Id be livid if I were them. Also there is no way I'd be comfortable coming back on a god damn Boeing made spaceship.

Just to clarify, they're coming back on a SpaceX Dragon capsule (which is already on station). The delay is because the next crew rotation is waiting on their Dragon to be ready to fly. Ironically, it's delayed because they're building a new one rather than reusing an old one.

And as for being up there that long, I'm sure it's challenging in some ways, but this is literally what they built their careers on. They may never go to space again, so I bet they appreciate the time they have even if they miss being home at times.

At long last, it looks like BO is on the verge of launching New Glenn. No launch date yet, but it won't be long.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">A successful hotfire of our fully integrated New Glenn launch vehicle at LC-36! The seven-engine hotfire lasted 24 seconds and marked the first time we operated the entire flight vehicle as an integrated system. Read more: <a href="https://t.co/2VEpDNsLs2">https://t.co/2VEpDNsLs2</a> <a href="https://t.co/G5ywBUfUmm">pic.twitter.com/G5ywBUfUmm</a></p>— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) <a href="https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/1872827014278774846?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 28, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

SpaceX is getting ready to ring in the new year with a Starship launch from South Texas as soon as Jan. 10. CEO Elon Musk posted the date on his X social media site Monday, about two weeks after Federal Aviation Administration issued a launch license for the next test flight.

Although SpaceX founder Elon Musk is known for outspokenness and controversial comments on his social media site X, he has been relatively restrained when it comes to US space policy in recent years.

For example, he has rarely criticized NASA or its overall goal to return humans to the Moon through the Artemis Program. Rather, Musk, who has long preferred Mars as a destination for humans, has more or less been a team player when it comes to the space agency's lunar-focused plans.

This is understandable from a financial perspective, as SpaceX has contracts worth billions of dollars to not only build a Human Landing System as part of NASA's Artemis Program but also to supply food, cargo, and other logistics services to a planned Lunar Gateway in orbit around the Moon.

But privately, Musk has been critical of NASA's plans, suggesting that the Artemis Program has been moving too slowly and is too reliant on contractors who seek cost-plus government contracts and are less interested in delivering results.
Silent on policy no longer

During the last 10 days, Musk has begun airing some of these private thoughts publicly. On Christmas Day, for example, Musk wrote on X, "The Artemis architecture is extremely inefficient, as it is a jobs-maximizing program, not a results-maximizing program. Something entirely new is needed."

Then, on Thursday evening, he added this: "No, we’re going straight to Mars. The Moon is a distraction."

https://www.spacex.com/launches/miss...rship-flight-7

The seventh flight test of Starship is preparing to launch.

The upcoming flight test will launch a new generation ship with significant upgrades, attempt Starship’s first payload deployment test, fly multiple reentry experiments geared towards ship catch and reuse, and launch and return the Super Heavy booster.

A block of planned upgrades to the Starship upper stage will debut on this flight test, bringing major improvements to reliability and performance. The vehicle’s forward flaps have been reduced in size and shifted towards the vehicle tip and away from the heat shield, significantly reducing their exposure to reentry heating while simplifying the underlying mechanisms and protective tiling. Redesigns to the propulsion system, including a 25 percent increase in propellant volume, the vacuum jacketing of feedlines, a new fuel feedline system for the vehicle’s Raptor vacuum engines, and an improved propulsion avionics module controlling vehicle valves and reading sensors, all add additional vehicle performance and the ability to fly longer missions. The ship’s heat shield will also use the latest generation tiles and includes a backup layer to protect from missing or damaged tiles.

The vehicle’s avionics underwent a complete redesign, adding additional capability and redundancy for increasingly complex missions like propellant transfer and ship return to launch site. Avionics upgrades include a more powerful flight computer, integrated antennas which combine Starlink, GNSS, and backup RF communication functions into each unit, redesigned inertial navigation and star tracking sensors, integrated smart batteries and power units that distribute data and 2.7MW of power across the ship to 21 high-voltage actuators, and an increase to more than 30 vehicle cameras giving engineers insight into hardware performance across the vehicle during flight. With Starlink, the vehicle is capable of streaming more than 120 Mbps of real-time high-definition video and telemetry in every phase of flight, providing invaluable engineering data to rapidly iterate across all systems.

