SpaceX has begun large-scale Starship heat shield installation tests with the help of robots delivered last month in a sign that the company has already begun preparing for the rocket’s first orbital flight test campaign. Designed to eventually replace SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles, Starship is a fully-reusable two-stage rocket powered […]
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SpaceX’s sixth full-scale Starship prototype has rolled from its Boca Chica, Texas factory to a nearby launch pad in a sure sign that preparation for a second hop test is well underway. Barely a week after Starship SN5 became the first such prototype to take flight, SpaceX has transported the rocket back to an assembly […]
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SpaceX has revealed a few key details about its burgeoning Starlink satellite internet constellation in a recent regulatory presentation, touching on overall investment, user terminal development, and its spacecraft manufacturing capabilities. Already the single largest satellite constellation in the world by a factor of three or more, Starlink is more than 500 operational satellites strong […]
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Five days after becoming the first private spacecraft to successfully launch and land astronauts, as well as the first crewed spacecraft to land in the Gulf of Mexico, SpaceX safely returned historic Demo-2 Crew Dragon to dry land. After a brief night in a Floridan port on the Gulf of Mexico, SpaceX recovery vessel GO […]
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SpaceX is swapping two almost identical Starships to allow for the first flight-proven prototype to be repaired while wasting no time preparing for the next Starship hop test. Known as Starships serial number 5 and 6 (SN5/SN6), the twin prototypes were built more or less simultaneously and completed within a few weeks of each other. […]
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SpaceX, for the second time ever, has successfully recovered a Falcon 9 booster after five orbital-class launches and landings and could be just a week or so away from its next record-breaking rocket reuse. On the morning of August 10th, after a night spent awaiting entry, tugboats carefully guided drone ship Of Course I Still […]
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Elon Musk says that SpaceX wants to reuse its first flight-proven Starship prototype, although the rocket’s second hop might come after the debut of a totally different ship. On August 4th, for the first time ever, a full-scale Starship prototype measuring some 9m (30 ft) wide and 30m (~100 ft) tall lifted off from SpaceX’s […]
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Ending a process that began almost two years ago, the US Air Force (now Space Force) has selected SpaceX and ULA to be the recipients of a multibillion-dollar series of launch contracts that stretch into the late 2020s. Known as the National Security Space Launch Phase 2 Launch Services Acquisition (LSA), the US Air Force […]
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Bringing more than six weeks of delays to a welcome end, SpaceX has – for the second time ever – successfully launched and landed the same Falcon 9 booster five times, sending a stack of Starlink satellites and two rideshare payloads on their way to orbit. At 1:12 am EDT (05:12 UTC) on Friday, August […]
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Less than a day after SpaceX successfully hopped a full-scale Starship prototype for the first time, the company has begun stacking the next rocket and Elon Musk is talking next steps. Almost immediately after Starship SN5 took to the sky on a 150m (500 ft) hop debut, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was talking about the […]
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