Tag • #starship

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SpaceX moves Starship to launch site, and liftoff could be just days away

news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Saturday, 1 April, 2023 - 20:50

Enlarge / Super Heavy Booster 7 undergoes a test firing in December. (credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX moved the most flight-ready of its Starship rockets, Ship 24, to a launch site in South Texas on Saturday. While a launch is not imminent this week, it could take place as early as April 10, sources said.

Earlier this week, the company lifted the massive "Super Heavy" first stage of its launch system onto a launch mount at the pad. The next step will involve lifting the Starship upper stage into place, atop the first stage. While these vehicles have been previously stacked for testing, this should be the final time they are positioned on the launch pad before lifting off.

In recent weeks technicians have added shielding to protect the launch mount and tower from the extreme heating from the launch of Super Heavy, which is powered by 33 Raptor engines. The launch vehicle will have about double the thrust of the two most powerful rockets ever to reach orbit, NASA's Saturn V and Space Launch System rockets.

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SpaceX breathes fire in South Texas for the first time in 2022

news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 10 August, 2022 - 14:11

Enlarge / SpaceX conducts a hot fire test of the Booster 7 rocket on Tuesday, August 9, 2022. (credit: SpaceX)

SpaceX ignited engines on both the first and second stages of its Starship launch system on Wednesday, signaling that it is getting closer to a test flight of the massive rocket later this year.

On Monday evening at 5:20 pm local time in South Texas, engineers ignited a single Raptor engine on the Super Heavy booster that serves as the rocket's first stage. This is the first time the company has ever conducted a static fire test of the booster, which will ultimately be powered by 33 Raptor rocket engines.

About three hours later, on a separate mount at its "Starbase" facility in Texas, SpaceX ignited two engines on the Starship upper stage of the rocket. The company later shared a short video on Twitter of the evidently successful test.

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SpaceX set for its third major Starship flight test on Wednesday

Eric Berger · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 3 March, 2021 - 13:12

Enlarge / Starship SN10 on the pad on Wednesday, March 3, 2021. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann)

SpaceX may launch its third full-scale Starship prototype—named Serial Number 10, or SN10—as early as Wednesday from South Texas.

With this vehicle, the company will seek to successfully land the Starship vehicle where the last two versions, SN8 and SN9, each failed in the final seconds of the mission to stabilize themselves for a controlled landing. Both flights ended in fire at the landing site. SpaceX founder and chief engineer Elon Musk has estimated about a 60 percent chance of success this time—which suggests the probability is a little bit higher than that, given his penchant for setting expectations.

Similar to the previous two flights, which took place in December and early February , SpaceX will launch its Starship vehicle to an altitude of about 10 km under the power of three Raptor engines. There, it will switch from its main propellant tanks to smaller ones near the top of the vehicle and perform a "belly flop" maneuver, reorienting itself to simulate returning from orbit. This allows Starship to both bleed off velocity as well as ensure its reusability without a massive heat shield.

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SpaceX : c’est le moment de tenter votre chance pour voyager autour de la Lune

Julien Lausson · news.movim.eu / Numerama · Wednesday, 3 March, 2021 - 09:33

Starship Lune

SpaceX lance le recrutement de huit astronautes pour voyager autour de la Lune. Les candidatures seront examinées jusqu'à fin mai et l'équipage sélectionné fin juin. Ensuite, une longue phase d'entrainement s'ouvrira, jusqu'au décollage, en 2023. [Lire la suite]

Voitures, vélos, scooters... : la mobilité de demain se lit sur Vroom ! https://www.numerama.com/vroom/vroom//

L'article SpaceX : c’est le moment de tenter votre chance pour voyager autour de la Lune est apparu en premier sur Numerama .

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Starship : SpaceX publie des photos très réussies de son dernier vol d’essai

Julien Lausson · news.movim.eu / Numerama · Thursday, 4 February, 2021 - 09:23

SN9 SN10 Starship

SpaceX a partagé des photographies illustrant son dernier tir expérimental avec le prototype de fusée Starship. [Lire la suite]

Abonnez-vous à notre chaîne YouTube pour ne manquer aucune vidéo !

