Science Space Exploration megathread - Page 286

**DaFace** · 07:17 AM

Since a number of cool things are happening in space exploration these days, we'll widen the scope of this thread a smidge. Conversation about all things space exploration are welcome, whether it be from NASA, SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, or anyone else. Chances are most of the discussion will still be about SpaceX since they love to make things public and fun, but nothing's off limits. I'll eventually get around to modifying the OP to include resources for other companies too, but in the meantime, feel free to post any cool stuff you run across.

Lists of Upcoming Missions

Spoiler!

How to Watch a Live Launch

Spoiler!

Where to Learn More

Spoiler!

Glossary

Spoiler!

Space discussions tend to get a little bogged down in jargon, so here's a list of terms you might encounter. (Others, please let me know of others that should be added.)

ASDS - Autonomous Spaceport Droneship - The "barges" that they sometimes land rockets on.
Dragon - The cone-shaped capsule that sits at the top of the rocket for ISS-bound launches that holds the cargo (or, in the future, humans).
F9 - Falcon 9, the name of the rocket itself.
FH - Falcon Heavy, the three-booster version.
GTO - Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, a type of orbit that will eventually result in the satellite orbiting the earth as it turns so that it seems to be in the same spot from the ground (such as DirecTV or Dish satellites). These types of launches are particularly challenging because they require a lot of power to get them into the right orbit, leaving very little fuel left for landing.
HIF - Horizontal Integration Facility - the building near the launch pad where they put all of the pieces of the rocket together before rolling it out to the pad.
ISS - The International Space Station
JRTI - Just Read The Instructions, the name of the "barge" that they land on for west-coast launches.
LEO - Low Earth Orbit, a fairly low orbit shared by many satellites and ISS. These launches usually require less power to achieve the proper orbit, so the first stage can often be landed back on land rather than on a drone ship.
LZ1 - Landing Zone 1, basically a big open slab of concrete at Cape Canaveral where the first stage will attempt to land (for some launches).
NET - No Earlier Than, basically the date they're hoping to launch, but rocket launches have a tendency of getting delayed.
OCISLY - Of Course I Still Love You, the name of the "barge" that they land on for east-coast launches.
RTLS - Return to Landing Site, a mission where the first stage comes back and lands at LZ1.
Starship - SpaceX's next-generation rocket (and spacecraft) that will hopefully one day take us to Mars. Starship is the "second stage" that will carry cargo or people, but also refers to the whole system. (It's confusing, but think of it like the Space Shuttle, which was both the shuttle itself and the entire launch system.)
Super Heavy - The giant booster that will carry Starship to space.

GloryDayz · 05-05-2021, 08:28 PM

ULA is doing tons more than BO these days, so I'm not sure what were hearing from the BO camp is worth hearing.

**DaFace** · 05-05-2021, 09:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GloryDayz

ULA is doing tons more than BO these days, so I'm not sure what were hearing from the BO camp is worth hearing.

Yeah, I actually like Tory Bruno a lot. They're not going to be the cheapest option out there, but they are doing solid, if not envelope pushing, work.

**DaFace** · 05-07-2021, 08:44 AM

Despite my respect for ULA, I think I'll always be a fan of SpaceX. I just love that they accomplish something and Elon immediately says "Well, time for the next step."

Might try to refly SN15 soon
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 7, 2021

**Donger** · 05-07-2021, 08:54 AM

Any fellow space geeks hear about any issues with SN15? Any damage?

**DaFace** · 05-07-2021, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Donger

Any fellow space geeks hear about any issues with SN15? Any damage?

I haven't been following closely, but I don't think any major issues have come out. The legs are a little crushed, but that's by design from what I can tell.

**Donger** · 05-07-2021, 09:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaFace

I haven't been following closely, but I don't think any major issues have come out. The legs are a little crushed, but that's by design from what I can tell.

Thanks. I was just looking and Mary has some shots. Lost some tiles, which would be expected.

