Scale
The arms that grabbed the Starship rocket booster out of midair, with people on top, for scale. You know, in case you were wondering…. O.O
Starship and the Future of Rapidly Reusable Rockets
In an absolutely incredible feat of engineering, SpaceX has caught Starship's Super Heavy booster in the Mechazilla arms on the first try! What a sight.
After a succesful launch and orbit, Starship itself completed a planned soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean as well. All in all, a hugely successful 5th test flight of Starship.
One day soon, this will all be routine. Like we do now with the hundreds of Falcon 9 launches and booster landings, we'll go, "Oh, did Starship launch again today? Another moon trip, maybe?" And I look forward to that day.
But for now, WOW.
Starship Soars In Test Flight #4
Starship's fourth test flight went so beautifully! As before, it cruised around the planet for around 40 minutes. This time, the SuperHeavy booster not only survived re-entry, but completed its landing burn and a soft splashdown in the ocean, intact.
And the big news: the ship survived re-entry through the atmosphere, completed its flip and landing burn and splashed down as well. Now, the trip down was spicy AF, and it landed beat up, with the landing flaps hanging on by a thread. But it made it, which is *more* than SpaceX was expecting today (the focus was on making it through the atmosphere without, well, exploding).
Every test has achieved so much more than the last; the iteration SpaceX is able to achieve is incredible.
Starship Soars
Welcome to the future of spaceflight, everyone! This week, in its third test flight, Starship made it to space, oribiting the planet for around 40 minutes before heading home. No, it didn’t make it all the way to a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean, but that’s what testing is for, and it traveled so much farther, for so much longer, than ever before. I was a little twitchy after the second explosive test, but I’m now very optimistic for the future of this spacecraft and what it means for our journey to the moon, then onward to Mars and throughout the solar system.
Now enjoy these absolutely stunning photos of the flight:
The Falcon and the Moon
Incredible photo by John Kraus of this week’s Falcon Heavy launch of Space Force’s X-37B spaceplane.
Starship Stacked For Flight
Starship gets stacked ahead of its second test flight on Saturday!
From SpaceX: “This is another chance to put Starship in a true flight environment, maximizing how much we learn. Rapid iterative development is essential as we work to build a fully reusable launch system capable of carrying satellites, payloads, crew, and cargo to a variety of orbits and Earth, lunar, and Martian landing sites.”
Starship
Just look at these photos!
From SpaceX on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1702774532174733387:
“Starship represents a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond.”
A Successful Failure
Starship flew Thursday morning! And for 4 minutes and 1 second, we watched the dawn of the future of human spaceflight.
...then stage separation failed and the ship experienced a Rapid Unplanned Disassembly.
Only in rocket testing can you have an incredible success and also a giant explosion, all on the same flight. SpaceX seems very happy with the test (clearing the pad without destroying it was apparently a big win, lol). Expect a second test launch in 1-2 months.
Image Credit: John Kraus (https://twitter.com/johnkrausp.../status/1649047541651210244)
Starship Launch Alert
The FAA has finally given its approval to SpaceX, and the first real Starship test launch is scheduled for next Monday morning! (If Monday doesn’t work out, there are additional launch windows on Tuesday and Wednesday).
Note: even if all goes perfectly, Starship will not quite reach Earth orbit in this test. Also, there’s a reasonable chance it will explode - Elon has been very honest about this. The Falcon 9 exploded a few times before it flew, too, and it’s now flown over 100 times.
Learn more about the test flight here: https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/04/green-light-go-spacex-receives-a-launch-license-from-the-faa-for-starship/, and you can watch it live on SpaceX’s YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5QXreqOrTA.
A Stunning Launch
The weather + launch time combined to create some uniquely stunning images of this week’s SpaceX Falcon9 launch of additional Starlink satellites. Head over to their Flikr page to download high-res versions: https://www.flickr.com/photos/spacex/with/51676136282/
Originally posted on Facebook.
Inspiration4 Adventure
It was a big week for the future of civilian and tourist space flight! SpaceX completed the first "all-private" crew to space in a Dragon capsule on a Falcon 9 rocket. The Inspiration4 mission was privately funded and will be raising money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
The crew orbited the Earth for 3 days - can you imagine it? Then they returned safely home from what will be the first of many such missions.
