Artykuły o Starship

[Orionid]

Second Starship prototype damaged in pressurization test
by Jeff Foust — March 1, 2020


A video feed capturing SpaceX's Starship SN1 vehicle bursting during a pressurization test late Feb. 28 at Boca Chica, Texas. Credit: Space Padre Isle

WASHINGTON — A second prototype of SpaceX’s Starship launch vehicle was destroyed in a pressurization test Feb. 28 at the company’s Boca Chica, Texas, facility.

Video from several observers showed the vehicle bursting at about 11 p.m. Eastern. The vehicle, without its nose cone or with any Raptor engines yet installed, was on a test stand being loaded with liquid nitrogen. The vehicle appeared to come apart near the bottom, sending the top section flying, with a second burst after that section hit the ground.

Photos the next day showed that little of the vehicle, known as Starship SN1, survived. There were no reports by local authorities of any injuries. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment early Feb. 29 about the test, and company founder Elon Musk, who routinely has shared details about Starship development on Twitter, has not tweeted since before the incident.

The destruction of Starship SN1 is similar to the loss of another prototype, called Starship Mark 1, in November. That vehicle was also undergoing a pressurization test when a bulkhead failed, sending part of the vehicle flying into the air. SpaceX said that incident took place during a test to “pressurize systems to the max” and that the failure was not unexpected, nor was it “a serious setback.”

Musk, at a September event at Boca Chica, said that Starship Mark 1 would fly in one or two months, but the company said after the test incident that was not the case. “The decision had already been made to not fly this test article and the team is focused on the Mk3 builds, which are designed for orbit,” the company said. SpaceX later renamed Starship Mark 3 to Starship SN1.

SpaceX appeared to be preparing Starship SN1 for a static-fire test with at least one Raptor engine installed. “Starship SN1 tank preparing for Raptor attachment & static fire,” Musk tweeted Feb. 25. There were also notices to airmen (NOTAMs) related to test activity at the site, but it wasn’t clear if those notices covered any planned static fire tests or only the pressurization test.

That static test was to be followed by at least one suborbital test flight of the vehicle, where it would take off, fly to an altitude of 20 kilometers, and land back at Boca Chica. In a late December tweet, Musk said that flight would likely take place in two or three months.

SpaceX had yet to receive a launch license or experimental permit from the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation for a suborbital test flight, but had filed two applications with the Federal Communications Commission for licenses needed for telemetry and vehicle radar operations for that mission. Both license applications requested a six-month period of operations starting in mid-March.

There had been speculation that Starship SN1 might only have been used for static-fire tests, with another prototype under construction, Starship SN2, used for test flights. The SN2 version features improved production and welding techniques.

“Designing a rocket is trivial,” Musk said in an on-stage interview Feb. 28 at the Air Force Association’s annual winter symposium, hours before the ill-fated pressurization test, discussing his philosophy regarding innovation. By contrast, “the hard part is making it, and making lots of them, and launching frequently.”

Source: https://spacenews.com/second-starship-prototype-damaged-in-pressurization-test/

[Orionid]

Second Starship test article implodes during pressure test
March 2, 2020 Stephen Clark [SFN]


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=275&v=GenS0_BvGPU&feature=emb_title

A prototype for SpaceX’s Starship vehicle imploded during a pressurization test at the company’s facility in South Texas Friday night, an event captured on video by local residents.

The stainless steel structure ruptured after being loaded with cryogenic fluid at SpaceX’s seaside launch complex at Boca Chica, Texas. SpaceX was testing the test article’s structural integrity by loading it with super-cold liquid nitrogen at high pressure.

The Starship test article, designated SN1, was built at a nearby fabrication site on SpaceX property before rolling down the road to the company’s test stand and launch pad. The Starship is SpaceX’s next major rocket program, and is designed to be fully reusable.

A similar Starship prototype ruptured during a similar pressure test in November.

Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, said last September that the company’s first full-scale Starship vehicle, known as Starship Mk1, would perform an atmospheric test launch to an altitude of 65,000 feet (20 kilometers).

But SpaceX scrapped those plans and repurposed the Starship Mk1 vehicle as a ground test article. It blew its top Nov. 20 during a cryogenic pressure test.

“That was not completely unanticipated,” said Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s president and chief operating officer, in December. “That was really kind of a manufacturing prototype. And as we were building it, we were saying, you know, this is probably not the right way to do this. But we wanted to finish the build anyhow … So we decided to pressurize it. There were cracks in it, and we blew the lid off.”

SpaceX assembled a modified Starship vehicle — the Starship SN1 — at Boca Chica to begin the next phase of testing.

Images taken Saturday at Boca Chica showed wreckage from the Starship SN1 strewn around the test site. It’s not expected to be salvaged.

“It’s fine, we’ll just buff it out,” Musk joked on Twitter.

He said a “puck” at the base of the vehicle, where Raptor engines would be mounted on a flight test or test-firing, may have been source of the failure.

“There’s a puck at the base that takes the engine thrust load,” Musk tweeted. “Don’t shuck the puck!”


Artist’s illustration of the Super Heavy and Starship vehicle in flight. Credit: SpaceX

On orbital missions, the Starship is designed to launch on top of a massive booster SpaceX has named the “Super Heavy.” Fitted with approximately 37 methane-fueled Raptor engines, the Super Heavy booster will propel the Starship craft into space.

Six Raptor engines will be mounted on the Starship vehicle itself, when the rocket is configured for orbital flight. Both the Super Heavy and Starship will return to Earth for vertical landings to be flown again, and SpaceX says the Starship is capable of landing on other planetary surfaces, such as the moon or Mars.

The entire Super Heavy/Starship vehicle will stand nearly 40 stories tall, which would make it the largest rocket ever built.

Late last year, SpaceX paused development of a Starship vehicle on Florida’s Space Coast to focus on construction and testing in South Texas. The company is building a new hangar at South Texas to provide more controlled working conditions there — the Starship Mk1 was assembled outdoors — and officials have revived plans to produce Starship hardware at a new factory at the Port of Los Angeles, after halting a previous plan to build a new manufacturing facility there.

“We started scrappy,” Shotwell said in December. “We’re going less scrappy. The way we built that (Mk1 vehicle), we had not only horizontal welds, but we had vertical welds. We don’t do many vertical welds. We really want to weld in rings. We do have vertical welds on Falcon, but it’s friction stir welding in a controlled environment. That’s a lot easier.

“So it was good to get that done,” she said. “We learned a lot, and it’s time to move on to the next way of building.”

SpaceX is already working on Starship SN2.