A few more broken/missing TPS tiles. pic.twitter.com/w3trKnAQvq
— Mary (@BocaChicaGal) May 6, 2021

**Donger** · 05-07-2021, 02:49 PM

Meanwhile, on Mars...

I’ve seen what the #MarsHelicopter can do – and now I’ve heard it.

�� Grab headphones and listen to the otherworldly hum of Ingenuity’s blades as it headed south to scout a new area on its fourth flight.

How I captured both sight and sound: https://t.co/95J9X3bcyO pic.twitter.com/Lw44x7kqYZ
— NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) May 7, 2021

**mlyonsd** · 05-07-2021, 09:05 PM

Just witnessed my first Starlink fly by. It was like 75 white ants running along in a straight line.

**DaFace** · 05-08-2021, 07:19 AM

Don't think I'll stay up for it, but pretty cool that 10 flights is becoming a reality.

First time a Falcon rocket booster will reach double digits in flights https://t.co/wrojsaGExZ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 8, 2021

savchief · 05-08-2021, 12:03 PM

NASA Wallops May 8 Rocket Launch Visible in Eastern United States

https://www.nasa.gov/wallops/2021/pr...-united-states

**Donger** · 05-08-2021, 12:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaFace

Don't think I'll stay up for it, but pretty cool that 10 flights is becoming a reality.

First time a Falcon rocket booster will reach double digits in flights https://t.co/wrojsaGExZ
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 8, 2021

Amazing. I really was skeptical. I wonder how much it costs to get a previously flown Falcon 9 ready to fly again, and what they have to do it.

**Donger** · 05-12-2021, 10:03 AM

They've moved SN15 back to the pad.

MagicHef · 05-13-2021, 12:09 AM

Cantwell introduced a bill to make NASA choose a second contract. Funny coincidence that Blue Origin is located in her district.

https://www.theverge.com/platform/am...os-blue-origin

**Donger** · 05-14-2021, 07:48 AM

SpaceX outlines plans for Starship orbital test flight

https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/05/1...p-test-flight/

SpaceX has revealed the flight plan for the first orbital test launch of the company’s huge stainless steel Starship rocket, a 90-minute, around-the-world mission that will originate from South Texas and culminate with a controlled re-entry and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii.

SpaceX included an exhibit outlining the flight plan in a filing posted on the Federal Communications Commission’s website Thursday.

The test flight — without any passengers on-board — will take off from SpaceX’s Starship development facility at Boca Chica Beach in South Texas, just north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The Starship launch site, which SpaceX calls Starbase, is the same location where technicians are rapidly building new prototpes for the giant next-generation rocket.

When fully assembled, the gigantic reusable rocket will stand nearly 400 feet (120 meters) tall, making the Starship stack the largest launcher ever built.

The booster stage, called the Super Heavy, will have as many as 28 methane-burning Raptor engines on operational flights, producing some 16 million pounds of thrust, twice the power of NASA’s Apollo-era Saturn 5 rocket. Six Raptor engines will be fixed to the bottom of the rocket’s upper stage, which is itself also named the Starship.

The Starship vehicle doubles as an upper stage and a refillable transporter to ferry people and cargo through space to destinations in Earth orbit, the moon, Mars, and other distant locations.

SpaceX is developing the Starship vehicle as a fully reusable launch and space transportation system capable of ferrying more than 100 metric tons of cargo into low Earth orbit, more than any other rocket in the world.

During an orbital launch attempt, a reusable Super Heavy first stage booster will detach from the Starship and come back to Earth for a vertical landing. Eventually, SpaceX wants to use catcher arms on the launch tower to capture the descending first stage, making it easier to configure and refuel for another mission.

The Starship will continue into orbit and deploy its payloads or travel to its deep space destination, and finally return to Earth to be flown again.

The Starship’s first orbital test flight, though audacious in scale, will aim to prove out the rocket’s basic launch and re-entry capabilities without fully testing out the complicated landing and recovery systems, according to SpaceX’s filing with the FCC.

