Tag: SpaceX

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SpaceX first orbital Starship rocket flight plan revealed

SpaceX lands Starship SN10 rocket after a high-altitude flight test

The Starship prototype SN9 starts at the company’s development facility in Boca Chica, Texas.

SpaceX

Elon Musk’s SpaceX in his filing on Thursday revealed his plan for the next step in testing his massive spacecraft rocket in a flight that would hose down off the coast of Hawaii.

The company’s FCC records say it will launch a Starship prototype rocket on a “Super Heavy” booster stage at the SpaceX development facility in Boca Chica, Texas. Then the booster will separate to partially return “and land in the Gulf of Mexico about 20 miles from shore,” the records said.

“The Orbital Starship will continue to fly between Florida Straits. It will enter orbit until a motorized, targeted landing is made in a soft ocean landing about 100 km off the northwest coast of Kauai,” SpaceX wrote on the file.

SpaceX’s Starship program continues to evolve rapidly. The company successfully completed the successful landing and recovery of the Starship SN15 last week. It was the rocket’s fifth high-altitude flight test and the first to end without the prototype exploding.

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SpaceX accepts Dogecoin cost for DOGE-1 mission to the moon

SpaceX accepts Dogecoin payment for DOGE-1 mission to the moon

SpaceX founder Elon Musk shows the audience after he was recognized by US President Donald Trump in NASA’s vehicle assembly building after successfully launching a Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon spacecraft from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center

Paul Hennessy | SOPA pictures | Getty Images

Elon Musk’s SpaceX will launch the “DOGE-1 Mission to the Moon” in the first quarter of 2022, with the company accepting the meme-inspired cryptocurrency as full payment for the lunar payload.

Geometric Energy Corporation announced the Dogecoin-funded mission on Sunday, which SpaceX’s communications team confirmed in an email to reporters. The financial worth of the mission has not been disclosed.

DOGE-1 will fly a 40-kilogram cube satellite as a payload on a Falcon 9 rocket. Geometric Energy Corporation states that the payload will “receive lunar sensors from sensors and cameras on board with integrated communication and computing systems.”

Tom Ochinero, Vice President Commercial Sales at SpaceX, said in a statement that DOGE-1 “will demonstrate the application of cryptocurrency beyond orbit and lay the foundation for interplanetary trade.”

“We’re excited to bring DOGE-1 to the moon!” Said Ochinero.

A Falcon 9 rocket will launch the Transporter 1 mission in January 2021.

SpaceX

Musk previously announced the company’s plans, albeit in an April Fool’s tweet.

“SpaceX is going to put a literal Dogecoin on the literal moon,” wrote Musk.

The DOGE-1 mission comes after Musk, the self-proclaimed “Dogefather”, made his debut as the host of “Saturday Night Live”. The price of Dogecoin fell during its appearance and fell below 50 cents despite its references to the cryptocurrency.

For SpaceX, the announcement also comes on the day the company set a new record for its Falcon 9 rocket series. After launching another series of Starlink satellites into orbit, SpaceX landed the Falcon 9 rocket booster for the tenth time – a benchmark Musk previously described as key to the company’s progress in reusing its rockets.

“It’s designed for 10 or more flights with no renovation between each flight,” Musk told reporters in May 2018.

“We believe that [Falcon 9] Boosters can be deployed on the order of at least 100 flights before they retire. Maybe more. “

A Falcon 9 rocket amplifier lands after the start of the Sentinel 6 mission.

SpaceX

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SpaceX lands Starship rocket SN15 after check flight

SpaceX lands Starship rocket SN15 after test flight

The Starship prototype SN15 missile lands on the company’s landing pad in Boca Chica, Texas on May 5, 2020.

SpaceX

Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched and landed the latest prototype of his Starship rocket on Wednesday in the fifth test flight at high altitude of the system.

The spaceship’s prototype rocket, serial number 15 or SN15, flew up to 10 kilometers, or approximately 33,000 feet.

“Spaceship is nominally landing!” Musk tweeted after landing. Nominal is a space industry term used to denote when things go according to plan.

SN15 was the first Starship prototype that was not destroyed after a test flight at high altitude. While a small fire broke out at the base of the rocket after landing, the fire appeared to be contained a few minutes later.

The company is developing Starship to bring cargo and people on missions to the moon and Mars.