“We’re stripping SN2 to bare minimum to test the thrust puck to dome weld under pressure, first with water, then at cryo,” Musk tweeted.

He said it will hopefully be ready for testing in a few days.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/03/02/second-starship-test-article-implodes-during-pressure-test/

[Orionid]

SpaceX loses third Starship prototype in cryogenic ground test
April 3, 2020 Stephen Clark [SFN]



A prototype for SpaceX’s Starship space vehicle collapsed during pressure testing early Friday at the company’s facility in South Texas — the program’s third failure during such testing since November — but assembly of a new version is already underway.

The stainless steel cylinder appeared to rupture near its top after filling with super-cold liquid nitrogen overnight at SpaceX’s launch site at Boca Chica, Texas. Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, tweeted early Friday that the accident may have been the result of a “test configuration mistake.”

The Starship the upper stage of of SpaceX’s next-generation launch and space transportation system. Coupled with a massive booster named the Super Heavy, the Starship could haul more than 100 metric tons, or 220,000 pounds, of cargo to low Earth orbit, according to SpaceX.

The fully reusable Super Heavy and Starship vehicles, which will also be able to carry people, will eventually replace the partially reusable Falcon rocket family, SpaceX says.

But testing of Starship prototypes in South Texas has not gone as quickly as Musk hoped. Last September, Musk said he wanted the Starship to reach orbit within six months. That timeframe passed last week, and no full-size Starship test craft has flown yet.

Pressure testing of the third Starship prototype, designated SN3, was completed earlier this week at ambient temperatures. The next step was to load cryogenic liquid nitrogen into the vehicle, a test that ended with Friday morning’s

If the pressure testing this week had completed without incident, SpaceX teams aimed to perform a test-firing of the Starship SN3 vehicle’s propulsion system as soon as next week. That would have been followed by a short hop of the Starship.

SPadre@SpacePadreIsle 10:29 PM - Apr 3, 2020
SN3 disassembly

Twitter

Last August, SpaceX performed a nearly 500-foot (150-meter) hop of an earlier iteration of the Starship called the Hopper.

Friday’s test incident was the third time a Starship prototype has ruptured during pressure testing.

The first Starship test vehicle, dubbed the Starship Mk1, blew up during a pressure test in South Texas on Nov. 20. That vehicle was originally supposed to perform a test flight to an altitude of 65,000 feet (20 kilometers), but SpaceX said they had changed those plans and repurposed the Starship Mk1 to a ground test unit before the Nov. 20 mishap.

A modified Starship prototype named SN1 collapsed during a Feb. 28 pressure test. Musk said engineers believed that failure was with a “thrust puck” at the bottom of the vehicle that transfers loads from the vehicle’s Raptor engines.

SpaceX stripped down the next Starship prototype, named SN2, to test the weld connecting the thrust puck to the vehicle. That testing was successful.

Like SN1, the SN3 prototype was built without aerodynamic fins or a nose cone, which would be included in a full-size flight vehicle.

Construction of the next Starship vehicle, named SN4, has already started in South Texas. The work is continuing amid the coronavirus pandemic, and many aerospace companies like SpaceX are continuing their work under exemptions to local and state stay-at-home orders.

Aerospace parts are considered part of the nation’s critical manufacturing sector, and SpaceX is considered part of the U.S. military’s industrial base. The Starship could eventually launch national security payloads.

SpaceX is also planning a Starship production facility in Los Angeles, and could launch future Starships from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. For now, production and testing is centered in South Texas.

The company recently published its first Starship payload user’s guide.

In the user’s guide, SpaceX officials wrote that the Starship and Super Heavy could deliver more than 100 metric tons to low Earth orbit, and 21 metric tons (more than 46,000 pounds) to geostationary transfer orbit, the drop-off point for many commercial and military communications satellites.

With in-orbit refueling, a capability still in the nascent stages of development, the Starship could deliver more than 100 metric tons of payload to the surface of the moon or Mars, according to SpaceX.

A crew-capable configuration of the Starship could ferry up to 100 people from Earth to low Earth orbit, the moon, or Mars, SpaceX says.

“The crew configuration of Starship includes private cabins, large common areas, centralized storage, solar storm shelters and a viewing gallery,” SpaceX wrote in the Starship user’s guide.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/04/03/spacex-loses-third-starship-prototype-in-cryogenic-ground-test/

[Orionid]

SpaceX Starship test vehicle explodes moments after test-firing
May 29, 2020 Stephen Clark [SFN]

A full-size prototype of SpaceX’s Starship violently exploded in South Texas moments after a test-firing of its Raptor engine Friday, dealing a setback to the company’s next-generation reusable rocket program.

The fiery explosion at SpaceX’s test site at Boca Chica, just east of Brownsville near the U.S.-Mexico border, occurred at 1:49 p.m. CDT (2:49 p.m. EDT; 1849 GMT) Friday, around two minutes after a brief firing of a Raptor engine mounted to the base of the Starship vehicle.

SpaceX typically evacuates the area around the test site for engine hotfires, and there were no reports of injuries Friday.

A cloud of vapors suddenly appeared around the bottom of the Starship vehicle — made of stainless steel — moments after the Raptor engine appeared to complete a normal test-firing that lasted a few seconds. Vapors were also visible streaming from vents higher up on the Starship vehicle before the explosion.

The Starship was loaded with cryogenic methane and liquid oxygen propellants for Friday’s test.

The fire appeared to originate near the base of the rocket, and the Starship was nearly instantaneously engulfed in a fireball. Multiple live webcams aimed at the Starship showed debris from the rocket falling around the test stand, which also appeared to sustain damage.

The explosion occurred one day before a separate SpaceX team at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida plans a second launch attempt for the company’s first spaceflight with humans aboard a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft. An earlier try was scrubbed Wednesday due to bad weather.

The Starship is SpaceX’s next-generation spaceship. The company intends for the Starship and its booster rocket, called the Super Heavy, to eventually replace the Falcon 9 and Dragon vehicles.

The loss of another Starship vehicle Friday marked the fourth time a Starship test vehicle destroyed during ground testing in a little more than six months.

An initial Starship prototype ruptured during cryogenic pressure testing at Boca Chica last November, less than two months after SpaceX founder Elon Musk hosted a presentation at the South Texas test site provide an update on the company’s Starship plans.

Speaking to reporters and space fans last September, Musk suggested the first Starship prototype could perform a high-altitude atmospheric test flight before the end of 2019.

But SpaceX has since refined the Starship design and introduced improved manufacturing techniques to address structural deficiencies.