The rocket’s Super Heavy booster will fire its cluster of up to 28 Raptor engines for around 2 minute, 49 seconds, on a track toward the east from the Starbase launch site.

About two seconds later, the 230-foot-tall (70-meter) Super Heavy booster will jettison to begin a descent to a landing in the Gulf of Mexico around 8 minutes, 15 seconds, after launch. The giant booster will aim to land about 12 miles, (20 kilometers) from shore, according to SpaceX.

Meanwhile, the Starship orbital stage will ignite its Raptor engines at T+plus 3 minutes, 56 seconds, and accelerate into orbit, heading east over the Gulf of Mexico and following a track passing between South Florida and Cuba. Cutoff of the Raptor engines is expected about 8 minutes, 41 seconds, into the mission, SpaceX said, once the rocket achieves the required orbital velocity of around 17,000 mph (more than 27,000 kilometers per hour)

“The Orbital Starship will continue on flying between the Florida Straits. It will achieve orbit until performing a powered, targeted landing approximately 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) off the northwest coast of Kauai in a soft ocean landing,” SpaceX said.

The entire flight — from liftoff in Texas to splashdown near Hawaii — will last around 90 minutes.

“SpaceX intends to collect as much data as possible during flight to quantify entry dynamics and better understand what the vehicle experiences in a flight regime that is extremely difficult to accurately predict or replicate computationally,” SpaceX said. “This data will anchor any changes in vehicle design or CONOPs (concept of operations) after the first flight and build better models for us to use in our internal simulations.”

The company did not identify a target date for the Starship program’s first orbital test launch, but SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk has said the Starship’s first shot into space could happen before the end of the year.

SpaceX’s request for authority from the FCC to operate communications equipment on the orbital Starship test flight suggests the company expects the demonstration mission to occur some time between June 20 and Dec. 20.

The first Starship orbital test flight, which Musk suggested earlier this year might happen as soon as July, will follow a series of ongoing atmospheric flights intended to validate the rocket’s performance at relatively low altitudes.

The five Starship prototypes launched since December have each used three Raptor engines to power the 16-story test rockets to altitudes of more than 30,000 feet (about 10 kilometers) over South Texas. Four test rockets exploded during or soon after landing, but the most recent Starship prototype — Serial No. 15 — nailed its vertical, propulsive touchdown back at the Starbase facility.

The Starship stage, like the Super Heavy booster and SpaceX’s partially reusable Falcon 9 rocket currently in operation, will use variable thrust from its main engines to slow down for landing.

SpaceX plans more atmospheric test flights of Starship prototypes to fine-tune the rocket’s takeoff and landing. The company also plans a first “hop” test of a full-size Super Heavy booster, presumably before pressing ahead with an orbital launch attempt.

Engineers have tested coupon samples of heat shield material on the Starship’s stainless steel skin, but the orbital-class rocket will require a more extensive thermal barrier to withstand the super-hot temperatures of atmospheric re-entry.

The SN15 prototype that successfully launched and landed May 5 debuted several upgrades to the Starship rocket. The changes “will allow more speed and efficiency throughout production and flight,” SpaceX said.

The upgrades on SN15 include “a new enhanced avionics suite, updated propellant architecture in the aft skirt, and a new Raptor engine design and configuration,” SpaceX said.

The next jump in capability for the Starship rocket will come with SN20, which will be outfitted for an orbital test flight.

Musk tweeted earlier this year that the Super Heavy/Starship combination will initially have a high probability of achieving a successful launch into orbit, but it will likely take many attempts before SpaceX perfects the Starship’s re-entry and landing maneuvers from orbit.

Last month, SpaceX won a $2.9 billion contract from NASA to develop a derivative of the Starship vehicle to land astronauts on the Moon through the space agency’s Artemis program. SpaceX bested bids from Blue Origin and Dynetics to win the contract for NASA’s next human-rated lunar lander.

