SpaceX will try a significantly different approach to landing its future reusable rocket boosters, according to CEO and founder Elon Musk. It will attempt to ‘catch’ the heavy booster, which is currently in development, using the launch tower arm used to stabilize the vehicle during its pre-takeoff preparations. From a report: Current Falcon 9 boosters return to Earth and land propulsively…
Tag: falcon heavy
Officials Raise Concerns About Software for the Most Powerful Rocket Ever Flown
NASA’s 322-foot rocket “Space Launch System” rocket “would be the most powerful rocket ever flown, eclipsing both the Saturn V that flew astronauts to the moon and SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy,” reports the Washington Post. But “it’s not the rocket’s engines that concern officials but the software that will control everything the rocket does, from setting its trajectory to opening individual valves…
NASA Discovers a Rare Metal Asteroid That’s Worth $10,000 Quadrillion
Iwastheone shares a report from Observer: NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a rare, heavy and immensely valuable asteroid called “16 Psyche” in the Solar System’s main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Asteroid Psyche is located at roughly 230 million miles (370 million kilometers) from Earth and measures 140 miles (226 kilometers) across, about the size of West Virginia. What…
Starman just made his closest approach to Mars
On February 6th, 2018, SpaceX successfully launched its Falcon Heavy rocket, the most powerful launch vehicle in their rocket family, and in service today. Not only was this a major milestone for SpaceX, it was also the biggest public relations coup ever orchestrated by Musk. For this launch, Musk decided that the payload would be his cherry Tesla Roadster with a…
SpaceX Launched and Landed Another Starship Prototype
“SpaceX took another step forward Thursday in developing its next-generation Starship rocket, conducting the second short flight test of a prototype in the past month,” reports CNBC:
Starship prototype Serial Number 6, or SN6, took off from the launchpad at SpaceX’s facility in Boca Chica, Texas. It gradually rose to about 500 feet above the ground before it returned back to land,…
SpaceX’s Starship SN4 Launch Vehicle Prototype Explodes After Static Engine Fire Test
SpaceX had just conducted yet another static fire test of the Raptor engine in its Starship SN4 prototype launch vehicle on Friday when the test vehicle exploded on the test stand in Boca Chica, Texas. TechCrunch reports: This was the fourth static fire test of this engine on this prototype, so it’s unclear what went wrong vs. other static fire attempts….
NASA Picks SpaceX To Fly Cargo To Moon-Orbiting Gateway Space Station
NASA has awarded SpaceX with a contract to supply Gateway, the moon-orbiting space station that the agency aims to start building in 2022, agency officials announced Friday. Space.com reports: Gateway is a key part of NASA’s Artemis exploration program, which seeks to establish a sustainable, long-term human presence on and around the moon by the late 2020s. The small space station…
SpaceX Wins NASA Contract to Launch a Spacecraft to an Asteroid Beyond Mars
An anonymous reader quotes Teslarati:
SpaceX has been awarded a $117 million launch contract for NASA’s Psyche mission that will study a unique metal asteroid between Mars and Jupiter. The NASA mission to loft a 5,750-lb. (2,608-kg) spacecraft atop of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy Rocket will study a mineral-rich asteroid named 16 Psyche. The mission is expected to take place sometime in 2022…
The Cost For Each SLS Launch Is Over $2 Billion
Acting director of the White House budget office Russell Vought said in a letter that the cost estimate to build and fly a single NASA large Space Launch System rocket in a given year is “more than $2 billion.” “The article then notes how this cost is affecting the Europa Clipper mission, which has three launch options, with SLS mandated by…
Europe’s Space Industry Is Working On Reusable Rockets With Environmentally-Friendly Fuel
schwit1 shared this article from Space.com (which includes a really cool video):
The European launch provider Arianespace — best known as the manufacturer of the heavy-lift Ariane 5 and the future Ariane 6 — has a plan to make its future rockets more competitive in a tight launch industry. As you might guess from looking at the U.S. company SpaceX’s reusable Falcon…