Starhopper has completed its first untethered flight ever, simultaneously a small step for the awkward prototype and a giant leap for SpaceX’s Starship/Super Heavy program as the next-gen launch vehicle is carried into a new phase: flight testing. Despite the spectacular and reportedly successful hover and divert test, Starhopper’s powerful Raptor engine appears to have […]
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SpaceX has nailed its 24th Falcon booster reuse and 44th Falcon booster landing with Falcon 9 B1056’s flawless Landing Zone-1 recovery, setting the booster up to become the first SpaceX rocket NASA has flown on three times. According to NASASpaceflight.com, NASA had already moved from a conservative “maybe” to a much firmer “yes, but…” on […]
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After exceptionally bad weather conditions forced SpaceX to scrub its first CRS-18 launch attempt on Wednesday, July 24th, the weather has significantly improved in the hours leading up to attempt #2. The launch forecast now shows 50% favorable conditions, a major improvement from a 10% favorable forecast that came minutes before yesterday’s attempt. The CRS-18 […]
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In the latest entry of SpaceX’s ever-changing Starship design process, CEO Elon Musk has indicated that the nominally reusable orbital spacecraft has moved away from a liquid-cooled steel heat shield to something slightly more traditional. This information came as a SpaceX engineer announced during Cargo Dragon’s CRS-18 webcast that the twice-flown spacecraft would mark the […]
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SpaceX has aborted Starhopper’s inaugural untethered flight test shortly after the planned T-0 liftoff time and is in the process of analyzing telemetry to see if another attempt is possible tonight. At the planned T-0, Starhopper successfully ignited its single Raptor engine before quickly shutting down, at which point a fairly large fire began at […]
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According to updates from NASASpaceflight.com, SpaceX’s Starhopper prototype remains on track for a planned hover test debut later this evening (July 24th), set to become the first time the vehicle has flown in an untethered configuration. Despite suffering a minor fireball on July 17th following a successful Raptor static fire test, Starhopper was quickly deemed […]
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SpaceX announced during its CRS-18 Cargo Dragon webcast that the twice-flown orbital spacecraft will feature a handful of ceramic Starship heat shield tiles, meant to flight-test a critical component of the next-generation SpaceX spacecraft. Extremely unfavorable weather forced SpaceX to scrub today’s scheduled CRS-18 launch around T-30 seconds to liftoff and tomorrow’s backup window (July […]
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Late at night on July 22nd, SpaceX’s South Texas team of technicians and engineers were busy testing a small but critical component of Starhopper, a testbed and low-fidelity Starship prototype meant to attempt its first untethered flight test as early as July 24th. Monday evening’s testing centered around Starhopper’s cold gas nitrogen thrusters, multi-nozzle assemblies […]
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SpaceX is set to become the only company in history to launch the same commercial space capsule to orbit three times, a milestone of orbital spacecraft reuse in an otherwise ‘routine’ Cargo Dragon mission to the International Space Station (ISS). Known as CRS-18, the mission will (hopefully) see Cargo Dragon capsule C108 and a fresh […]
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Speaking in a mid-July interview with a CNBC correspondent, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk stated that he believed the company’s Crew Dragon spacecraft was likely 6-8 months away from an inaugural launch with astronauts aboard. Elaborating a bit, he noted that SpaceX was aiming to realize that milestone in four months, while he expected – per […]
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