According to NASA’s plans, astronauts will depart Earth on the agency’s government-owned Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule, then rendezvous with a Starship pre-positioned in lunar orbit. The Starship would launch from Earth without anyone on-board.

After landing on the moon, the astronauts will exit the Starship and ride an elevator down to the surface. Once their work is complete, the crew members will launch on the Starship back into lunar orbit, meet up with the Orion capsule, and return to Earth.

Last month, SpaceX won a $2.9 billion contract from NASA to develop a derivative of the Starship vehicle to land astronauts on the moon through the space agency’s Artemis program. SpaceX bested bids from Blue Origin and Dynetics to win the contract for NASA’s next human-rated lunar lander.

According to NASA’s plans, astronauts will depart Earth on the agency’s government-owned Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule, then rendezvous with a Starship pre-positioned in lunar orbit. The Starship would launch from Earth without anyone on-board.

After landing on the moon, the astronauts will exit the Starship and ride an elevator down to the surface. Once their work is complete, the crew members will launch on the Starship back into lunar orbit, meet up with the Orion capsule, and return to Earth.

SpaceX has succeeded in cutting launch costs with the Falcon 9 rocket, which has a reusable first stage and payload shroud. But neither part is rapidly reusable, and the Falcon 9’s second stage is brand new for every mission.

“With Starship, we’ll hopefully reuse the whole thing,” Musk said last month. “This is a hard problem for rockets, that’s for sure. It’s taken us, we’re like 19 years in now. I think the Starship design can work. It’s just, it’s a hard thing to solve, and the support of NASA is very much appreciated in this regard. I think it’s going to work.”

Musk eventually wants to have a fleet of ocean-going platforms to recover and re-launch Super Heavy boosters and Starship rockets.

“It’s intended to be such that the booster can be used, I don’t know, a dozen times a day, basically every couple of hours,” Musk said in an X PRIZE webcast last month. “And that mostly is about reloading propellant and mounting the ship. and then the ship can probably be used, in theory, every three hours … But certainly every, say, six to nine hours. We’ll call it twice a day for the ship. And we’ll make more ships than there are boosters.”

SpaceX officials have suggested that Starships could be tasked with high-speed point-to-point intercontinental travel on Earth.

“Once we have the floating space platforms, we can position them such that the ship can come back in a single orbit,” Musk said. “So then it can be, let’s say we have three ship launches per day, that’s 1,000 flights a year, each with 100 to 150 tonnes of payload to orbit.”

“I’d say it’s only recently though that I feel that full and rapid reusability can be accomplished,” Musk said. “I wasn’t sure for a long time, but I am sure now.”

arrowheadnation · 05-14-2021, 08:34 AM

I saw that Elon responded to a spaceX fansite twitter saying that they're going to try flying the Starship from Houston to Hawaii (3/4 of the way around the earth). I assume this is the cliffs notes version of the post right above mine