Earlier this month, NASA placed an almost $ 3 billion contract with SpaceX to build a lunar variant of Starship to bring astronauts to the surface of the moon for the agency’s Artemis missions. While Musk’s company continued to advance Starship development, NASA stopped SpaceX work on the HLS program after Jeff Bezos ‘Blue Origin and Leidos’ subsidiary Dynetics each filed protests against NASA’s procurement.

The SN15 flight was similar to what SpaceX has conducted over the past six months with the test flights of the prototypes SN8, SN9, SN10 and SN11. While each of the previous missiles was successfully launched and several development goals were achieved, all four prototypes were explosively destroyed – SN8 and SN9 on impact during the landing attempts, SN10 a few minutes after landing and SN11 just before the landing attempt.

The Starship prototypes are about 150 feet tall, or about the size of a 15-story building, and are each powered by three Raptor rocket engines.

It’s made of stainless steel and is the early version of the rocket that Musk unveiled in 2019.

The Starship prototype SN15 rocket is on the company’s launch pad in Boca Chica, Texas.

SpaceX

SpaceX noted in a statement on its website that the SN15 has “vehicle enhancements in terms of structure, avionics and software” compared to previous Starship prototypes.

“Specifically, a new, improved avionics suite, an updated fuel architecture in the tail skirt, and a new design and configuration for Raptor engines,” said SpaceX.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which has an inspector at the SpaceX facilities to monitor the test flights, conducted a “breakdown” investigation of the SN11 flight.

Last week, the FAA announced the approval of the next three Starship launches – SN15, SN16, and SN16 – and said it would “verify that SpaceX has implemented corrective actions resulting from the SN11 breakdown investigation”.

The FAA approved multiple launches “because SpaceX makes few changes to the launcher and relies on the FAA-approved method to calculate the risk to the public.”

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FCC approves SpaceX Starlink modification, regardless of objections

FCC approves SpaceX Starlink modification, despite objections

Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA – A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with 58 satellites for SpaceX’s Starlink broadband internet network and three SkySat Earth image satellites will launch from pad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral on August 18, 2020, Florida.

Paul Hennessy | NurPhoto | Getty Images

The Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday approved SpaceX’s proposed change to the Starlink satellite license, a win for Elon Musk’s growing broadband network, despite objections from competitors like Amazon, Viasat, and others.

“We conclude that the granting of the SpaceX Third Modification Application is in the public interest,” the FCC wrote in the order. “Our action will allow SpaceX to make safety changes to the deployment of its satellite constellation to deliver broadband services across the United States, including those living in areas underserved or unserved by terrestrial systems.”

SpaceX tabled the amendment a year ago asking for its first 1,584 satellites to be raised to an altitude of 550 kilometers. The FCC approval comes at a crucial time for SpaceX as the company has nearly 1,400 satellites in orbit and likely would have had to suspend its quick start campaign if the FCC hadn’t approved the change.

Starlink is the company’s capital-intensive project to build an interconnected internet network of thousands of satellites, known in the aerospace industry as a Constellation, designed to deliver high-speed internet to consumers around the world.

Opponents submitted numerous responses to the change proposed by SpaceX. Companies like Amazon said doing so would disrupt other satellite networks. SpaceX’s competitors also argued that the change was too significant for the FCC to treat as a simple modification, saying it should instead be included in a wider round of processing with new satellite systems.

The FCC dispute between SpaceX and Amazon became public in January when Musk claimed on Twitter that his competitor was trying to “impede Starlink,” adding that Kuiper was “at best several years away from operations.” While Amazon hasn’t announced when its first Kuiper satellites will launch, the system’s approval by the FCC last year requires the company to deploy half of its planned satellites within six years. This corresponds to the provision of around 1,600 satellites by Amazon in orbit by July 2026.

The regulator denied allegations of signal interference in approving the SpaceX change.

“We also conclude that this change does not cause significant interference issues that would warrant treating the SpaceX system as if it were submitted in a later processing round,” the FCC wrote.

The FCC’s appointment requires SpaceX to issue a report twice a year that includes the number of Starlink conjunctivities – that is, near misses with other satellites – over the past six months and the number of Starlink satellites that have been discarded or re-discarded -enter the earth’s atmosphere.

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Blue Origin Challenges NASA Over SpaceX Moon Lander Deal

Blue Origin Challenges NASA Over SpaceX Moon Lander Deal

Mr Smith said Blue Origin would make bids for a future competition. But he added, “The idea that we will be able to restore competition with something that is currently completely undefined and completely unfunded makes little sense to us.”

