SpaceX has installed another Starship’s nosecone, all but completing the second full-size prototype a matter of days before the first fully-assembled Starship’s risky launch debut. Over the last two months, SpaceX has effectively put Starship number 8 (SN8) through an almost nonstop series of tests, completing at least four separate cryogenic proof tests, four Raptor […]
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CEO Elon Musk says that SpaceX’s first fully-assembled Starship prototype is on track for its 15-kilometer (~50,000 ft) launch debut after completing a second three-engine static fire test on Tuesday. Starship serial number 8’s (SN8) three Raptor engines ignited for a few seconds around 5:30 pm CST (UTC-6) on Tuesday, November 24th, less than four […]
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For the first time ever, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster has successfully completed seven orbital-class launches and landings, leaving the company as few as three flights away from achieving its longstanding reusability goal. Ending two days of “mission assurance” and weather-related delays, Falcon 9 booster B1049.6, a new expendable upper stage (S2), two flight-proven […]
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SpaceX is in the process of attempting static-fire the first fully-assembled Starship prototype as few as four hours before a Falcon 9 rocket’s schedule Starlink launch. After SpaceX decided to scrub a November 22nd launch attempt for vague “additional mission assurance” and preempted a November 23rd backup to wait for better Atlantic Ocean recovery weather, […]
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On November 19th, what is likely SpaceX’s most important Falcon 9 booster yet returned to Port Canaveral with a surprise – perhaps the most dramatic lean ever observed on one of the recovered rockets. Tilted a solid 10+ degrees from vertical, the lean was immediately visible as soon as the top of the rocket crest […]
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SpaceX has static fired a record-breaking Falcon 9 booster and says it’s ready to launch its 14th Starlink mission this year just a day and a half after sailing past the company’s previous annual launch record. Set in 2018, SpaceX’s previous annual launch record stood at 21 missions – 20 Falcon 9s and one Falcon […]
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A Falcon 9 rocket has aced a rare ‘land’ landing as part of SpaceX’s first California launch in almost a year and a half and what a company manager deemed “the start of many exciting things to come”. Carrying the ~1200 kg (~2600 lb) Sentinel 6A oceanography and Earth observation satellite, a brand new Falcon […]
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Maxar Technologies says it’s powered on NASA’s Psyche spacecraft for the first time, pushing the asteroid explorer a step closer to the space agency’s SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch debut. Despite the many challenges and disruptions posed by the global coronavirus pandemic, Psyche principal investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton recently noted that the mission to the spacecraft’s namesake […]
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President and COO Gwynne Shotwell says that SpaceX is simultaneously building a fleet of reusable, orbital Dragon spacecraft designed to support a range of NASA and commercial astronaut and cargo launches over the next 5-10 years. Speaking shortly after SpaceX’s successful November 15th operational astronaut launch debut, also known as Crew-1, Shotwell revealed that the […]
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CEO Elon Musk has offered an explanation for SpaceX’s recent Starship static fire anomaly and says that an overview of the next-generation rocket development program will be delayed to account for some “notable” design changes. Over the last several months, Musk has promised to do one of his (thus far) usual annual Starship updates, either […]
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