A second Starship test rocket crumpled during another pressure test in early March, and a third one collapsed during a similar cryogenic loading test April 3. Friday’s accident was the first Starship mishap to occur in conjunction with a Raptor engine test.

But SpaceX quickly moved on to the next Starship prototype as part of the company’s fast-paced iterative development process. Additional Starships are already in production for the next stage of testing at Boca Chica for the next stage of testing.

The fourth full-size Starship vehicle, which was destroyed Friday, passed the cryogenic pressure test milestone April 26. SpaceX then installed a Raptor engine on the bottom of the vehicle and conducted a test-firing May 5, then performed a series of additional hotfire tests throughout May leading up to Friday’s Raptor test-firing.

The tests were leading up to a hop test of the Starship vehicle as soon as next week. A temporary flight restriction closing airspace over the Boca Chica test site to an altitude of 26,000 feet (7,900 meters) was in place for Monday, June 1, suggesting SpaceX might attempt a low-altitude test flight of the Starship on that date.

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a launch license Thursday for SpaceX to conduct suborbital test flights of the Starship prototype at Boca Chica, clearing a major regulatory hurdle before the company proceeds into the next phase of flight testing with a full-size Starship vehicle. A sub-scale Starship prototype flew last August on a hop to an altitude of 500 feet (150 meters), then translated to a nearby landing pad, where it descended vertically and touched down.

The Starship is one of two components of SpaceX’s next-generation reusable launch system, which the company says will be the most powerful rocket ever built. Future Starship vehicles will be joined with a Super Heavy booster, which SpaceX is also developing, to loft massive payloads into Earth orbit, to the moon, Mars and other deep space destinations.

The privately-developed Starship vehicle stands around 164 feet (50 meters) tall with its nose cone installed. The nose cone, which includes aerodynamic fins, was not on the rocket for Wednesday’s test. The vehicle measures around 30 feet (9 meters) in diameter, about one-and-a-half times the diameter of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet.

Combined with the Super Heavy first stage, the entire stack will stand around 387 feet (118 meters) tall. The Super Heavy will be powered by more than 30 Raptor engines, according to SpaceX.

An operational Starship could haul more than 100 metric tons, or 220,000 pounds, of cargo to low Earth orbit, SpaceX said.

“Starship has the capability to transport satellites, payloads, crew, and cargo to a variety of orbits and Earth, lunar, or Martian landing sites,” SpaceX wrote in a Starship user’s guide released earlier this year.

NASA awarded SpaceX a $135 million contract April 30 to advance steps to demonstrate the feasibility of using a Starship variant to land astronauts on the moon as part of the space agency’s Artemis program. NASA also awarded lunar lander contracts to industrial teams led by Blue Origin and Dynetics.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/05/29/spacex-starship-test-vehicle-explodes-moments-after-test-firing/

[Orionid]

Starship prototype makes first high-altitude flight, explodes upon landing
by Jeff Foust — December 9, 2020 [SN]


SpaceX's Starship SN8 prototype shortly after liftoff from Boca Chica, Texas, Dec. 9. Credit: SpaceX webcast

WASHINGTON — SpaceX performed the first high-altitude test flight of a prototype of its Starship launch vehicle Dec. 9, with the vehicle successfully lifting off the pad but exploding when attempting a landing several minutes later.

The Starship SN8 vehicle lifted off from SpaceX’s test site at Boca Chica, Texas, at approximately 5:45 p.m. Eastern. The flight was the first high-altitude test of the vehicle, intended to go to an altitude of 12.5 kilometers before descending and making a powered vertical landing back at the launch site.

The vehicle ascended into the Texas sky, although SpaceX did not immediately provide information on the actual altitude that the vehicle reached. One of the three Raptor engines in the base of the vehicle shut down 1 minute and 40 seconds after liftoff, briefly igniting equipment in the engine bay. A second engine shut down 3 minutes and 15 seconds after liftoff.

The last engine shut down 4 minutes and 40 seconds after liftoff, at which point the vehicle began to descend. It shifted into a horizontal orientation, using its fins to guide its descent. At 6 minutes and 32 seconds after liftoff, Starship reignited its engines and reoriented to the vertical to attempt a powered landing. However, the vehicle appeared to be going too fast and made a hard landing 10 seconds later, exploding.


The Starship SN8 prototype explodes upon landing. Credit: SpaceX webcast

That explosion destroyed the vehicle, leaving behind a large portion of the nose cone section but little else. Nonetheless, SpaceX declared the flight a success on its webcast, displaying a graphic stating, “Awesome test. Congrats Starship team!”

“Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD, but we got all the data we needed!” Musk tweeted shortly after the flight. A “RUD” is a “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” or an explosion. “Congrats SpaceX team hell yeah!!”

Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD, but we got all the data we needed! Congrats SpaceX team hell yeah!!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2020

Musk had played down the chances of a completely successful test flight before the SN8 liftoff. “Probably 1/3 chance of completing all mission objectives,” he tweeted Dec. 7, the day before the first launch attempt for Starship SN8. SpaceX scrubbed that Dec. 8 launch attempt just 1.3 seconds before liftoff after an “auto abort” of the Raptor engines.

The SN8 vehicle is the latest in a line of prototypes developed by SpaceX for its next-generation reusable launch system. Two previous vehicles, SN5 and SN6, each made brief “hop” flights in August and September, respectively, going to no more than 150 meters before landing on flights lasting about one minutes each. Those prototypes, which lacked the nose cone sections and aerodynamic surfaces needed for high-altitude flights, were retired after their hop tests.



Four other prototypes were destroyed in earlier ground tests, dating back to November 2019. Three were destroyed in pressurization tests while a fourth, SN4, exploded after what appeared to be a successful static-fire test in May.

Those failures have put SpaceX behind the schedule Musk set at a media event in Boca Chica in September 2019. “This thing is going to take off, fly to 65,000 feet, about 20 kilometers, and come back and land, in about one or two months,” he said then, referring to a prototype called Starship Mark 1 on display then. That prototype was destroyed in a November 2019 pressurization test.

Despite the test failures and delays, SpaceX has continued to produce more prototypes as it expands its production facility at Boca Chica, on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico near Brownsville, Texas. Another Starship prototype, SN9, is largely complete, and could begin testing in the near future.

“Mars, here we come!!” Musk tweeted after the SN8 flight.

https://spacenews.com/starship-prototype-makes-first-high-altitude-flight-explodes-upon-landing/

[Orionid]

SpaceX’s Starship achieves most objectives in mesmerizing test flight
December 9, 2020 Stephen Clark [SFN]


SpaceX’s Starship SN8 vehicle descends back to its landing site at Boca Chica, Texas. Credit: Isis Valencia / Spaceflight Now

A full-size prototype of SpaceX’s heavy-lift Starship launch vehicle soared high into the atmosphere Wednesday in a spectacular test flight over South Texas, and successfully guided itself  to a beachside landing site before exploding at touchdown.

Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, hailed the nearly seven-minute test flight as a success.

“Mars, here we come!” Musk tweeted. “Thank you, South Texas for your support! This is the gateway to Mars.”

Designed for vertical takeoffs and vertical landings, the Starship is part of a giant new rocket SpaceX says will carry more than 100 tons of cargo into space per mission, and as many as 100 people on expeditions to Mars.

The privately-developed Starship’s three Raptor engines performed well, Musk tweeted, but low pressure inside the nose cone tanks feeding the engines during their landing burn caused the rocket to crash-land in a fireball, scattering metallic debris across SpaceX’s launch facility at Boca Chica, Texas, near the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Successful ascent, switchover to header tanks & precise flap control to landing point!” Musk tweeted. “Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD [Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly], but we got all the data we needed! Congrats SpaceX team hell yeah!!”

The 164-foot-tall (50-meter) Starship test vehicle — designated Serial Number 8, or SN8 — took off at 4:45 p.m. CST (5:45 p.m. EST; 2245 GMT) Wednesday from SpaceX’s rocket development and test facility at Boca Chica, located on the Texas Gulf Coast east of Brownsville.

Three Raptor engines, burning methane mixed with super-cold liquid oxygen, ignited with a flash of orange to power the Starship rocket off the launch pad with more than a million pounds of thrust, delighting crowds gathered in South Texas to witness the test flight, and thousands more watching the launch online.

The Starship SN8 test vehicle slowly climbed off the launch pad, trailing a flickering flame of super-heated exhaust, and soared high into the atmosphere, targeting an altitude of 41,000 feet, or 12.5 kilometers, higher than most commercial airliners fly.

One of the Raptor engines shut down a little more than a minute-and-a-half into the flight, followed by cutoff of a second engine more than three minutes after liftoff. The remaining engine switched off at about T+plus 4 minutes, 40 seconds, and the Starship’s thrusters and control flaps put the rocket in a horizontal “belly flop” orientation for the descent back to the ground.

Live views from Starship test rocket streamed online by SpaceX showed vehicle’s control surfaces moving to help steer the rocket during its fall through the atmosphere. Local residents and space enthusiasts watching the flight in person let out cheers as the rocket took off, then again as it began its fall back to Earth.

In a mesmerizing scene, the rocket appeared to glide through the atmosphere, appearing like a shining airship from an earlier era of flight.

Seconds before reaching the ground, two of the Starship’s Raptor engines reignited and vectored their thrust as the rocket’s control surfaces flexed to quickly flip the rocket into a vertical position for landing.

The stainless-steel rocket’s guidance system appeared to steer the Starship over its landing pad, just east of where the vehicle took off to begin the test flight. One of the engines appeared to shut down moments later, with a flash of green in the rocket’s exhaust plume.

The 30-foot (9-meter) wide Starship — wider than the fuselage of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet — settled onto the landing pad at high speed, and the rocket erupted in a giant fireball. When the smoke cleared, the landing site was littered with mangled metallic debris, while text appeared on SpaceX’s official live stream saying “Awesome test. Congrats Starship team!”

Musk said the Raptor engines “did great” on the Starship SN8 test flight. The methane-fueled Raptor is SpaceX’s most advanced rocket engine, generating more than twice the thrust of the kerosene-fueled Merlin engine flown on the company’s currently operational Falcon 9 rockets.

“SN8 did great! Even reaching apogee would’ve been great, so controlling all way to putting the crater in the right spot was epic!!” Musk tweeted.


SpaceX’s Starship SN8 test rocket takes off from Boca Chica, Texas. Credit: Isis Valencia / Spaceflight Now

In a more detailed statement, SpaceX officials wrote that the Starship test rocket “successfully ascended, transitioned propellant, and performed its landing flip maneuver with precise flap control to reach its landing point. Low pressure in the fuel header tank during the landing burn led to high touchdown velocity resulting in a hard (and exciting!) landing.”

Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon.com and rocket company Blue Origin, congratulated SpaceX on the successes from Wednesday’s test flight.

“Anybody who knows how hard this stuff is is impressed by today’s Starship test,” Bezos wrote. “Big congrats to the whole SpaceX team. I’m confident they’ll be back at it soon.”

“Congrats to SpaceX for achieving this milestone,” tweeted Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA’s science directorate. “I stopped the NASA meeting I was in and we all watched the flight together. I walked away with a much better understanding of the profound differences of Starship as compared to other rockets.”

The test flight Wednesday afternoon came after SpaceX halted a launch attempt earlier in the day. SpaceX aborted a countdown Tuesday afternoon just one second before launch.

Before Wednesday’s test flight, SpaceX had performed two “hop” tests with full-scale Starship prototypes, each reaching an altitude of about 500 feet, or 150 meters. Last year, SpaceX flew a subscale Starship test vehicle dubbed the Starhopper on 66-foot (20-meter) and 500-foot test flights.

With good outcomes from those flights, SpaceX was ready to reach higher. Unlike the previous Starship test flights, the vehicle that launched Wednesday had a nose cone, forward aerosurfaces, and body flaps to help control the vehicle in the atmosphere.

“It just falls like a skydiver, and it’s just controlling itself, and it turns and lands,” Musk said in a presentation on the Starship program last year. “It’ll look totally nuts to see that thing land.”

Musk estimated the Starship SN8 rocket had a one-in-three chance of completing all its objectives Wednesday. The primary purposes of the experimental mission Wednesday were to gather data on how clusters of multiple Raptor engines perform in flight and assess the aerodynamic handling characteristics of the full-scale Starship.

Previous low-altitude, low-speed test flights only had a single Raptor engine and did not require aerosurfaces on the vehicle. Those flights did not test out the Starship’s “belly flop” descent and flip maneuver just before landing.

The throttleable Raptor engine is the most powerful engine SpaceX has developed, achieving the highest combustion chamber pressure of any rocket engine in history. Capable of 500,000 pounds of thrust at full throttle, the Raptor is more than twice as powerful as the Merlin engine that flies on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket.

The methane-fueled Raptor is also easier to reuse than the kerosene-fueled Merlin engine, and uses a technically complex full-flow staged combustion design intended to maximize performance.

SpaceX says it has accumulated more than 16,000 seconds of run time during 330 ground engine starts on Raptor engines, including Starship test-firings and four Starship and Starhopper test flights.