When Bill Nelson, a former Florida Senator whom President Biden has appointed as NASA’s next administrator, testified at a confirmation hearing last week, Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington and chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, was petitioned him to undertake to present a plan to Congress on how NASA would ensure commercial competition under the lunar lander program.

“I do,” said Mr. Nelson. “The competition is always good.”

Mr Smith said NASA has hired more than one company in the past with programs similar to space station missions, despite a lack of security for future budgets.

The Blue Origin-led offering was more than double that of SpaceX at $ 6.0 billion. But Mr Smith said NASA had returned to SpaceX and negotiated the price of their proposal, despite not having had similar conversations with the other two teams.

“We haven’t had a chance to revise and that’s basically unfair,” said Mr Smith.

Less than $ 9 billion would have paid for two landers, and that’s comparable to the $ 8.3 billion cost of the commercial occupation program that now enables transportation to the space station, the protest argued.

“NASA receives great value from these proposals,” said Smith.

The evaluations of the offers by NASA resulted in evaluations of the technical aspects of the proposals by Blue Origin and SpaceX as “acceptable”. The rating of Dynetics was lower and was “marginal”. SpaceX’s management was rated “excellent” while Blue Origin and its partners, as well as Dynetics, were rated “very good”.

Mr Smith said NASA misjudged aspects of its proposal such as the communications system and redundancy in guidance and navigation as vulnerabilities. He also said it downplayed the risks in SpaceX’s design, such as the need to refuel Starship in orbit, which has never been attempted before.

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SpaceX Crew-2 astronauts dock with the Worldwide House Station

SpaceX Crew-2 astronauts dock with the International Space Station

SpaceX’s crew Dragon Endeavor docks at the International Space Station on April 24, 2021.

NASA TV

The second operational SpaceX crew mission arrived on the International Space Station early Saturday morning and carried four astronauts for a six-month stay in space.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spaceship ‘Endeavor’, launched the day before with a Falcon 9 rocket, docked at the ISS at 5:22 a.m. EDT. The capsule carries an international squad of astronauts: Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur from NASA, Akihiko Hoshide from JAXA and Thomas Pesquet from ESA.

“Welcome to the ISS, we are very pleased to have you on board,” said NASA astronaut and space station commander, Shannon Walker.

The Crew 2 mission temporarily increases the total number of astronauts on board the revolving research laboratory to 11.

The view from SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spaceship Endeavor of the International Space Station, as well as the company’s Crew Dragon spaceship Resilience, as the capsule approached the dock on April 24, 2021.

NASA TV

Endeavor joins another Crew Dragon spaceship, Resilience, which arrived on the space station in November with astronauts for the Crew 1 mission. SpaceX plans to bring Resilience back to Earth with the four Crew 1 astronauts on Wednesday April 28th.

From left: Mission Specialist Thomas Pesquet from ESA, Pilot Megan McArthur from NASA, Commander Shane Kimbrough from NASA and Mission Specialist Akihiko Hoshide from JAXA.

SpaceX

The Crew 2 mission marks additional innovations for SpaceX, with the company reusing both a rocket and capsule for the mission. Endeavor previously flew the Demo 2 mission and the Falcon 9 rocket booster previously launched the Crew 1 mission. In addition, SpaceX surpassed the total number of astronauts launched under the Mercury program, which began in 1958.

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SpaceX launches Starship SN11 however crashes on touchdown try

SpaceX launches Starship SN11 but crashes on landing attempt

The latest SpaceX prototype of its Starship rocket was destroyed on Tuesday while attempting to land after a clean launch.

The company’s livestream of the flight test froze as the rocket landed, and thick fog around SpaceX’s Texas facility made it difficult for witnesses to see what had happened.

The spaceship prototype Serial Number 11 or SN11 reached its target altitude of approximately 10 kilometers. The rocket is made of stainless steel and represents the early versions introduced in 2019. Elon Musk’s company develops Starship with the aim of bringing cargo and people on missions to the moon and Mars.

The Starship prototypes are about 150 feet tall, or about the size of a 15-story building, and are each powered by three Raptor rocket engines.

Starship’s SN11 prototype rocket is on the launchpad at the company’s Boca Chica, Texas facility.

SpaceX

Musk tweeted about half an hour after the test that “at least the crater is in the right place!”

“Something significant happened just after we landed. Should know what it was when we can examine the parts later today,” Musk said.

