Tag: SpaceX

Categories
Cosmic Space

NASA picks SpaceX to create a space station killer

Illustration: U.S. Deorbit Vehicle
An artist's conception shows SpaceX's Deorbit Vehicle in action. (Credit: SpaceX)

Spacecraft built by SpaceX have been servicing the International Space Station since 2012, and now NASA has chosen SpaceX to build the spacecraft that’ll take the station down to its doom in 2030.

The space agency announced today that SpaceX has been selected to develop and deliver the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle that will provide the capability to push the station into a fiery but controlled descent through the atmosphere. The deed will have to be done in a way that makes sure any debris falls harmlessly in an unpopulated area — for example, a remote part of the Pacific Ocean known as Point Nemo.

NASA laid out its plan for deorbiting the space station at the end of its operating life two years ago. At the time, mission planners suggested that Russian Progress supply ships or Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus cargo spacecraft might play a part in the denouement.

Today’s announcement makes clear that a SpaceX craft will take on the curtain-closing role. However, NASA will take ownership of the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle once it’s developed, and operate it through the final mission. No astronauts will be aboard the station during the robotically guided re-entry, and the U.S. Deorbit Vehicle is expected to break up along with the rest of the space station.

NASA said the single-award contract has a total potential value of $843 million. Launch service will be covered in a future procurement.

Continue reading “NASA picks SpaceX to create a space station killer”
Categories
GeekWire

Pentagon adds Blue Origin to $5.6B launch list

Illustration: New Glenn launch
An artist’s conception shows Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket on the rise. (Blue Origin Illustration)

The Department of Defense has put Kent, Wash.-based Blue Origin in the running for a share of up to $5.6 billion in national security space launch contracts, marking a first for Jeff Bezos’ space venture.

The decision means Blue Origin’s orbital-class New Glenn rocket is now eligible to be selected for the Pentagon’s most sensitive launches, joining rockets offered by SpaceX and United Launch Alliance.

The ordering period for what’s known as the Phase 3 Lane 1 procurement process runs through mid-2029, with an optional five-year extension. “This award is the result of a competitive acquisition, and seven offers were received,” the Department of Defense said in today’s contract award announcement.

“We’re honored by the opportunity to compete for these National Security Space Launch Phase 3 Lane 1 missions with New Glenn,” a Blue Origin spokesperson told me in an email.

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket, named after the late NASA astronaut John Glenn, is still under development at the company’s facilities in Florida. New Glenn’s first launch is currently set for no earlier than September. It’s expected to send a pair of robotic probes to study Mars’ magnetosphere for NASA’s EscaPADE mission.

The amounts going to each of the three launch providers in the Phase 3 Lane 1 program will be determined by the task orders that go out for specific launches over the next five years.

Get the full story on GeekWire
Categories
Universe Today

SpaceX’s Starship makes a splash in its best flight test yet

SpaceX's Starship lifts off from its Texas launch pad.
SpaceX's Starship lifts off from its Texas launch pad. (SpaceX Photo)

SpaceX’s Starship earned high marks today in its fourth uncrewed flight test, making significant progress in the development of a launch system that’s tasked with putting NASA astronauts on the moon by as early as 2026.

The Super Heavy booster blasted off from SpaceX’s Starbase complex in South Texas at 7:50 a.m. CT (5:50 a.m. PT), rising into the sky with 32 of its 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines blazing. Super Heavy is considered the world’s most powerful launch vehicle, with 16.7 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.

Minutes after launch, the rocket’s upper stage — known as the Ship — separated from the first stage, firing up its own set of six Raptor engines. Meanwhile, Super Heavy flew itself to a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.

The soft splashdown marked a new achievement for Starship. During the third flight test, which took place in March, only a few of Super Heavy’s engines were able to light up again for a crucial landing burn. As a result, the booster hit the water with an uncontrolled splat.

Eventually, SpaceX plans to have the Super Heavy booster fly itself back to its base after doing its job.