“Additionally, with production accelerating and fidelity increasing, SpaceX has built 10 Starship prototypes,” SpaceX said. “SN9 is almost ready to move to the pad, which now has two active stands for rapid development testing.”

SpaceX has rapidly expanded its South Texas production and launch facility, which now has a large vertical rocket integration building and an ever-growing footprint of support buildings, fuel farms, and other infrastructure.

Future operational Starships could ferry people to the moon, Mars, and other destinations in deep space.

The Starship will function as the upper stage on a towering launch vehicle standing nearly 400 feet tall (120 meters). The first stage on the huge launcher, named the Super Heavy, will be powered by 28 Raptor engines.


Artist’s concept of a Super Heavy booster and Starship vehicle stacked together during launch. Credit: SpaceX

Once operational, the Starship could carry more than 100 metric tons, or 220,000 pounds, of cargo to low Earth orbit, more than any rocket in the world. With life support systems and in-space refueling, Starship missions could eventually transport people to the moon, Mars, and other distant destinations.

Starship is central to the vision of Musk, who established the company with a mission of sending people to Mars.

Musk has emphasized SpaceX’s progress on production capabilities and ground infrastructure, allowing the company to rapidly build prototypes, test them, and introduce upgrades and modifications on follow-on vehicles.

SpaceX has started building parts of the first Super Heavy booster. Like the early Starship test flights, the first Super Heavy prototypes will fly to low altitudes with just a few Raptor engines.

For an orbital mission, the Starship will also need a heat shield for re-entry.

Both stages will come back to Earth for propulsive landings, much like the first stage on SpaceX’s partially reusable Falcon 9 rocket. That will make the Super Heavy and Starship fully reusable, drastically lowering the system’s operating costs, according to SpaceX.

NASA, meanwhile, is developing a giant government-owned rocket named the Space Launch System. The single-use SLS is four years behind schedule and running over-budget. NASA hopes to launch the SLS with an unpiloted Orion capsule to orbit the moon and come back to Earth on a test flight before the end of 2021, followed by missions to the moon with astronauts.

No stranger to setting out ambitious schedules for SpaceX programs, Musk said in October that he is “80 to 90% confident that we will reach orbit with Starship next year.”

Musk said last year said the first orbital launch of Starship could happen in 2020. Despite the fast rate of progress, SpaceX won’t meet that schedule.

In August, Musk said that SpaceX is not yet performing much development of the life support systems Starships will need to accommodate people. That will come after SpaceX can prove the vehicle can fly successfully.


Artist’s illustration of SpaceX’s Starship on the lunar surface. Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX’s longer-term roadmap includes an in-orbit refueling capability to make trips to the moon possible. NASA selected SpaceX’s Starship vehicle in May as one of three contenders — alongside Blue Origin and Dynetics — for a human-rated lunar lander the space agency will fund for crewed moon missions later this decade.

In the scenario NASA envisions, astronauts would launch on the Space Launch System and fly an Orion crew capsule to the vicinity of the moon, then dock with a waiting lunar lander to transport them to the lunar surface and back to the Orion for the return trip to Earth.

The moon missions will require SpaceX to master in-orbit refueling between two Starships. Musk said earlier this year he thinks SpaceX has a shot of accomplishing that in 2022.

More recently, in a Dec. 1 ceremony in Berlin in which he received the Axel Springer Award from the German publishing company, Musk said he is “highly confident” that SpaceX could achieve the first human landing on Mars in six years.

“If we get lucky, maybe four years,” he said. “And we want to try to send an uncrewed vehicle there in two years.”

Keeping up with SpaceX hastening pace of production at Boca Chica, the next Starship prototype — designated SN9 — is nearly complete inside a vertical hangar just down the road from the Starship launch site. It will soon be transported to the launch pad for pre-launch testing and a test flight that could happen in a matter of weeks.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/12/09/spacexs-starship-achieves-most-objectives-in-mesmerizing-test-flight/

[Orionid]

SpaceX Starship crashes after suborbital flight
by Jeff Foust — February 2, 2021


SpaceX's Starship SN9 vehicle explodes after crashing at the end of a test flight Feb. 2 at the company's Boca Chica, Texas, test site. Credit: SpaceX webcast

WASHINGTON — A second prototype of SpaceX’s Starship reusable launch vehicle performed a suborbital flight Feb. 2, only to crash while landing.

The Starship SN9 vehicle lifted off at about 3:25 p.m. Eastern from SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas, test site. SpaceX planned to fly the vehicle to an altitude of 10 kilometers before landing on a pad at the test site.

The liftoff and ascent of the vehicle went as expected, according to commentary on the SpaceX webcast by company engineer John Insprucker. The vehicle reached the 10-kilometer mark four minutes after liftoff and, after hovering briefly, flipped to a horizontal orientation to glide back to the landing pad.

As it neared the pad, Starship flipped back to the vertical and ignited its engines. However, only one of the three Raptor engines ignited, and the vehicle appeared to swing past the vertical. The vehicle crashed at close to a 45-degree angle and exploded 6 minutes and 26 seconds after liftoff.

The flight was almost identical to Starship SN8’s flight Dec. 9. That vehicle made what appeared to be a largely successful flight until landing, when an engine failed to ignite and the vehicle came in too quickly, exploding as it hit the pad. However, on that flight the vehicle was in the proper vertical orientation for landing, rather than at an angle as with SN9’s attempted landing.

“We had again another great flight up to the 10-kilometer apogee,” Insprucker said on the webcast after the crash. “We demonstrated the ability to transition the engines to the landing propellant tanks. The subsonic reentry looked very good and stable like we saw again last December.”

“And again, we’ve just got to work on that landing a little bit,” he added, emphasizing that the launch was a test flight.

SpaceX received approval for the flight from the Federal Aviation Administration less than 24 hours earlier. The agency suspended launches from Boca Chica after SpaceX’s SN8 flight. SpaceX had sought a waiver to a maximum public risk requirement in its launch license, but proceeded with the flight even though the FAA rejected the waiver request.

Depending on the outcome of the analysis in the SN9 crash, SpaceX could move ahead quickly in the overall Starship test program. The next prototype, SN10, arrived at the test site Jan. 29. Insprucker said that SN10 is being prepared for a “similar flight later this month.”

Source: https://spacenews.com/spacex-starship-crashes-after-suborbital-flight/

[Orionid]

SpaceX launches and lands Starship prototype, which later explodes
by Jeff Foust — March 3, 2021 [SN]


SpaceX’s Starship SN10 prototype can be seen in this image collected by Maxar’s WorldView-3 satellite approximately seven hours before SN10 lifted off from Boca Chica, Texas, for a March 3 test flight. SN10 climbed to 10 kilometers before making a powered landing. Eight minutes later, the vehicle exploded. Credit: Maxar

WASHINGTON — SpaceX launched a prototype of its Starship next-generation vehicle March 3, landing it safely only to have the vehicle explode minutes later.