L'article Starship : SpaceX publie des photos très réussies de son dernier vol d’essai est apparu en premier sur Numerama .

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Le Starship a encore explosé à l’atterrissage, mais SpaceX est optimiste

Julien Lausson · news.movim.eu / Numerama · Wednesday, 3 February, 2021 - 09:25

SpaceX a fait voler un autre prototype de sa future fusée Starship. Si la quasi-totalité de l'essai s'est bien passée, l'atterrissage a encore été manqué. L'engin SN9 a fini sa carrière dans une spectaculaire explosion. [Lire la suite]

Voitures, vélos, scooters... : la mobilité de demain se lit sur Vroom ! https://www.numerama.com/vroom/vroom//

L'article Le Starship a encore explosé à l’atterrissage, mais SpaceX est optimiste est apparu en premier sur Numerama .

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As Starships crash, understand this is a “stupidly difficult” thing to do

Eric Berger · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 3 February, 2021 - 00:25

Liftoff of SN9 sure looked fine on Tuesday afternoon. [credit: Trevor Mahlmann ]

Once again, on Tuesday afternoon, a Starship prototype soared into the clear skies above South Texas like something out of the pages of a science fiction novel. Once again, after reaching a high altitude, the spaceship leaned into a "belly flop" maneuver, making a controlled descent back toward the planet.

And then, once again, a problem within the last few seconds caused a Starship prototype to spectacularly crash near its launch platform.

Seven weeks have passed since the first full-scale Starship prototype, SN8, performed its high altitude flight . Now, SN9 has met a similar fate. It appeared that one of the two Raptor rocket engines intended to power the final, controlled descent failed to re-light (see a great, slow-motion view ). As a result when the vehicle began reorienting itself into a vertical position it never stopped swinging. Then, BOOM !

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What’s really going on with Elon Musk, the FAA, and Starship?

Eric Berger · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Friday, 29 January, 2021 - 21:39

Enlarge / Starship prototype SN9 has not launched yet. (credit: SpaceX)

There were moments of high drama on Thursday afternoon, and again Friday morning, in South Texas. For two days in a row, SpaceX evacuated the handful of residents remaining in Boca Chica Village. Sheriff's deputies cleared beaches and closed roads. And at the company's launch site, a Starship rocket prototype underwent preparations for launch.

The vehicle was ready, with ground equipment venting away. The winds were light. And then—nothing. As the hours ticked by, the rocket remained on the ground. Unfortunately for SpaceX, the Federal Aviation Administration had not given its final approval to launch. It all made for quite a South Texas Showdown.

SpaceX, which officially said it was targeting a launch attempt on Thursday, has not publicly commented on what happened. Nor has the FAA provided specifics on what transpired, other than offering a generic statement : “We will continue working with SpaceX to resolve outstanding safety issues before we approve the next test flight.”

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Sidewalk-robot startup celebrates 1 million deliveries

Timothy B. Lee · news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 27 January, 2021 - 21:20

A masked woman holds up a package next to a self-driving robot about the size of an ice cooler.

Enlarge / Annika Keeton. (credit: Starship )

Last March, just as the Washington, DC, area was locking down for COVID-19, I traveled to George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, to eat a hamburger delivered by a robot .

The robot was owned by delivery startup Starship. Today, Starship announced it has completed 1 million deliveries. Annika Keeton, a college student in Bowling Green, Ohio, was Starship's millionth customer.

In recent years, a lot of hype has followed companies like Waymo and Tesla as they try to build full-size, go-anywhere self-driving cars. But designing these vehicles has proven fiendishly difficult. Tesla's self-driving software still requires careful supervision, while Waymo's driverless taxis are still limited to one corner of the Phoenix metropolitan area.

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