The upper stage reached orbital-scale altitudes in excess of 200 kilometers (125 miles), but completing a full orbit wasn’t part of today’s plan. Instead, SpaceX aimed to have Ship make its own soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

Streaming video, relayed via SpaceX’s Starlink satellite network, showed the rocket’s protective skin glowing with the heat of atmospheric re-entry. Burning debris broke off from one of Ship’s control fins, damaging the camera’s lens — but the fuzzy view nevertheless confirmed that the spacecraft successfully hit the mark. That represented another advance over the third test, when the Ship broke up during its descent to the ocean.

“Despite loss of many tiles and a damaged flap, Starship made it all the way to a soft landing in the ocean!” SpaceX founder Elon Musk exulted in a posting to his X social-media platform.

Continue reading “SpaceX’s Starship makes a splash in its best flight test yet”
Categories
Universe Today

Japanese billionaire calls off his trip around the moon

Illustration: SpaceX Starship flying over moon
An artist's conception shows SpaceX's Starship flying over the moon. (Illustration via dearMoon)

Six years after he announced a grand plan to fly around the moon with a crew of artists in SpaceX’s Starship rocket, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said he was canceling the project due to delays in Starship’s development.

In a series of postings to the X social-media platform, Maezawa said he signed his contract with SpaceX “based on the assumption that dearMoon would launch by the end of 2023.”

“It’s a developmental project, so it is what it is, but it is still uncertain as to when Starship can launch,” he wrote. “I can’t plan my future in this situation, and I feel terrible making the crew members wait longer, hence the difficult decision to cancel at this point in time. I apologize to those who were excited for this project to happen.”

Continue reading “Japanese billionaire calls off his trip around the moon”
Categories
Universe Today

Starlink on Mars? NASA is paying SpaceX to look into it

Illustration: Starlink satellites in orbit
An artist's conception shows Starlink satellites in orbit. Credit: SpaceX

NASA has given the go-ahead for SpaceX to work out a plan to adapt its Starlink broadband internet satellites for use in a Martian communication network.

The idea is one of a dozen proposals that have won NASA funding for concept studies that could end up supporting the space agency’s strategy for bringing samples from Mars back to Earth for lab analysis. The proposals were submitted by nine companies — also including Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, United Launch Alliance, Astrobotic, Firefly Aerospace, Impulse Space, Albedo Space and Redwire Space.

Awardees will be paid $200,000 to $300,000 for their reports, which are due in August. NASA says the studies could lead to future requests for proposals, but it’s not yet making any commitment to follow up.

Continue reading “Starlink on Mars? NASA is paying SpaceX to look into it”
Categories
Universe Today

Starship goes orbital on third test flight, with fiery ending

Starship rising into skies over Texas
SpaceX's Starship super-rocket rises into the skies over Texas. (SpaceX Photo)

After falling short in its first two attempts, SpaceX got its Starship super-rocket to an orbital altitude today during the launch system’s third integrated flight test. Now it just has to work on the landing.

Today’s test marked a major milestone in SpaceX’s effort to develop Starship as the equivalent of a gigantic Swiss Army knife for spaceflight, with potential applications ranging from the deployment of hundreds of Starlink broadband satellites at a time to crewed odysseys to the moon, Mars and beyond.

Continue reading “Starship goes orbital on third test flight, with fiery ending”
Categories
Universe Today

Intuitive Machines’ moon lander begins historic odyssey

SpaceX launch of Intuitive Machines' Odysseus moon lander
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket rises from its Florida launch pad to send Intuitive Machines' Odysseus moon lander spaceward. (NASA via YouTube)

Now it’s Intuitive Machines’ turn to try making history with a robotic moon landing.

Today’s launch of the Houston-based company’s Odysseus lander marks the first step in an eight-day journey that could lead to the first-ever soft landing of a commercial spacecraft on the moon. Odysseus would also be the first U.S.-built spacecraft to touch down safely on the lunar surface since Apollo 17’s mission in 1972.

The lander — which is as big as an old-fashioned British phone booth, or the Tardis time portal from the “Doctor Who” TV series — was sent spaceward from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 1:05 a.m. ET Feb. 15 (10:05 p.m. PT Feb. 14).