The Starship SN10 vehicle lifted off from the company’s Boca Chica, Texas, test site at about 6:15 p.m. Eastern. A launch attempt three hours earlier was aborted at engine ignition because of a “slightly conservative high thrust limit,” company founder and chief executive Elon Musk tweeted.

The SN10 flight followed a similar profile to two previous one, by SN8 on Dec. 9 and SN9 on Feb. 2. The vehicle flew to a planned peak altitude of 10 kilometers, shutting down its three Raptor engines in sequence during the ascent. The vehicle then performed a “belly flop” maneuver to a horizontal orientation to descend back to its landing pad.

On the two previous Starship test flights, SpaceX had problems reigniting two Raptor engines needed for a powered landing after flipping back to a vertical orientation. SpaceX changed the procedure on this landing attempt, igniting all three and then shutting down two as needed for the landing.

That appeared to work. The vehicle touched down on the pad softly, rather than crash and explode, about six minutes and 20 seconds after liftoff. Video showed that the vehicle was leaning slightly but otherwise appeared intact — initially.

“Third time’s the charm, as the saying goes,” John Insprucker, the SpaceX engineer who hosted the company’s webcast of the flight, said. “A beautiful soft landing of Starship on the landing pad in Boca Chica.”


SpaceX’s Starship SN10 prototype prepares to land after a flight to 10 kilometers. The vehicle landed intact, only to explode minutes later. Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX terminated the webcast at that point, but independent webcasts showed that, about eight minutes after landing, there was an explosion at the base of the vehicle. The explosion flung the vehicle into the air, crashing back down on the pad several seconds later. Neither SpaceX nor Musk immediately commented on the explosion, but webcasts showed hoses spraying water at the base of the vehicle in the minutes before the explosion.

Insprucker noted the next prototype, SN11, is “ready to roll out to the pad in the very near future.”

The flight came one day after Starship’s first announced customer revealed new plans for his mission. In September 2018, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa said he had purchased a flight of the vehicle, then known as BFR, for a circumlunar trip in 2023. On that mission, called “dearMoon,” Maezawa would fly with up to eight artists.

Maezawa updated his plans for dearMoon March 2, announcing a contest open to the general public to fly eight people on that mission, still scheduled for 2023. “I began to think that maybe every single person who is doing something creative could be called an artist,” he said in . “If you see yourself as an artist, then you’re an artist.”

The project’s website has opened up preregistrations for the contest, which will be followed by an “assignment” and interviews, with selections of the crew expected by the end of June. The project offered no additional details about that selection process, or any restrictions based on age, physical condition or nationality. The project did not respond to questions from SpaceNews on those and related topics about the project.

Maezawa said a total of 10 to 12 people will fly on the mission, but did not disclose who those beyond the eight selected in the competition would be.

Musk, who also appears in the video, said he believed Starship would be ready to carry people around the moon by 2023. “I’m highly confident that we will have reached orbit many times with Starship before 2023, and that it will be safe enough for human transport by 2023,” he said.

“I’m a little scared,” Maezawa admitted in the video, “but I’m more curious and I trust Elon and the SpaceX team, their technological prowess and teamwork.”

Source: https://spacenews.com/spacex-launches-and-lands-starship-prototype-which-later-explodes/

[Orionid]

SpaceX crashes another Starship prototype
by Jeff Foust — March 30, 2021 [SN]


The last view from onboard cameras on SpaceX's Starship SN11 vehicle showed its Raptor engines reigniting for a landing burn. The vehicle crashed moments later. Credit: SpaceX webcast

WASHINGTON — SpaceX launched its fourth Starship prototype in less than four months March 30, only to have the vehicle apparently crash once again.

The Starship SN11 vehicle lifted off at approximately 9 a.m. Eastern from the company’s Boca Chica, Texas, test site, despite heavy fog that made it all but impossible to see the vehicle ascend. The SpaceX webcast of the flight relied on video from onboard cameras.

The flight appeared to go as planned initially, with the vehicle going up to 10 kilometers altitude, then descending back to the landing pad. The onboard video, though, stopped 5 minutes and 49 seconds after liftoff, just as the vehicle reignited its Raptor engines for landing.

“It looks like we’ve had another exciting test,” SpaceX’s John Insprucker said on the webcast, several minutes after the loss of video. “We’re going to have to find out from the team what happened.”

He did not confirm that the vehicle had been lost, but independent video of the landing showed debris falling around the test site at the time of landing. SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk later acknowledged the vehicle was destroyed, tweeting that “At least the crater is in the right place!”

Elon Musk@elonmusk
A high production rate solves many ills

Elon Musk@elonmusk
At least the crater is in the right place!
3:31 PM · 30 mar 2021
Twitter

“Looks like engine 2 had issues on ascent & didn’t reach operating chamber pressure during landing burn, but, in theory, it wasn’t needed,” he added. “Something significant happened shortly after landing burn start. Should know what it was once we can examine the bits later today.”

The flight was the fourth of a Starship prototype to an altitude of 10 kilometers or more since early December. All four of those vehicles were lost either on landing or shortly thereafter. On the previous test, of Starship SN10 March 3, the vehicle appeared to land intact, only to explode less than 10 minutes later.

This flight was delayed a day after an FAA safety inspector was not able to get to Boca Chica before the window closed for the test. A revision to the FAA’s license for that series of Starship tests, dated March 12, requires an FAA inspector to be at Boca Chica for the tests.

The FAA added that provision after SpaceX violated conditions of its launch license on the SN8 test flight in December, which took place even after the FAA denied SpaceX’s request for a waiver for maximum allowed risk to the uninvolved public. While that flight caused no damage outside of SpaceX’s test facility, the FAA required SpaceX to conduct an investigation into the incident and delayed approval of the next test flight, SN9, in early February.

On March 25, Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) and Rick Larsen (D-Wash.), the chairman of the House Transportation Committee and its aviation subcommittee, respectively, wrote to FAA Administrator Steve Dickson about that incident. “Given the high-risk nature of the industry, we are disappointed that the FAA declined to conduct an independent review of the event and, to the best of our knowledge, has not pursued any form of enforcement action,” they wrote.

https://spacenews.com/spacex-crashes-another-starship-prototype/

[Orionid]

SpaceX’s latest high-altitude Starship test flight ends in another explosion
March 30, 2021 Stephen Clark [SFN]
EDITOR’S NOTE: Updated at 6:15 p.m. EDT (2215 GMT) with FAA statement and debris photos.