06-01-2014, 09:40 AM
DaFace Kind of a mod Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Donkey Land Casino cash: $-53101	Space Exploration megathread Since a number of cool things are happening in space exploration these days, we'll widen the scope of this thread a smidge. Conversation about all things space exploration are welcome, whether it be from NASA, SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, or anyone else. Chances are most of the discussion will still be about SpaceX since they love to make things public and fun, but nothing's off limits. I'll eventually get around to modifying the OP to include resources for other companies too, but in the meantime, feel free to post any cool stuff you run across. Lists of Upcoming Missions Spoiler! General lists: https://nextspaceflight.com/ http://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/ SpaceX specific list: https://spacexnow.com/upcoming.php How to Watch a Live Launch Spoiler! SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com/launches/ ULA: https://www.youtube.com/user/UnitedLaunchAlliance RocketLab: https://www.youtube.com/user/RocketLabNZ NASATV will also cover some launches (primarily ISS resupply missions): https://www.youtube.com/user/NASAtelevision Where to Learn More Spoiler! Some cool pics... https://www.flickr.com/photos/spacex/ https://www.instagram.com/spacex/?hl=en Twitter feed is usually interesing... https://twitter.com/SpaceX https://twitter.com/elonmusk The SpaceX sub is a great source of info... https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/index And for a more forum-style discussion board... http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php#c17 And there are plenty of YouTube channels with great content... Joe Scott - Lost of "future" discussion. Some about rockets and space. Much that goes beyond. Scott Manley - Super smart dude (engineer) who reviews a lot of major events in space exploration. Frazer Cain (Universe Today) - Podcast-style videos that go in-depth into space topics. Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut) - A "random dude" who got really into space (particularly SpaceX). He's a great resource for simple explanations of this stuff, as well as live hosting launches. USLaunchReport - Lost of videos of the more mundane stuff (e.g., booster recovery operations). Not a ton of commentary. NASASpaceFlight - Live hosting of most launches including a ton of video of Starlink operations. Glossary Spoiler! Space discussions tend to get a little bogged down in jargon, so here's a list of terms you might encounter. (Others, please let me know of others that should be added.) ASDS - Autonomous Spaceport Droneship - The "barges" that they sometimes land rockets on. Dragon - The cone-shaped capsule that sits at the top of the rocket for ISS-bound launches that holds the cargo (or, in the future, humans). F9 - Falcon 9, the name of the rocket itself. FH - Falcon Heavy, the three-booster version. GTO - Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, a type of orbit that will eventually result in the satellite orbiting the earth as it turns so that it seems to be in the same spot from the ground (such as DirecTV or Dish satellites). These types of launches are particularly challenging because they require a lot of power to get them into the right orbit, leaving very little fuel left for landing. HIF - Horizontal Integration Facility - the building near the launch pad where they put all of the pieces of the rocket together before rolling it out to the pad. ISS - The International Space Station JRTI - Just Read The Instructions, the name of the "barge" that they land on for west-coast launches. LEO - Low Earth Orbit, a fairly low orbit shared by many satellites and ISS. These launches usually require less power to achieve the proper orbit, so the first stage can often be landed back on land rather than on a drone ship. LZ1 - Landing Zone 1, basically a big open slab of concrete at Cape Canaveral where the first stage will attempt to land (for some launches). NET - No Earlier Than, basically the date they're hoping to launch, but rocket launches have a tendency of getting delayed. OCISLY - Of Course I Still Love You, the name of the "barge" that they land on for east-coast launches. RTLS - Return to Landing Site, a mission where the first stage comes back and lands at LZ1. Starship - SpaceX's next-generation rocket (and spacecraft) that will hopefully one day take us to Mars. Starship is the "second stage" that will carry cargo or people, but also refers to the whole system. (It's confusing, but think of it like the Space Shuttle, which was both the shuttle itself and the entire launch system.) Super Heavy - The giant booster that will carry Starship to space. Last edited by DaFace; 10-13-2024 at 07:17 AM..
Posts: 52,577	1 0

05-05-2021, 08:28 PM	#4276
GloryDayz (Sir/Yes Sir/Aye Aye Sir) Join Date: Oct 2009 Location: Diving Casino cash: $2065380	ULA is doing tons more than BO these days, so I'm not sure what were hearing from the BO camp is worth hearing. __________________ . #Like 45, 47 Is Going To Be AWESOME! #I still don't have COVID
Posts: 120,035

05-07-2021, 08:44 AM	#4278
DaFace Kind of a mod Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Donkey Land Casino cash: $-53101	Despite my respect for ULA, I think I'll always be a fan of SpaceX. I just love that they accomplish something and Elon immediately says "Well, time for the next step." Might try to refly SN15 soon — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 7, 2021
Posts: 52,577	1 0

