding aboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft “Resilience,” climbed into an elliptical orbit with a high point, or apogee, of 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) on Tuesday (Sep. 10). They reached the record distance about 15 hours after lifting off at 5:23 a.m. EDT (0923 GMT) from Florida earlier in the day and circling the planet about eight times in an initial orbit of 118 by 746 miles (190 by 1,200 km).

They maintained this high orbit for about ten hours in order to gather radiation data for future exploration, and then dropped down to a lower orbit where the planned spacewalk will occur on September 12th.

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FAA delays launch license approval of next Starship/Superheavy test launch until late November

9:51 am


The White House to SpaceX: “Great business you got there! Really be
a shame if something happened to it!”

According to an update today on SpaceX’s Starship webpage, the FAA has told the company to not expect a launch license for its next Starship/Superheavy orbital test launch until late November.

We recently received a launch license date estimate of late November from the FAA, the government agency responsible for licensing Starship flight tests. This is a more than two-month delay to the previously communicated date of mid-September. This delay was not based on a new safety concern, but instead driven by superfluous environmental analysis. The four open environmental issues are illustrative of the difficulties launch companies face in the current regulatory environment for launch and reentry licensing.

This two month delay is actually a four month delay, since SpaceX had previously stated it was ready to launch in early August. » Read more

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Jared Isaacman’s private spacewalk manned mission launches on Falcon 9

8:39 am

Early this morning SpaceX successfully launched its Resilience Dragon capsule carrying four passengers on Jared Isaacman’s mission to do the first entirely private spacewalk. The Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Resilience is flying its third flight. The first stage completed its fourth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The spacewalk will take place on September 12, 2024. In between the crew will spend the next two days preparing for that, while flying in an orbit with a apogee of 870 miles, the highest any person has flown from Earth since Apollo. That orbit will be lowered slightly for the spacewalk itself.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

89 SpaceX
38 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 104 to 57, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 89 to 72.

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Watch the launch of private manned Polaris Dawn

9:47 pm

The real rocket behind tonight's launch
The real rocket behind tonight’s launch

SpaceX tonight will attempt the launch of the private manned Polaris Dawn mission, led and paid for by billionaire Jared Isaacman and carrying three other crew member (including two SpaceX employees).

I have embedded the live stream below, which has already begun. The launch is presently scheduled for 3:38 am (Eastern), with a four hour launch window.

The mission is planned as a five day mission, during which two astronauts will do a tethered spacewalk, though the entire crew will be in EVA spacesuits. This will be the first entirely private spacewalk, involving no government involvment at all. The mission will also attempt reach the highest orbit since the Apollo days, more than 870 miles.

As I wrote the day of the mission’s first launch attempt:

The mission’s real goal however has nothing to do with engineering and everything to do with freedom and the American dream. This is an entirely private mission. The rocket is privately built. The capsule is privately built. The launchpad is privately built. The launch crew is privately employed. The astronauts are all private citizens, with one paying the way for the entire flight and two flying as employees of SpaceX to test the operation of its capsule in orbit.

No government money is involved. The government had little or no say on what will happen. The mission will illustrate in very stark terms what the American dream is all about, since it has been conceived, paid for, and created entirely by private citizens following their own dreams and goals.

Hail to freedom! May the bell of liberty always ring.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Democrats demand Elon Musk be censored and arrested simply for disagreeing with them

12:25 pm

Robert Reich
Robert Reich, labor secretary under Bill Clinton

They’re coming for you next: Based on the behavior of loyal Democrats in the past five years, no on should be surprised by this story. Several big name Democratic Party supporters have now called for the complete censorship and imprisonment of Elon Musk for the horrible crime of disagreeing with them and campaigning for their opposition.

First we have Robert Reich, that petty dictator who was once secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton and teaches public policy at — you guessed it — the University of California in Berkeley. In an op-ed for the leftist British newspaper The Guardian, Reich claims Musk is “out of control” and for this crime he must be squelched. First he calls for a global boycott of Tesla and X but then tops this demand with some decidedly tyrannical desires:
» Read more

23 comments

Musk: First unmanned Mars Starship targeting a ’26 launch

9:15 pm

The prime and secondary Martian landing sites for Starship

According to a tweet yesterday by Elon Musk, SpaceX is aiming for a 2026 launch of its first unmanned Starship to Mars.

