SpaceX has just completed its fourth hosted Hyperloop competition since its 2017 debut and Hyperloop inventor and CEO Elon Musk has capped the successful event with a big claim: in 2020, SpaceX will host Competition 5 at a brand-new track (“tunnel”) offering new freedom and challenges to the student teams. According to Musk, that new […]
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According to tweets published by CEO Elon Musk on July 21st, SpaceX’s combined Starship and Super Heavy launch vehicle (BFR) could have as many as 41 Raptor engines at liftoff. As with all other aspects of SpaceX’s next-generation rocket, this is a sign that things remain in flux as the company nears the point at […]
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After multiple days of delays, many a finger is crossed that SpaceX will be able to perform a critical static fire test of Falcon 9 booster B1056.1 on Friday morning (July 19th). Falcon 9 B1056 and a fresh upper stage are scheduled to launch Cargo Dragon mission CRS-18 no earlier than 7:35 pm EDT (23:35 […]
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The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is perhaps just a few weeks (maybe days) away from attempting to place the country in the history books, hopefully setting India up to become the fourth nation on Earth – after the Soviet Union, United States, and China – to successfully soft-land on the Moon. Known as Chandrayaan-2, the […]
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Speaking in an interview with TIME Magazine’s Jeffrey Kluger, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk telegraphed some clear, latent frustration with US space agency NASA, indicating that quite literally building Starship and landing it on the Moon could be easier than convincing NASA that the company is serious. Although minor progress has been made in the last […]
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SpaceX’s Starhopper appears to have come out the other end of an eventful night of fires, fireballs, and Raptor testing completely unscathed, although – as with all things rocketry – there is vastly more than meets the eye. However, signs point towards Starhopper being almost entirely unharmed by its brief voyage inside a fireball – […]
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SpaceX’s Starhopper was engulfed in a fireball shortly after a static fire ignition of its Raptor engine, almost certainly delaying the low-fidelity Starship prototype and testbed’s first untethered flight. With any luck, Raptor, Starhopper, and SpaceX’s spartan Boca Chica facilities have escaped relatively unharmed. Regardless, even if Raptor’s static fire was technically successful, some repairs […]
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SpaceX has (partially) ignited Starhopper’s freshly-installed Raptor engine, successfully verifying that the engine is ready for its next major test: a full ignition and static firing. Although successful, SpaceX still has some work to do before the vehicle is ready for its first untethered flight(s). July 15th’s progress is just the latest in a several […]
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SpaceX has announced via an official update and conference call the preliminary results of a failure investigation convened immediately after Crew Dragon capsule C201 exploded in the midsts of an April 20th static fire test. Hosted by SpaceX Vice President of Mission Assurance Hans Koenigsmann and NASA Commercial Crew Program manager Kathy Lueders, the call […]
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On the evening of July 12th, SpaceX technicians put Starhopper’s freshly-installed Raptor – serial number 06 (SN06) – through a simple but decidedly entertaining test, effectively wiggling the engine in circles. Designed to verify that Raptor’s thrust vectoring capabilities are in order and ensure that Starhopper and the engine are properly communicating, the wiggle test […]
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