05-07-2021, 08:54 AM	#4279
Donger "Think BOOM!" Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: 33.675° N 106.475° W Casino cash: $8419900 VARSITY	Any fellow space geeks hear about any issues with SN15? Any damage? __________________ I think the young people enjoy it when I "get down," verbally, don't you?
Posts: 187,541

05-07-2021, 02:49 PM	#4282
Donger "Think BOOM!" Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: 33.675° N 106.475° W Casino cash: $8419900 VARSITY	Meanwhile, on Mars... I’ve seen what the #MarsHelicopter can do – and now I’ve heard it. �� Grab headphones and listen to the otherworldly hum of Ingenuity’s blades as it headed south to scout a new area on its fourth flight. How I captured both sight and sound: https://t.co/95J9X3bcyO pic.twitter.com/Lw44x7kqYZ — NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover (@NASAPersevere) May 7, 2021 __________________ I think the young people enjoy it when I "get down," verbally, don't you?
Posts: 187,541	3 0

05-07-2021, 09:05 PM	#4283
mlyonsd Supporter Join Date: Aug 2000 Location: Spink, SD Casino cash: $-396238	Just witnessed my first Starlink fly by. It was like 75 white ants running along in a straight line.
Posts: 39,243

05-08-2021, 07:19 AM	#4284
DaFace Kind of a mod Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Donkey Land Casino cash: $-53101	Don't think I'll stay up for it, but pretty cool that 10 flights is becoming a reality. First time a Falcon rocket booster will reach double digits in flights https://t.co/wrojsaGExZ — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 8, 2021
Posts: 52,577

05-08-2021, 12:03 PM	#4285
savchief Lefty Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Savannah Casino cash: $9406237	NASA Wallops May 8 Rocket Launch Visible in Eastern United States https://www.nasa.gov/wallops/2021/pr...-united-states
Posts: 123

05-12-2021, 10:03 AM	#4287
Donger "Think BOOM!" Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: 33.675° N 106.475° W Casino cash: $8419900 VARSITY	They've moved SN15 back to the pad. __________________ I think the young people enjoy it when I "get down," verbally, don't you?
Posts: 187,541

05-13-2021, 12:09 AM	#4288
MagicHef The Seated Villain Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Seattle Casino cash: $920247	Cantwell introduced a bill to make NASA choose a second contract. Funny coincidence that Blue Origin is located in her district. https://www.theverge.com/platform/am...os-blue-origin __________________ With a sack in 61% of his games, SB MVP Von Miller is the most consistent pass rusher in NFL history.
Posts: 10,720