SpaceX’s chief integration engineer, John Insprucker, noted that the thick fog in the area prevented the company from showing camera views beyond those of the rocket.

“The frozen view we saw on the camera doesn’t mean we’re waiting for the signal. Starship 11 isn’t coming back. Don’t wait for the landing,” Insprucker said. “We seem to have lost all the data on the vehicle and of course the team is not on the landing pad, so we’ll be out there and see what we had.”

A spectator holds a piece of debris near 5 miles from where the SpaceX SN11 test rocket exploded on landing, in Boca Chica, Texas on March 30, 2021.

Gene Blevins | Reuters

SpaceX has successfully launched four Starship prototypes for high altitude flight tests, starting with the SN8 in December, then SN9 in February, and SN10 and now SN11. While the takeoffs went largely according to plan, the landing attempts ended with a large number of explosions. SpaceX is the only major rocket builder trying to land its vehicles after launch. Traditionally, large rocket amplifiers are discarded after launch.

Musk’s goal is for Starship to be fully reusable and envision a missile that resembles an airliner and that can launch between flights with little maintenance and fuel. While SpaceX didn’t successfully land the prototype SN10 until after a high-altitude flight test – although the rocket exploded a few minutes later – the company landed earlier prototypes after short flights to an altitude of around 500 feet.

The SN10 spacecraft prototype returns for a soft landing on a concrete slab at the company’s facility in Boca Chica, Texas.

SpaceX

Musk said Tuesday that SpaceX’s next prototype, Starship SN15, will hit the Launchpad “in a few days”.

“It has hundreds of design improvements in terms of structure, avionics / software, and engine,” said Musk.

Starship is one of two “Manhattan projects” that SpaceX is developing at the same time. The other is the Starlink satellite internet program. Musk previously estimated that Starship would cost around $ 5 billion to fully develop, although SpaceX has not disclosed how much it spent on the program. The company raised $ 850 million in its most recent capital raise, valued at $ 74 billion, last month.

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SpaceX engineer pleads responsible to DOJ insider buying and selling fees

SpaceX engineer pleads guilty to DOJ insider trading charges

SpaceX headquarters in Los Angeles, California.

AaronP / Bauer-Griffin | GC Images | Getty Images

A SpaceX engineer pleaded guilty to a Justice Department charge of insider trading, the agency said Thursday after using information obtained on the dark Internet to trade public securities using non-public information.

The DOJ’s criminal case against James Roland Jones of Hermosa Beach, California was investigated by the FBI in 2017.

In the government’s appeal agreement announcement, Jones was identified as a SpaceX engineer, although the agency did not specify whether he was currently working for the space company or whether he was doing so at the time of the fraud.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission also accused Jones of “carrying out a fraudulent operation to sell what he called” insider tips “online for Bitcoin. The SEC did not have SpaceX in its complaint called.

The case does not appear to be related to any information about or relating to SpaceX.

SpaceX, the DOJ, and the SEC did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.

The DOJ said Jones used the nickname “MillionaireMike” to purchase information such as address, date of birth, and social security number on the dark internet. The SEC-defined dark web “refers to anything on the Internet that is not indexed or accessible through a search engine like Google.”

Jones then used that information to conduct financial transactions on material, nonpublic information, the DOJ claims. In April 2017, an undercover FBI agency gave Jones “alleged inside information regarding a publicly traded company,” the DOJ said.

“From April 18, 2017 to May 4, 2017, Jones and a conspirator conducted numerous securities transactions based on this alleged inside information,” the DOJ said.

The SEC accused Jones of violating the federal securities law. Jones agreed to a forked settlement with the SEC and faces a maximum five-year sentence in federal prison under his request to the DOJ.

“This case shows that the SEC can and will prosecute securities law violations wherever they operate, including the Internet,” said David Peavler, director of the SEC’s Fort Worth regional office, in a statement.

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SpaceX prepares for Air Pressure check of Starlink satellite tv for pc web

SpaceX prepares for Air Force test of Starlink satellite internet

Edwards Air Force Base can be seen in California’s Mojave Desert in this photo taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station.

NASA

Elon Musk’s SpaceX is preparing to further test its Starlink satellite internet in a demonstration for the US Air Force, the company said in a recent inquiry to the Federal Communications Commission.

“SpaceX is trying to make minor changes to its experimental approval for additional testing activities with the federal government,” the company wrote on Thursday in a message to the FCC.

