Daily Archives: January 17, 2021

SpaceX is preparing to rocket the latest prototype of its Starship spaceship thousands of feet into the air, then land it gently back on the ground.

If the company can pull off this tricky manoeuvre cutting the rocket's engines back on as it plummets toward Earth, just in time to turn it upright, slow its fall, and steadily set down on a landing pad it will be the first time a Starship vehicle has ventured so high and returned in one piece.

Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX in 2002, wants the final Starship-Super Heavy launch system to be fully and rapidly reusable.

If Musk's plan succeeds, Starship may slash the cost of reaching space 1,000-fold, powerround-the-world hypersonic travelon Earth, andfly astronauts to the moon.

Musk hassaidthat his ultimate plan is to build 1,000 Starships that will carry enough people and cargo to Mars to build anindependent, self-sustaining city there.

SpaceX firstlaunched a Starship prototypeof this kind on December 8. Called Starship serial No. 8, or SN8, it roared tens of thousands of feet above the company'sexpanding facilities at Boca Chica, Texas.

SN8 then tipped its nosecone forward, cut off its engines, and began to plummet. As the vehicle neared the ground in a belly-flop-like freefall, it re-fired its engines to flip upright and slow its descent.

However, low pressure in a propellant tank caused the spaceship to fall too fast, slam into its landing pad, andcatastrophically explode.

SpaceX still considered the seven-minute test flight a success, though, because it was inherently an experiment and one that flew higher than ever before and performed unprecedented manoeuvres.

For example, SN8's flight achieved sequential rocket-engine shutdowns, aerial flips, and a belly flop made stable via wing flaps. (Previous test flights had been "hops," with prototypeslaunching a few hundred feet into the air, then landing downrange.)

Now SpaceX is set for another major test flight, and this time it could stick the landing.

Like its predecessor, the new prototype, called SN9, is 16 stories tall and powered by three Raptor engines. SN9tipped overinside a vertical assembly building onDecember 11, but SpaceX appeared to make quick repairs and roll it out to a beachside launch pad.

In preparation for launch, SpaceX clamped down the SN9 and test-fired its engines three times on Wednesday a record static-fire rate for the Starship program.

The company seemed prepared to launch this week, but two of the engines needed repairs, Musktweetedon Thursday. Muskaddedthat he's hoping SpaceX can speed up the engine-swapping process so that it takes "a few hours at most."

SpaceX appears to be targeting a Monday launch. The Federal Aviation Administration issued anairspace closure noticefor a rocket launch from Boca Chica for that day from 8 am to 6 pm CST. The FAA issued similar notices for Tuesday and Wednesday back-up dates in case weather or glitches cause SpaceX to delay the test flight.

Both airspace closure and local road closures are required for launch. The Cameron County judge has issued Boca Chicaroad-closure noticesfor Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 8 am to 5 pm CST.

SpaceX may broadcast the launch attempt live on YouTube. Several online broadcasters, such asNASASpaceFlight.comandLabPadre, also plan to stream live video footage of the flight. We will embed these live feeds below once they're available.

A series of events typically precedes a Starship prototype launch.

A couple of hours beforehand, SpaceX will clear the launch site of personnel. Roughly an hour ahead of flight, storage tanks at the launch site will begin venting gases as SpaceX prepares to fuel Starship with cryogenic fuels. Fuelling later causes Starship to vent gases out of its top, signalling that launch could occur within minutes.

Poor weather, a technical glitch, or a boat entering the launch's danger zone a new challenge for Starship could lead to delays.

This article was originally published by Business Insider.

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See more here:

SpaceX Hopes to Launch And Land Starship No. 9 This Week - ScienceAlert

SpaceX's latest Starship prototype needs some maintenance work before it can take to the skies.

On Wednesday (Jan. 13), the Starship SN9 prototype performed three "static fire" tests in rapid succession at SpaceX's South Texas site, firing up its three Raptor engines while the vehicle remained anchored to the ground.

These brief burns were part of the preflight routine for SN9, which is being groomed for a high-altitude test. That big hop could have happened as soon as this weekend, had Wednesday's static fires gone perfectly smoothly. But there were apparently a few hiccups.