While in space, Starship will deploy 10 Starlink simulators, similar in size and weight to next-generation Starlink satellites as the first exercise of a satellite deploy mission. The Starlink simulators will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship, with splashdown targeted in the Indian Ocean. A relight of a single Raptor engine while in space is also planned.

The flight test will include several experiments focused on ship return to launch site and catch. On Starship’s upper stage, a significant number of tiles will be removed to stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle. Multiple metallic tile options, including one with active cooling, will test alternative materials for protecting Starship during reentry. On the sides of the vehicle, non-structural versions of ship catch fittings are installed to test the fittings’ thermal performance, along with a smoothed and tapered edge of the tile line to address hot spots observed during reentry on Starship’s sixth flight test. The ship’s reentry profile is being designed to intentionally stress the structural limits of the flaps while at the point of maximum entry dynamic pressure. Finally, several radar sensors will be tested on the tower chopsticks with the goal of increasing the accuracy when measuring distances between the chopsticks and a returning vehicle during catch.

The Super Heavy booster will utilize flight proven hardware for the first time, reusing a Raptor engine from the booster launched and returned on Starship’s fifth flight test. Hardware upgrades to the launch and catch tower will increase reliability for booster catch, including protections to the sensors on the tower chopsticks that were damaged at launch and resulted in the booster offshore divert on Starship’s previous flight test.

Distinct vehicle and pad criteria must be met prior to a return and catch of the Super Heavy booster, requiring healthy systems on the booster and tower and a final manual command from the mission’s Flight Director. If this command is not sent prior to the completion of the boostback burn, or if automated health checks show unacceptable conditions with Super Heavy or the tower, the booster will default to a trajectory that takes it to a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. We accept no compromises when it comes to ensuring the safety of the public and our team, and the return will only take place if conditions are right.

The returning booster will slow down from supersonic speeds, resulting in audible sonic booms in the area around the landing zone. Generally, the only impact to those in the surrounding area of a sonic boom is the brief thunder-like noise with variables like weather and distance from the return site determining the magnitude experienced by observers.

This new year will be transformational for Starship, with the goal of bringing reuse of the entire system online and flying increasingly ambitious missions as we iterate towards being able to send humans and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars.

This is neat to read. It's hard for us plebes to tell what changes between iterations, but it's clear that the answer is...a lot.

SpaceX announced today (Jan. 8) that it's targeting Monday (Jan. 13) for Flight 7 of Starship, the 400-foot-tall (122 meters), fully reusable megarocket designed to help humanity settle the moon and Mars.

Starship is scheduled to lift off Monday at 5 p.m. EST (2200 GMT) from Starbase, SpaceX's manufacturing and launch site in South Texas. You'll be able to watch the action live; the company will webcast the flight beginning about 35 minutes before liftoff.

New Glenn launch tonight! (Or tomorrow morning depending on how you look at it.) It'll be fascinating to see if everything goes to plan - it's fun to have something to compare against SpaceX's "move fast and break" stuff approach to development.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">A timeline for the Blue Origin New Glenn launch, scheduled for Sunday between 1-4am EST. <a href="https://t.co/S5Oyp6NKx4">pic.twitter.com/S5Oyp6NKx4</a></p>&mdash; Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) <a href="https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1878087234420711726?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 11, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Here’s a glimpse of the New Glenn-1 flight profile �� <a href="https://t.co/n6YbKgcgfc">pic.twitter.com/n6YbKgcgfc</a></p>&mdash; Blue Origin (@blueorigin) <a href="https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/1878079517484265811?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 11, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

I think we just have to wait on the live stream to be posted, but it should show up here in theory:
https://www.youtube.com/@blueorigin

For the first flight, the booster has been given the nickname So You’re Telling Me There’s a Chance.

On the social media site X, Dave Limp, the chief executive of Blue Origin, explained: “Why? No one has landed a reusable booster on the first try. Yet, we’re going for it, and humbly submit having good confidence in landing it. But like I said a couple of weeks ago, if we don’t, we’ll learn and keep trying until we do.”

Apparent webcast location:

https://www.blueorigin.com/missions/ng-1

It'd be great if this launch goes well. I think only the first stage booster is meant to be reusable for now.

Delayed another day.

https://x.com/blueorigin/status/1878...z2Q0wPXHQ&s=19