The Raptor engines at the base of SpaceX’s Starship test rocket ignite for a landing burn at the end of Tuesday’s flight. Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX’s latest Starship test flight apparently ended with another explosion Tuesday in South Texas, but dense fog obscured clear views of the launch and failed landing. The Federal Aviation Administration said late Tuesday it is working with SpaceX to determine if light debris reported in a nearby town came from the Starship test rocket.

“At least the crater is in the right place,” tweeted Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO. The failed landing came after the destruction of three previous Starship prototypes during or shortly after test flights since December.

Musk later added that “something significant happened shortly after landing burn start. Should know what it was once we can examine the bits later today.”

The privately-developed Starship is SpaceX’s next-generation launch vehicle, capable of ferrying more than 100 metric tons of cargo into low Earth orbit, more than any other rocket in the world. With in-space refueling, the Starship could eventually carry people and heavy supply loads to the moon and Mars.

SpaceX’s live video stream of the test flight showed the unpiloted 164-foot-tall (50-meter) test rocket taking off from the company’s South Texas test site, which Musk calls Starbase, at 8 a.m. CDT (9 a.m. EDT; 1300 GMT).

But the rocket was barely visible in ground-based cameras due to thick fog at the launch base, located east Brownsville on the Texas Gulf Coast near the U.S.-Mexico border. Cameras on-board the stainless steel rocket beamed back live views of its three Raptor engines and aerodynamic fins in action.

The three methane-fueled Raptor engines shut down in sequence — as intended — as the Starship climbed to an altitude of about 10 kilometers, or 33,000 feet, well above the ground-hugging fog layer. The final engine switched off to allow the rocket to tip over on its side for descent back to the ground, in an orientation known as the “belly flop.”

The camera view inside Starship’s engine bay showed the Raptor engines start up for landing, but the video soon froze as the mission clock read T+plus 5 minutes, 49 seconds.

“Looks like we’ve had another exciting test of Starship No. 11,” said John Insprucker, a SpaceX engineer who hosted the webcast of Tuesday’s flight. “A reminder again this is a test series to gather data on entry of the Starship vehicle at subsonic speeds as it comes back to the landing zone.

“A quick recap, we had the nominal ascent, the maneuver to horizontal when we got to 10 kilometers,” Insprucker said. “The entry, we had some nice views from the exterior camera showing the flaps were quiet as we descended, but then we had the camera freeze up as we got in the engine ignition sequence. So we’re going to have to find out from the team what happened.”

Musk said one of the Raptor engines “had issues on ascent” and “didn’t reach operating chamber pressure” during the landing burn.

“But, in theory, it wasn’t needed,” Musk tweeted.

The Raptor engines were supposed to gimbal, or pivot, to flip the rocket back vertical. A single Raptor engine was expected to control the Starship’s final descent to the landing pad, right next to its launch site at the Starbase facility near Boca Chica Beach in South Texas.

Videos from ground-based cameras did not capture the Starship’s descent, but imagery showed debris falling near the landing pad moments after SpaceX’s on-board video cut out.

Photographers at Isla Blanca Park on South Padre Island, located about 5 miles (8 kilometers) north of the Starship launch base, reported light debris that may have come from the rocket. The park is located outside the evacuation zone around the Starbase facility, and is a popular viewing site for SpaceX fans, news media, and local residents


This is one of multiple debris fragments believed to be from the Starship SN11 vehicle recovered on South Padre Island after Tuesday’s test flight. Credit: Gene Blevins/LA Daily News

A Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson said the agency will oversee SpaceX’s investigation of the Starship SN11 “mishap.”

“The vehicle experienced an anomaly during the landing phase of the flight resulting in loss of the vehicle,” the FAA spokesperson said.

“The FAA’s top priority in regulating commercial space transportation is to protect public safety during launch and reentry operations,” the spokesperson said. “The FAA will approve the final mishap investigation report and any corrective actions SpaceX must take before return to flight is authorized.”

The FAA performed similar oversight of SpaceX’s investigations into the last four Starship explosions. The mishap investigation is designed to ensure public safety and seeks to validate that safety systems performed as designed, and that the analysis of public risk was accurate, the FAA said.

According to Musk, SpaceX delayed the Starship SN11 test flight to Tuesday because an FAA safety inspector was unable to reach the test site in South Texas in time for a launch Monday.

SpaceX launched its first high-altitude Starship test flight in December without the FAA’s approval of a change to its launch license. That prompted the FAA to require SpaceX have a federal safety inspector on-site at Boca Chica for future Starship test flights.

There were no reports of injuries or public property damage after the Starship SN11 test accident Tuesday, and the FAA said it is “working with SpaceX to identify whether reports of light debris in the area is related to the mishap or other phases of the flight.”


SpaceX’s Starship SN11 test rocket at Boca Chica, Texas, before Tuesday’s test flight. Credit: SpaceX

The latest Starship test vehicle, designated Serial No. 11, was SpaceX’s fourth full-size Starship prototype to take off from SpaceX’s test site in Cameron County, Texas. SpaceX also lost the test rockets after three previous Starship atmospheric flights in December, February, and earlier this month.

A hard landing on an otherwise-successful Dec. 9 Starship test flight was caused by low pressure from header tanks feeding the vehicle’s Raptor engines for the critical burn just before touchdown, and one of the Raptor engines failed to reignite for the landing burn on a test flight Feb. 2.

The SN10 rocket achieved the first soft landing of a full-size Starship vehicle at the end of a March 3 test flight, but the rocket exploded minutes later.

The orbital version of the Starship vehicle will have six Raptor engines, including three engines with enlarged bell-shaped nozzles optimized for higher efficiency in the vacuum of space. The orbital-class Starship will also have a heat shield to survive re-entry back into the atmosphere.

During an orbital launch attempt, a reusable Super Heavy first stage booster will detach from the Starship — which acts as both an upper stage and in-space transporter — and come back to Earth for a vertical landing. The Starship will continue into orbit and deploy its payloads or travel to its deep space destination, and finally return to Earth to be flown again.

The entire Super Heavy/Starship rocket stack will stand nearly 400 feet, or about 120 meters, tall.


Spectators at Isla Blanca Park could hear, but not see, the Starship SN11 test flight Tuesday due to thick fog. Credit: Gene Blevins/LA Daily News

Along with its own internal research and development efforts, SpaceX is working with NASA on a contract to design and refine concepts for a human-rated lunar lander for the space agency’s Artemis moon program. NASA is expected to select an industrial team as soon as next month to complete development of the crewed lunar lander. SpaceX is competing against bids by Blue Origin and Dynetics.