Continue reading “Intuitive Machines’ moon lander begins historic odyssey”
Categories
GeekWire

SpaceX launches satellites that cellphones could use

SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket ignition
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket lights up its engines to send Starlink satellites to space from a California launch pad. (SpaceX via Twitter / X)

The first satellites capable of providing direct-to-cellular service via SpaceX’s Starlink network and T-Mobile’s cellular network have been sent into orbit aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.

Six of the cell-capable satellites were among a batch of 21 Starlink satellites launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 7:44 p.m. PT Jan. 2. The satellites were deployed successfully, and the rocket’s first-stage booster made a routine landing on a drone ship in the Pacific Ocean.

SpaceX plans to launch hundreds of the upgraded satellites in the months ahead, with the aim of beginning satellite-enabled texting later this year. 4G LTE satellite connectivity for voice and data via unmodified mobile devices would follow in 2025, pending regulatory approval.

“Today’s launch is a pivotal moment for this groundbreaking alliance with SpaceX and our global partners around the world, as we work to make dead zones a thing of the past,” Mike Katz, president of marketing, strategy and products for Bellevue, Wash.-based T-Mobile, said today in a news release.

Get the full story on GeekWire
Categories
GeekWire

Amazon makes a satellite launch deal with SpaceX

SpaceX Starlink launch on Falcon 9 rocket
SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket launches a set of Starlink satellites on Nov. 27. (SpaceX Photo)

Amazon’s Project Kuiper may be a competitor for SpaceX’s Starlink satellite broadband network, but business is business: Amazon says it has signed a contract for three launches of Project Kuiper satellites on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, supplementing scores of launches reserved on bigger rockets that haven’t yet made their debut.

“The additional launches with SpaceX offer even more capacity to support our deployment schedule,” Amazon said today in a news release. Amazon did not provide information about the potential timing of the launches, or their cost.

Like Starlink, Project Kuiper is designed to open up broadband internet access to tens of millions of people around the world who are underserved. SpaceX has a big head start in the market, with thousands of satellites already in orbit and more than 2 million subscribers for Starlink’s service.

Amazon, in contrast, had its first two prototype satellites sent into orbit on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket just this October. A couple of weeks ago, Amazon reported that the satellites passed a monthlong series of tests, opening the way for satellites to be mass-produced at a factory in Kirkland, Wash. (For what it’s worth, SpaceX’s satellites are built nearby at the company’s Redmond facility.)

Project Kuiper’s first production-quality satellites are due to be launched early next year, with beta service to begin in the latter half of 2024. At least half of Project Kuiper’s planned 3,236-satellite constellation will have to be placed in low Earth orbit by mid-2026 to comply with the terms of Amazon’s license from the Federal Communications Commission. But the vast majority of launches that Amazon has reserved would use three types of rockets that haven’t yet flown a single mission: Blue Origin’s New Glenn, ULA’s Vulcan and Arianespace’s Ariane 6.

In addition to the three newly reserved Falcon 9 launches, Amazon has slots set aside on eight Atlas V rockets — a tried-and-true product line that is reaching its final days. So even though SpaceX and Amazon could be considered satellite network rivals, and even though SpaceX founder Elon Musk and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos haven’t always been on the best of terms, the Falcon 9 reservations represent something of an insurance policy for Amazon’s deployment schedule.

Get the full story on GeekWire
Categories
Cosmic Space

SpaceX’s Starship gets farther on its second test flight

Starship liftoff from Texas launch pad
An aerial view via SpaceX's livestream shows the launch of the Starship / Super Heavy test flight. (SpaceX via X / Twitter)

SpaceX’s Starship and its Super Heavy booster blew through the primary objective for their second test flight today, but both rocket stages blew up sooner than the company hoped.

SpaceX took the day as a win — based not only on a successful liftoff from its South Texas launch pad a little after 7 a.m. CT (5 a.m. PT), but also on the successful execution of a hot-stage separation maneuver two and a half minutes after launch.

Continue reading “SpaceX’s Starship gets farther on its second test flight”