“The tests are designed to demonstrate the ability to send and receive information about (1) two stationary ground locations and (2) an aircraft in one location, and would include these (3) limited tests from a moving vehicle on the ground” said SpaceX.

Starlink is the company’s capital-intensive project to build an interconnected internet network of thousands of satellites, known in the aerospace industry as a Constellation, designed to deliver high-speed internet to consumers around the world.

SpaceX announced that it is partnering with Ball Aerospace, a defense and space company that will provide the antennas needed to connect Starlink satellites to an aircraft, for this test.

SpaceX found that Ball specifically manufactures “compliant antennas for tactical aircraft” – that is, military jets.

Musk’s company also found the Starlink test is being conducted as part of the Air Force Research Laboratory’s Defense Experimentation Using Commercial Space Internet (DEUCSI) program, a $ 9.7 million contract for the Ball in August received. SpaceX highlighted that the FCC previously approved Starlink experimental tests, including previous Air Force tests dating back to early 2018.

“The commission previously granted SpaceX experimental clearance for activities conducted with the federal government to demonstrate SpaceX’s capability [non-geostationary orbit] System for sending and receiving information between fixed locations on the ground and airborne ground stations on board moving aircraft, “the company said in its filing with the FCC.

SpaceX, Ball Aerospace, and the Air Force Research Laboratory did not respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.

Upcoming tests

The Air Force experiment begins with ground tests near SpaceX’s Starlink manufacturing facilities in Redmond, Washington. The test for a “surface-to-air scenario” will then be relocated to Edwards Air Force Base in California.

“An antenna terminal is being built into an aircraft. SpaceX is designing a special installation kit that consists of mechanical plates for the low-profile antennas and a windproof fairing to reduce the impact on the aircraft for this installation,” SpaceX said in the FCC filing.

While SpaceX has not identified a target schedule for the tests, the company anticipates “testing will take four to six months”.

SpaceX deploys 60 Starlink satellites in orbit.

SpaceX

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SpaceX lands Starship SN10 rocket after a high-altitude flight take a look at

SpaceX lands Starship SN10 rocket after a high-altitude flight test

The Starship prototype SN9 starts at the company’s development facility in Boca Chica, Texas.

SpaceX

SpaceX’s spaceship prototype exploded for the first time shortly after landing after a high-altitude flight test on Wednesday.

The cause of the explosion, or whether it was intentional, was not immediately clear.

The company test flew with the Starship rocket Serial Number 10 or SN10. SpaceX wanted to launch the prototype to an altitude of 10 kilometers or an altitude of 32,800 feet.

The Starship prototype stands about 150 feet tall, or about the size of a 15-story building, and is powered by three Raptor rocket engines. The rocket is made of stainless steel and represents the early versions of the rocket introduced in 2019.

Musk’s company develops Starship with the goal of bringing cargo and people on missions to the moon and Mars.

The SN10 flight was similar to SpaceX’s December and February when it tested the SN8 and SN9 prototypes. Both earlier missiles served multiple development goals – including testing aerodynamics, turning off the engines one at a time, and turning them around to align for landing – but both prototypes exploded on impact when attempting to land and couldn’t slow down enough.

As with the SN8 and SN9, the goal of the SN10 flight was not necessarily to reach the maximum altitude, but rather to test several important parts of the spacecraft system. SpaceX fired all three engines to take off, then shut them off one by one as the rocket neared its intended altitude.

SN10 then transferred propellant from the main tanks to the collection tanks before turning for the “belly flop” reentry maneuver – allowing it a controlled descent through the air with the missile’s four flaps. In the final moments of the descent, SpaceX turned the rocket over and brought it back into a vertical orientation. The Raptor engines were fired to slow down for landing.

Starship is one of two “Manhattan projects” that SpaceX is developing at the same time. The other is the Starlink satellite internet program. Musk previously estimated that Starship would cost around $ 5 billion to fully develop, although SpaceX has not yet disclosed how much it has spent on the program.

The company raised $ 850 million in its most recent capital raise, valued at $ 74 billion, last month.

Musk remains “very confident” that Starship “will be safe enough for human transportation by 2023” – an ambitious target as the company began serious development and testing of the missile in early 2019.

But Musk’s schedule is crucial, as Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa has paid to fly a spacecraft around the moon until 2023. Maezawa announced Tuesday that he is inviting eight members of the public to join his DearMoon mission, which will be a six-day trip to the moon and back.

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