05-14-2021, 07:48 AM	#4289
Donger "Think BOOM!" Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: 33.675° N 106.475° W Casino cash: $8419900 VARSITY	SpaceX outlines plans for Starship orbital test flight https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/05/1...p-test-flight/ SpaceX has revealed the flight plan for the first orbital test launch of the company’s huge stainless steel Starship rocket, a 90-minute, around-the-world mission that will originate from South Texas and culminate with a controlled re-entry and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii. SpaceX included an exhibit outlining the flight plan in a filing posted on the Federal Communications Commission’s website Thursday. The test flight — without any passengers on-board — will take off from SpaceX’s Starship development facility at Boca Chica Beach in South Texas, just north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The Starship launch site, which SpaceX calls Starbase, is the same location where technicians are rapidly building new prototpes for the giant next-generation rocket. When fully assembled, the gigantic reusable rocket will stand nearly 400 feet (120 meters) tall, making the Starship stack the largest launcher ever built. The booster stage, called the Super Heavy, will have as many as 28 methane-burning Raptor engines on operational flights, producing some 16 million pounds of thrust, twice the power of NASA’s Apollo-era Saturn 5 rocket. Six Raptor engines will be fixed to the bottom of the rocket’s upper stage, which is itself also named the Starship. The Starship vehicle doubles as an upper stage and a refillable transporter to ferry people and cargo through space to destinations in Earth orbit, the moon, Mars, and other distant locations. SpaceX is developing the Starship vehicle as a fully reusable launch and space transportation system capable of ferrying more than 100 metric tons of cargo into low Earth orbit, more than any other rocket in the world. During an orbital launch attempt, a reusable Super Heavy first stage booster will detach from the Starship and come back to Earth for a vertical landing. Eventually, SpaceX wants to use catcher arms on the launch tower to capture the descending first stage, making it easier to configure and refuel for another mission. The Starship will continue into orbit and deploy its payloads or travel to its deep space destination, and finally return to Earth to be flown again. The Starship’s first orbital test flight, though audacious in scale, will aim to prove out the rocket’s basic launch and re-entry capabilities without fully testing out the complicated landing and recovery systems, according to SpaceX’s filing with the FCC. The rocket’s Super Heavy booster will fire its cluster of up to 28 Raptor engines for around 2 minute, 49 seconds, on a track toward the east from the Starbase launch site. About two seconds later, the 230-foot-tall (70-meter) Super Heavy booster will jettison to begin a descent to a landing in the Gulf of Mexico around 8 minutes, 15 seconds, after launch. The giant booster will aim to land about 12 miles, (20 kilometers) from shore, according to SpaceX. Meanwhile, the Starship orbital stage will ignite its Raptor engines at T+plus 3 minutes, 56 seconds, and accelerate into orbit, heading east over the Gulf of Mexico and following a track passing between South Florida and Cuba. Cutoff of the Raptor engines is expected about 8 minutes, 41 seconds, into the mission, SpaceX said, once the rocket achieves the required orbital velocity of around 17,000 mph (more than 27,000 kilometers per hour) “The Orbital Starship will continue on flying between the Florida Straits. It will achieve orbit until performing a powered, targeted landing approximately 100 kilometers (about 62 miles) off the northwest coast of Kauai in a soft ocean landing,” SpaceX said. The entire flight — from liftoff in Texas to splashdown near Hawaii — will last around 90 minutes. “SpaceX intends to collect as much data as possible during flight to quantify entry dynamics and better understand what the vehicle experiences in a flight regime that is extremely difficult to accurately predict or replicate computationally,” SpaceX said. “This data will anchor any changes in vehicle design or CONOPs (concept of operations) after the first flight and build better models for us to use in our internal simulations.” The company did not identify a target date for the Starship program’s first orbital test launch, but SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk has said the Starship’s first shot into space could happen before the end of the year. SpaceX’s request for authority from the FCC to operate communications equipment on the orbital Starship test flight suggests the company expects the demonstration mission to occur some time between June 20 and Dec. 20. The first Starship orbital test flight, which Musk suggested earlier this year might happen as soon as July, will follow a series of ongoing atmospheric flights intended to validate the rocket’s performance at relatively low altitudes. The five Starship prototypes launched since December have each used three Raptor engines to power the 16-story test rockets to altitudes of more than 30,000 feet (about 10 kilometers) over South Texas. Four test rockets exploded during or soon after landing, but the most recent Starship prototype — Serial No. 15 — nailed its vertical, propulsive touchdown back at the Starbase facility. The Starship