SpaceX’s long-term plans for Starship operations involve the use of a floating launch pad parked in the ocean. SpaceX is converting a decommissioned offshore drilling platform for its future Super Heavy and Starship launch facility.

The Super Heavy booster will be powered by 28 Raptor engines, producing some 16 million pounds of thrust, more than twice the power output of five booster engines on NASA’s Apollo-era Saturn 5 moon rocket.

The entire Super Heavy and Starship stack will measure around 30 feet (9 meters) wide, about one-and-a-half times the diameter of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet.

SpaceX keeps plowing forward with Starship testing

The early focus of SpaceX’s Starship program has been on building infrastructure at the Starbase test site. Earlier this month, SpaceX completed stacking of the first Super Heavy booster, which Musk said is a “manufacturing pathfinder.”

SpaceX assembled the first Super Heavy test article, named BN1, to help learn how to build and transport the 229-foot-tall (70-meter) first stage, which itself is as tall as a Falcon 9 rocket used by SpaceX for operational satellite launches.

The second Super Heavy booster, which is being fabricated but is not yet assembled, is designed to fly, presumably on a suborbital test launch, according to Musk.

The next step in SpaceX’s Starship test program is the rollout of the next Starship, designated SN15, to the launch pad in South Texas. The Starship production complex is located a couple of miles inland from the launch and landing pads.

SpaceX has skipped forward to the SN15 test rocket, which will roll to the launch pad in a few days, Musk said.

“It has hundreds of design improvements across structures, avionics/software & engine,” Musk tweeted Tuesday. “Hopefully, one of those improvements covers this problem (with SN11). If not, then retrofit will add a few more days.”

“A high production rate solves many ills,” Musk tweeted Tuesday.

SpaceX aims to launch the first fully-stacked Super Heavy and Starship in on an orbital launch attempt from South Texas in July. “That’s our goal,” Musk tweeted.

An orbital launch attempt by July is an aggressive goal, like many schedules outlined by SpaceX’s hard-charging founder and chief executive.

The next major technology update to the Starship vehicle will come with SN20 later this year, according to Musk.

“Those ships will be orbit-capable with heat shield & stage separation system,” Musk tweeted. “Ascent success probability is high. However, SN20+ vehicles will probably need many flight attempts to survive Mach 25 entry heating & land intact.”

Construction and testing of Super Heavy boosters will also continue in the coming weeks and months. The BN1 test article will be scrapped, Musk said.

“We learned a lot, but have already changed design to BN2,” Musk tweeted. “Goal is to get BN2 with engines on orbital pad before end of April. It might even be orbit-capable if we are lucky.”

Musk added that the Starbase site in South Texas “will grow by several thousand people over the next year or two” as SpaceX ramps up production and test flights.

“Please consider moving to Starbase or greater Brownsville/South Padre area in Texas & encourage friends to do so!” he wrote. “SpaceX’s hiring needs for engineers, technicians, builders & essential support personnel of all kinds are growing rapidly.”

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/03/30/spacexs-latest-high-altitude-starship-test-flight-ends-in-apparent-explosion/                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               

[Orionid]

Starship survives test flight
by Jeff Foust — May 5, 2021 [SN]


SpaceX’s Starship SN15 prototype lifts off May 5 on a successful suborbital test flight at Boca Chica, Texas. Credit: SpaceX webcast

WASHINGTON — A SpaceX Starship prototype successfully carried out a brief suborbital flight May 5 after four previous vehicles were destroyed during or shortly after landing.

The Starship SN15 vehicle lifted off from SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas, test site at 6:24 p.m. Eastern. The vehicle flew to an altitude of approximately 10 kilometers before descending and landing back at the test site six minutes after liftoff.

Source: https://spacenews.com/starship-survives-test-flight/

[Orionid]

SpaceX outlines plans for Starship orbital test flight
May 13, 2021 Stephen Clark [SFN]


Artist’s concept of a Super Heavy booster and Starship vehicle stacked together during launch. Credit: SpaceX

SpaceX has revealed the flight plan for the first orbital test launch of the company’s huge stainless steel Starship rocket, a 90-minute, around-the-world mission that will originate from South Texas and culminate with a controlled re-entry and splashdown in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii.

SpaceX included an exhibit outlining the flight plan in a filing posted on the Federal Communications Commission’s website Thursday.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/05/13/spacex-outlines-plans-for-around-the-world-starship-test-flight/

[Orionid]

SpaceX outlines first orbital Starship test flight
by Jeff Foust — May 14, 2021 [SN]


According to a SpaceX application to the FCC, the first orbital test flight of the Starship/Super Heavy system will involve a booster landing in the Gulf of Mexico and a Starship landing in the ocean near Hawaii, to mitigate the risk of a vehicle breakup during reentry. Credit: SpaceX

WASHINGTON — SpaceX has disclosed details for the first orbital test flight of its next-generation Starship launch system, but the company is still far short of the regulatory approvals needed for the mission.

SpaceX filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission May 13 for special temporary authority for communications required to support a Starship test launch from the company’s Boca Chica, Texas, test site. The license would cover communications for what the company called an “experimental orbital demo and recovery test of the Starship test vehicle” launching from Boca Chica.

Source: https://spacenews.com/spacex-outlines-first-orbital-starship-test-flight/

[Orionid]

SpaceX surges Starship work despite FAA environmental review uncertainty
by Jeff Foust — August 4, 2021 [SN]


SpaceX released an image Aug. 2 showing the base of a Super Heavy booster with all 29 Raptor engines installed. Credit: SpaceX

WASHINGTON — The unstoppable force of SpaceX’s recent surge in development of its Starship vehicle for its first orbital flight is in danger of colliding with an immovable object: an ongoing environment review that has no clear end date.

Source: https://spacenews.com/spacex-surges-starship-work-despite-faa-environmental-review-uncertainty/

[Orionid]

Fully stacked Starship caps busy week at SpaceX’s Texas rocket yard
August 8, 2021 Stephen Clark [SFN]


Crews at SpaceX’s Starbase test site in South Texas stack the company’s first full-scale Starship launch vehicle Friday. Credit: SpaceX

Last week’s progress at SpaceX’s Starship development site culminated with the spectacular, but brief, sight of a fully-stacked launcher towering nearly 400 feet above the tidal flats of South Texas.

Source: https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/08/08/fully-stacked-starship-caps-busy-week-at-spacexs-texas-rocket-yard/