Starship and Super Heavy: SpaceX's Mars-colonizing vehicles in images

"Two of the engines need slight repairs, so will be switched out," SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said via Twitter early this morning (Jan. 15).

Musk did not give a target launch date for SN9. But he did say, in another tweet, that it's "probably wise" to perform another static fire with the vehicle after the engine swap is complete. So a weekend launch for SN9 seems pretty unlikely.

SpaceX is developing Starship to take people and cargo to the moon, Mars and other distant destinations. The architecture consists of a 165-foot-tall (50 meters) spacecraft called Starship and a giant rocket known as Super Heavy. Both of these vehicles will be fully and rapidly reusable, Musk has said.

SN9's coming flight is expected to be similar to that of its predecessor, the three-engine SN8, which soared about 7.8 miles (12.5 kilometers) into the Texas skies on Dec. 9. That flight, the first high-altitude test for any Starship prototype, went extremely well, Musk has said, even though SN8 didn't stick its landing.

Mike Wall is the author of "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

More here:

SpaceX swapping out two engines on Starship SN9 prototype ahead of test flight - Space.com

Elon Musks venture to bring superfast internet to areas outside of existing broadband coverage is set to expand into another major market, after securing critical regulatory clearance of its antennas.

Starlinks user terminals were granted a license from the U.K.s communications authority, Ofcom, in November, the regulator confirmed to MarketWatch. The user terminals are akin to antennas or satellite dishes that each customer needs to tap into the internet network.

Starlink is a part of the billionaire Tesla TSLA, -2.23% chief executives space-exploration company SpaceX, which is private, but Musk has indicated that the company may go public.

The internet venture plans to use a constellation of 12,000 low-Earth satellites to bring customers superfast internet.

Read this opinion: SpaceX will need to solve these two problems for Starlink to be successful

SpaceX has already launched close to a thousand satellites for the company, which has begun beta-testing its service in the U.S., where the service costs $99 a month in addition to $499 for the home hardware.

The U.K. license marks a major expansion by Starlink into Europe, where Germany and Greece have also cleared the user terminals, according to local media. Australia has also green-lit the antennas.

Starlinks push into the U.K. means that it could end up competing against a satellite internet company controlled by a consortium including the U.K. government.

Also: Teslas stock falls, in danger of first decline since before Christmas Day

Ofcoms clearance for the Starlink terinals came four months after the U.K. took a 400 million ($539 million), 45% stake in satellite firm OneWeb along with Indias Bharti Global. OneWeb, which went bankrupt in March 2020, was building a space network for broadband internet.

In late December 2020, Musk said via Twitter TWTR, -1.33% that it will most likely make sense for Starlink to go public once the revenue growth is reasonably predictable.

Starlinks U.K. terminals license was previously reported by The Telegraph over the weekend.

Read more:

Elon Musk's satellite internet venture, powered by SpaceX, is expanding into this major market - MarketWatch

Here's our curated list of important tech news from this week in byte size.

(Subscribe to our Today's Cache newsletter for a quick snapshot of top 5 tech stories. Click here to subscribe for free.)

Lenovo has introduced ThinkReality A3 smart glasses for the enterprise. From customised virtual monitors and 3D visualisation to Augmented Reality-assisted workflows and immersive training, the smart glasses can be used to transform work across many levels of the enterprise, Lenovo noted in a statement. The device is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR1 Platform, and through stereoscopic 1080p displays users can see up to 5 virtual displays. Plus, an 8MP RGB camera provides 1080p video for remote expert use cases while the dual fish-eye cameras provide room-scale tracking. The glasses will be available in select markets worldwide starting mid-2021. In another update, Facebook Reality Labs Research said it is working on developing technology to help people hear better in noisy environments using augmented reality glasses.

SpaceX has received permission from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to launch 10 Starlink satellites into polar orbit at an altitude of 560 km. The deployment and operation of these satellites will facilitate development and testing of SpaceXs broadband service in high latitude geographic areas, where SpaceX has expressed an intention to provide service to areas underserved or unserved by terrestrial systems, including to Federal broadband user, an FCC document stated. Recently, the aerospace company also started testing Starlink internet service in the U.K. In another development, Elon Musks Tesla has officially entered India.