stage, like the Super Heavy booster and SpaceX’s partially reusable Falcon 9 rocket currently in operation, will use variable thrust from its main engines to slow down for landing. SpaceX plans more atmospheric test flights of Starship prototypes to fine-tune the rocket’s takeoff and landing. The company also plans a first “hop” test of a full-size Super Heavy booster, presumably before pressing ahead with an orbital launch attempt. Engineers have tested coupon samples of heat shield material on the Starship’s stainless steel skin, but the orbital-class rocket will require a more extensive thermal barrier to withstand the super-hot temperatures of atmospheric re-entry. The SN15 prototype that successfully launched and landed May 5 debuted several upgrades to the Starship rocket. The changes “will allow more speed and efficiency throughout production and flight,” SpaceX said. The upgrades on SN15 include “a new enhanced avionics suite, updated propellant architecture in the aft skirt, and a new Raptor engine design and configuration,” SpaceX said. The next jump in capability for the Starship rocket will come with SN20, which will be outfitted for an orbital test flight. Musk tweeted earlier this year that the Super Heavy/Starship combination will initially have a high probability of achieving a successful launch into orbit, but it will likely take many attempts before SpaceX perfects the Starship’s re-entry and landing maneuvers from orbit. Last month, SpaceX won a $2.9 billion contract from NASA to develop a derivative of the Starship vehicle to land astronauts on the Moon through the space agency’s Artemis program. SpaceX bested bids from Blue Origin and Dynetics to win the contract for NASA’s next human-rated lunar lander. According to NASA’s plans, astronauts will depart Earth on the agency’s government-owned Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule, then rendezvous with a Starship pre-positioned in lunar orbit. The Starship would launch from Earth without anyone on-board. After landing on the moon, the astronauts will exit the Starship and ride an elevator down to the surface. Once their work is complete, the crew members will launch on the Starship back into lunar orbit, meet up with the Orion capsule, and return to Earth. Last month, SpaceX won a $2.9 billion contract from NASA to develop a derivative of the Starship vehicle to land astronauts on the moon through the space agency’s Artemis program. SpaceX bested bids from Blue Origin and Dynetics to win the contract for NASA’s next human-rated lunar lander. According to NASA’s plans, astronauts will depart Earth on the agency’s government-owned Space Launch System rocket and Orion crew capsule, then rendezvous with a Starship pre-positioned in lunar orbit. The Starship would launch from Earth without anyone on-board. After landing on the moon, the astronauts will exit the Starship and ride an elevator down to the surface. Once their work is complete, the crew members will launch on the Starship back into lunar orbit, meet up with the Orion capsule, and return to Earth. SpaceX has succeeded in cutting launch costs with the Falcon 9 rocket, which has a reusable first stage and payload shroud. But neither part is rapidly reusable, and the Falcon 9’s second stage is brand new for every mission. “With Starship, we’ll hopefully reuse the whole thing,” Musk said last month. “This is a hard problem for rockets, that’s for sure. It’s taken us, we’re like 19 years in now. I think the Starship design can work. It’s just, it’s a hard thing to solve, and the support of NASA is very much appreciated in this regard. I think it’s going to work.” Musk eventually wants to have a fleet of ocean-going platforms to recover and re-launch Super Heavy boosters and Starship rockets. “It’s intended to be such that the booster can be used, I don’t know, a dozen times a day, basically every couple of hours,” Musk said in an X PRIZE webcast last month. “And that mostly is about reloading propellant and mounting the ship. and then the ship can probably be used, in theory, every three hours … But certainly every, say, six to nine hours. We’ll call it twice a day for the ship. And we’ll make more ships than there are boosters.” SpaceX officials have suggested that Starships could be tasked with high-speed point-to-point intercontinental travel on Earth. “Once we have the floating space platforms, we can position them such that the ship can come back in a single orbit,” Musk said. “So then it can be, let’s say we have three ship launches per day, that’s 1,000 flights a year, each with 100 to 150 tonnes of payload to orbit.” “I’d say it’s only recently though that I feel that full and rapid reusability can be accomplished,” Musk said. “I wasn’t sure for a long time, but I am sure now.” __________________ I think the young people enjoy it when I "get down," verbally, don't you?
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05-14-2021, 08:34 AM	#4290
arrowheadnation MONTANA #19 Join Date: Mar 2005 Casino cash: $4437357	I saw that Elon responded to a spaceX fansite twitter saying that they're going to try flying the Starship from Houston to Hawaii (3/4 of the way around the earth). I assume this is the cliffs notes version of the post right above mine __________________ Things I need to happen in order to die happy.... KU wins a National Championship....Check! The Royals win a World Series....Check! The Chiefs win a Super Bowl....FINALLY!!!
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