You can learn more about the crew members here: https://www.upi.com/.../SpaceX.../7831631288629/, and more about the entire mission here: https://inspiration4.com/.
Special shout-out to the stuffed golden retriever tagging along for the adventure.
Originally posted on Facebook.
Space Lasers
We're going to be using Starlink for internet at the new house, and yesterday I received an email updating beta users on upcoming improvements to the service. This email contains the word "space," followed immediately by the word "lasers."
THE WORD "SPACE." FOLLOWED BY THE WORD "LASERS." #giddy
Originally posted on Facebook.
Starship Test: A Successful Failure
This was INSANE to watch. The NASA Spaceflight commentators were completely nerding out, all cool objectivity tossed out the window.
Basically, SpaceX achieved 9 of 10 of its objectives, and it was amazing to watch this frigging tin can soar through the sky, deploy some fins, hover, flip over on its belly and smoothly descend again.
Until the end of course, which, given no lives were at risk, was one heck of an entertaining explosion as it didn't QUITE stick the landing. And when you're talking about rocket ships, a failure of inches leads to big booms.
SpaceX has already identified the problem and plans to have it fixed for SN9's test run soon.
https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/09/spacex-flies-its-starship-rocket-to-40000-feet-just-misses-the-landing-in-explosive-finale (follow the link for some awesome video)
Image credits: Trevor Mahlmann, SpaceX, National Geographic.
Originally posted on Facebook.
Arrival
Mike, Victor, Shannon, and Soichi are now successfully on their way to the ISS! Crew-1 Dragon marks the first official SpaceX mission to bring humans to space (Bob and Doug's trip was the final "demo" mission). The first of many.
Oh, and they successfully landed the first stage back on Earth, in the dark, because they just do that. Have a few incredible images from the launch.
UPDATE: And they all arrived safely! The last pic is the jaw-dropping view the astronauts enjoyed on their approach to the ISS.
Image credits:
Trevor Mahlmann (https://twitter.com/TrevorMahl.../status/1328135014832332801)
Lori Garver (https://twitter.com/Lori_Garver/status/1328133839403819010)
Jason Major (https://twitter.com/JPMajor/status/1328135200002478082)
Conrad Teves (https://twitter.com/ConradTeves/status/1328136545199644674).
Sawyer R. (https://twitter.com/thenasaman/status/1328542882194657280).
Falcon Sunrise
From SpaceX's early morning Falcon 9 launch of Starlink satellites. Photo by astrophotographer Michael Seeley (https://wereportspace.com/team-member/michael-seeley/).
Why do we go to space? Because it inspires us to greatness. Look what we can do. https://twitter.com/Mike_Seeley/status/1313446189820342273
And here's incredible video of the solar transit, by Trevor Mahlmann: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYcfSTK5K2c&feature=youtu.be. Simply astonishing to watch (stick around for the slow-mo version in the second half of the video)
Artemis Update
Yesterday NASA published more details on its Artemis plan to return to the moon, to stay.
It's a *very* aggressive schedule, with a budget stratospheric enough to give Congress heartburn at a minimum; they might balk. The SLS rocket has been fraught with delays, problems, and extreme budget overruns - and it still isn't ready.
But this plan has momentum behind it, and the active participation of SpaceX, Blue Origin and other private companies - who are going to push ahead with or without NASA.
Will we put boots on the lunar ground in 2024? I honestly don't know. It might slip a year or two. But I believe this WILL happen. And when it does, we damn well better build a base and an orbital station, then see about getting ourselves to Mars. #footstomp
Much more here: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-publishes-artemis-plan-to-land-first-woman-next-man-on-moon-in-2024/
Originally posted on Facebook.
The Falcon Eye
A Launch Sunrise
Sunrise behind the SpaceX Falcon 9 before its launch of the CRS-19 resupply mission to the ISS on Thursday. Shot by Ben Cooper: http://www.launchphotography.com/
Originally posted on Twitter.
Starship
Say what you will, but the man has panache, and a keen sense of the moment. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1178014342031298561
This is the just-assembled Starship Mk1 Prototype, which will make its first test flight (to 20 km) next month. It's intended to be a reusable spacecraft that will go to the moon and Mars.