Microsoft has introduced PowerPoint presenter view on Teams in public preview mode, OnMSFT reported. The presenter view feature allows people to refer to their notes for individual slides and also move between slides using the thumbnail strip, when giving a presentation on Teams. People can access this feature by clicking on the share icon, and then select the PowerPoint file for their presentation. The new feature gives more flexibility to presenters as they can see the presentation slide, their notes and the slide thumbnail strip in a single screen. Users can currently access this feature by joining the public preview program for Teams. In another update, Microsoft has introduced a new set of features to improve the meeting experience for users on the Teams platform.

Rolls-Royce and the UK Space Agency have started a research to explore the potential of nuclear power in space exploration. Nuclear powered engine could be twice as efficient as the chemical engines that power the rockets today, and could make it to Mars in just 3 to 4 months roughly half the time of the fastest possible trip in a spacecraft using the current chemical propulsion, a U.K. government release noted. It would also radically reduce the dose of radiation taken on by astronauts that would be making future trips to Mars or other planets, it added. In another development, researchers at Durham University developed supercomputer simulations that shows how ancient collision may have led to the formation of the Moon.

Logitech has announced a new portfolio of video conferencing devices which will support services like Microsoft Teams and Zoom. The Logitech Rally Bar is designed for mid-sized rooms and the Rally Bar Mini for small rooms, and could transform meetings with cinema-quality video and crisp, clear audio in an all-in-one design, the company noted in a release. In addition, a new computing appliance called RoomMate, will allow people to run video conferencing services on Logitech conference cams like Rally Plus without a PC or Mac. The new devices will be available around the end of this quarter. Recently, Dell introduced a line up of desktops and laptops to suit professionals working from home.

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Weekly Bytes | Lenovos smart glasses, SpaceX expanding Starlinks reach, and more - The Hindu

A Falcon 9 rocket lifted off Jan. 7 from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station with the the Turksat 5A communications satellite, the first launch from Floridas Space Coast in 2021. Credit: SpaceX

Military officials in charge of the Eastern Range at Cape Canaveral project more than 50 launches from Floridas Space Coast this year, with SpaceX responsible for most of the launch activity, the vice commander of the 45th Space Wing said this week.

The Florida spaceport hosted 31 launches in 2020, including 30 space missions and a high-altitude atmospheric test flight of SpaceXs Crew Dragon abort system.

We closed the year with the highest number of launches conducted in the past 10 years, and look to break that record again in 2021, said Col. Brande Walton, vice commander of the 45th Space Wing, which oversees launch operations at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station and the neighboring Kennedy Space Center.

In fact, the 30 successful launches from Florida last year that sent payloads into orbit, and destinations beyond, set a record.Before 2020, the previous record for launches from the Space Coast that reached orbit was 29, a mark set in 1966.

But there were numerous suborbital launches, missile tests, and sounding rocket flights from Cape Canaveral not counted in the orbital mission tally in the early years of the Space Age. In 1963, there were 133 known suborbital and orbital launches from the Space Coast, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at theHarvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics who tracks global satellite and launch activity.

Looking forward, we plan to hit the ground running in 2021, Walton said during virtual presentation to the National Space Club Florida Committee. We currently have 53 launches on our manifest for this year, with one in the books already.

The first launch of 2021 from Cape Canaveral was the successful liftoff of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket Jan. 7 with the Turksat 5A communications satellite for Turkey.

Its shaping to be another remarkable year for launches on the Space Coast, with three human spaceflight missions, two of them on SpaceXs Crew Dragon, and one on Boeings new Starliner spacecraft, Walton said.

The historic first flight of SpaceXs Crew Dragon spacecraft with astronauts was a highlight of last years busy pace of launch activity. NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken launched May 30 on the Crew Dragon demonstration flight aboard a Falcon 9 rocket from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.

Hurley and Behnken completed their two-month test flight to the International Space Station in early August, setting the stage for the first operational Crew Dragon mission, which took off Nov. 15 with four astronauts on-board.