The first Starships to Mars will launch in 2 years when the next Earth-Mars transfer window opens. These will be uncrewed to test the reliability of landing intact on Mars. If those landings go well, then the first crewed flights to Mars will be in 4 years.

Flight rate will grow exponentially from there, with the goal of building a self-sustaining city in about 20 years.

The graphic to the right indicates the planned landing zone, with the four red dots the four prime locations. Three of the four are very flat, though they also appear to have a lot of very near-surface ice, accessible simply by digging a shovel into the ground. Attempting to land at any will definitely test Statship’s ability to land on Mars intact. A global map of Mars is shown below, showing the location of this landing zone. The map shows where researchers believe the saltiest water on Mars would be. According to this data, in the Starship landing zone some of that near-surface ice will turn to liquid brine a little less than one percent of each year. Otherwise it will be more easily processed for drinking and fuel.

As always with these ambitious predictions, Musk is aiming high, with the likelihood that this first mission will not make that ’26 date. At the same time, he is making it very clear that a first attempt will certainly happen by ’28.

I also think the timing of this announcement is intriguing, coming one day after NASA was forced to cancel the launch in October of two Mars orbiters because it could not be certain Blue Origin would have the New Glenn rocket ready on time. Musk’s response is to say that SpaceX is now about to begin regularly privately funded and privately built missions to Mars, on a schedule, essentially asking: “Which company would you choose to do things in space?”
» Read more

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Local Texas authorities fine SpaceX for dumping potable water in Boca Chica

10:33 am

In what is simply another case of apparent harassment fueled by a tiny minority of anti-Musk activists, local Texas authorities have fined SpaceX a whopping $3,750 for dumping potable water at Boca Chica during the last test launch of its Starship/Superheavy rocket.

Late last month, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality shared that SpaceX failed to get authorization to discharge industrial wastewater into or adjacent to surrounding wetlands, resulting in a $3,750 penalty. The wastewater SpaceX is charged with releasing comes from a water deluge system for its massive Starship rocket. The deluge system is used to absorb heat and vibration from the rocket engines firing.

This article is typical of most of our leftist mainstream press. It pushes the false claims of those activists — such as their insistence they represent everyone in the south Rio Grande Valley and that the water was “industrial wastewater.” First, they represent almost no one in south Texas, as almost everyone there is very happy with SpaceX and the billions of dollars and tens of thousands of jobs it is bringing to the area. For example, these groups recently held an event on the beaches near SpaceX facilities “to fight for its preservation, which they view as being in jeopardy since the arrival of Elon Musk’s SpaceX.”

Only about a dozen people showed up.

Second, the water is not “industrial wastewater.” As Elon Musk noted in a tweet, “Just to be clear, this silly fine was for spilling potable drinking water! Literally, you could drink it.”

Nonetheless, this manufactured environmental issue has clearly been used to stall SpaceX’s efforts. The company had said it was ready to do the next test launch of Starship/Superheavy on August 8, 2024. It is now a month later, and the FAA has still not issued the launch license. It is possible that part of the reason for the delay is because SpaceX has decided it will attempt to bring Superheavy back to the launch tower at Boca Chica, where the tower’s chopstick arms will try to capture it on landing. If so, the FAA might be demanding more assurances of safety than SpaceX can reasonably provide.

The delay however is also almost certainly caused by this fake environmental water issue. The FAA apparently has been forced to deal with it, and that action has stalled all of its new regulatory harassment of SpaceX, including the process to approve a new environmental assessment of Boca Chica that would allow the company to launch as many as 22 times per year.

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SpaceX completes its second launch today

8:46 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully placed a National Reconnaissance Office surveillance satellite into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

This was also the second SpaceX launch today. The first stage on this evening’s launch completed its 20th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

88 SpaceX
37 China
10 Rocket Lab
9 Russia

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 103 to 56, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including American companies, 88 to 71.

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