Other landmark missions launched from Florida in 2020 included Solar Orbiter, a European-built spacecraft that will take the first pictures of the Suns poles, NASAs Perseverance Mars rover, and the first launch into a polar orbit from Cape Canaveral since the 1960s, Walton said.

Launch operators and range officials accomplished most of the missions last year after the coronavirus pandemic forced many employees to remote work, and launch crews practiced physical distancing and wore masks to combat the spread of the disease.

Officials from the 45th Space Wing projected 48 launches in 2020 at the beginning of last year, an uptick in missions primarily driven by SpaceXs Starlink internet network.

Launch delays, a fact of life in the space business, meant SpaceX and ULA fell short of their projected launch numbers last year. That could happen again in 2021.

Military officials have streamlined processes to more rapidly turn around the Eastern Range between launches.

In recent decades, the range could only accommodate launches separated by 48 hours. With the introduction of automated flight safety systems, which would destroy an errant rocket if it flew off course, and upgraded GPS-based tracking capabilities, theres a reduced demand on ground infrastructure and range safety officers for each launch.

That has allowed the 45th Space Wing to reduce staffing levels to support missions equipped with an automated flight safety system. SpaceXs Falcon rockets are currently flying with the automated safety system, and United Launch Alliance plans to use a similar system on its next-generation Vulcan Centaur rocket.

With the new technology, Space Force officials have said the Eastern Range can now support missions from different launch pads less than 24 hours apart.

Elon Musk, SpaceXs founder and CEO, has said the company plans up to 48 Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy missions in 2021. Up to a half-dozen of those launches are expected to take off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, at SpaceXs West Coast launch pad.

Eight of ULAs up to 10 planned missions this year will launch from Cape Canaveral. A Delta 4-Heavy and an Atlas 5 mission are scheduled to launch from Vandenberg this year, with seven more Atlas 5s on the Florida launch schedule.

ULA says the new Vulcan rocket, designed to eventually replace the Delta 4 and Atlas 5 rocket families, could be ready to take off from Cape Canaveral on its first test flight in late 2021.

The projection of 53 launches includes the debut flights of the Vulcan rocket and NASAs Space Launch System heavy-lifter, a huge launcher designed to send crews back to the Moon, Walton said. The first SLS demonstration flight, also scheduled for late 2021, will not carry any astronauts.

The team is also prepped and very excited to take part in a few inaugural launches from ULA and NASA, Walton said. As you can see with 53 launches on the launch manifest, we plan to make this year another record-breaking year with no plans to slow down anywhere in the near future.

Assuming the 53-launch forecast counts ULAs eight planned missions from Cape Canaveral and the first SLS test launch, the 45th Space Wing presumably expects SpaceX to perform the remaining 44 flights from Floridas Space Coast.

Given Musks goal of 48 launches in 2021, with a handful of of those missions originating from Vandenberg, SpaceX could be planning around that number of launches from Florida.

There are around 18 publicly-known SpaceX launches scheduled from the Space Coast this year for external customers, including two or three launches using SpaceXs triple-body Falcon Heavy rocket, according to a count by Spaceflight Now.

At least two Falcon Heavy launches are firmly scheduled this year, each carrying payloads for the Space Force. Other SpaceX flights will loft crews and cargo to the space station, commercial communications satellites, and a GPS navigation spacecraft.

Aside from the Vulcans first flight, ULAs Florida launch schedule includes two Atlas 5 launches with unpiloted and crewed test flights of Boeings Starliner capsule, an Atlas 5 flight with NASAs Lucy asteroid exploration probe, and several Atlas 5s for the Space Force.

SpaceX officials have said missions for external customers take priority over the companys internal Starlink missions. When theres room in the Falcon 9 manifest, SpaceX says it builds enough Starlink satellites to launch batches of 60 as often as once every two weeks, or up to 26 missions in a year.

Fourteen launches from the Space Coast last year carried Starlink satellites into orbit, nearly half of all the launches from Florida in 2020.

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Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

Originally posted here:

Officials forecast than 50 launches from Florida's Space Coast this year - Spaceflight Now