Daily Archives: March 18, 2022

After rapidly stacking Ship 20 and Booster 4 the evening prior, SpaceX appears to have begun testing a fully stacked Starship rocket for the first time ever.

Though the test SpaceX subjected Starship to was by no means ambitious and in spite of the fact that it no longer appears that Ship 20 and Booster 4 will ever fly, the first test of the first fully integrated prototype of a new rocket is still an immensely significant achievement particularly so for the largest rocket ever built.

Standing around 119 meters (~390 ft) tall, Starship is unequivocally the largest and most voluminous rocket ever built. With its 29 Raptor V1 engines, the fully assembled Ship 20 and Booster 4 (B4) stack would have likely weighed around 4000-5000 tons (9-11M lb) and been able to produce around 5400 tons (11.9M lbf) of thrust at liftoff substantially heavier and more powerful than Saturn V or N1, the largest rockets ever successfully and unsuccessfully launched.

For its first fully-integrated test, though, SpaceX appears to have put Starship through a fairly limited cryogenic proof a test where flammable propellant is replaced with a similarly cold (cryogenic) fluid thats similar enough to subject a rocket to similar thermal and mechanical stresses. For Ship 20 and Booster 4s combined debut, Super Heavy was filled maybe 10-20% and Starship around 25-50% of the way with either liquid nitrogen (LN2) or a combination of LN2 and liquid oxygen (LOx). Its difficult to tell but its unlikely any methane (LCH4) fuel was involved.

Back on the ground, Starship S20 completed five separate cryogenic proof tests before its first test on top of Super Heavy. More importantly, Ship 20 successfully completed several static fire tests, each of which also functioned as a wet dress rehearsal with LCH4/LOx propellant. Booster 4 had also passed several cryogenic proof tests. In that sense, its unlikely that SpaceX had a great deal of uncertainty as to whether either prototype would be able to complete yet another test.

Beyond the basic mechanical demonstration that Super Heavy Booster 4 is strong enough to support a partially loaded Starship, which probably wasnt in doubt, its likely that the main purpose of this first full-stack cryoproof was to ensure that all the systems required to fuel Starship on top of Super Heavy were working as expected. Thats no small feat given that Starship is both the tallest rocket and largest upper stage ever assembled. To fully fuel a Starship for an orbital launch, around 1200 tons (~2.65M lb) of propellant (or LN2 for a cryoproof) equivalent to the weight of more than two entire Falcon 9 rockets must be pumped around 85 meters (~275 ft) up Starbases integration tower.

That requires thousands of feet of plumbing and a symphony of giant valves and pumps, all of which must work in concert without leaking, jamming, or freezing to fuel Starship. As such, the first full-stack cryoproof was just as much or more of a test of the orbital launch sites launch/integration tower and tank farm. That first test is just the start of a long process, though, and its likely that SpaceX will attempt an increasingly ambitious series of tests with Booster 4 and Ship 20 over the next week or two.

That could involve simply filling the rocket further and raising its tank pressures or it could potentially culminate in a partial wet dress rehearsal with methane and oxygen propellant in place of liquid nitrogen. Theres an even smaller chance that SpaceX could attempt to static fire Super Heavy B4 for the first time, although sources like NASASpaceflight are no longer confident that Booster 4 will be static fired before retirement. More to the point, it would be uncharacteristically risky behavior from SpaceX to perform the very first static fire of a new prototype with an already proven Starship sitting on top of it. An anomaly as small as an uncontrolled fire far from uncommon for Starships could easily risk the catastrophic destruction of both stages, which would itself run the risk of significantly damaging the orbital launch site, which could easily take months to repair.

Nonetheless, theres still a chance. SpaceX has opportunities for additional testing on March 17th, 18th, 21st, and 22nd.

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SpaceX tests fully stacked Starship rocket for the first time - Teslarati

It happened again.

Elon Musk used his Twitter account to give his prediction for when humans will finally touch down on Mars replying to a tweet from Space Hub that asked him when in the 21st century we'd finally make it happen. Musk's guess?

"2029," he wrote in a tweeted reply on Wednesday, to a meme that connected the prospect of humans setting foot on Mars with the historic landing of humans on the Moon during NASA's Apollo missions in 1969.

But this isn't exactly a new guesstimation from the space baron, billionaire, and CEO of the leading commercial space firm, SpaceX. In December of 2021, he toldTime Magazine that he'd be surprised if humans aren't "landing on Mars within five years".

Musk's initial prediction came after he was named Time's "Person of the Year," and he spoke at great length on his plans for the Red Planet. For example, a self-sustaining city that uses solar-powered hydroponic farms capable of supporting a permanent human settlement not on Earth, but at an unconscionable distance of 34 million miles from the closest neighbor, on Mars.

"The next really big thing is to build a self-sustaining city on Mars and bring the animals and creatures of Earth there," said Musk in the Time interview. "Sort of like a futuristic Noah's ark. We'll bring more than two though it's a little weird if there's only two," he added, as if from experience.

But before Musk can make good on his prediction, his firm, SpaceX, needs to complete its work on Starship -- the next-gen interplanetary vehicle that made its first successful landing after takeoff in May, 2021. In an interview on the Lex Fridman podcast in 2021, Musk said: "Starship is the most complex and advanced rocket that's ever been made".

Crucial in the drive to perfect the Starship design "is minimizing the cost per ton to orbit and ultimately cost per ton to the surface of Mars," added Musk. In the interview, Musk said present technology couldn't take someone to Mars with $1 trillion, which is why Musk wants to reduce the operating costs for Starship by roughly $100 billion, or even $200 billion per year.

That's a big discount. NASA had budgeted roughly $546.5 million for its Mars exploration program in 2020, when the Perseverance rover was initially launched. And another $6.88 billion was put aside for the Artemis program in 2021, with SpaceX receiving nearly $35 billion that same year.

Tall tales - Musk has also said that Starship would make its first orbital flight sometime this year. That will be a major step toward returning humans to the Moon in the next decade, to build a permanent settlement, but Mars? It could be a little longer, Elon (or, "Elona"). But we'll keep our fingers crossed.

This was a developing story and was regularly updated with new information as it became available.

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Elon Musk confirms a prediction for when humans will go to Mars - Interesting Engineering

On Wednesday, organizers of the first-ever private orbital spaceflight to the International Space Stationannounceda revised launch date. Still, the four-person crew that will leave Earth atop a SpaceX rocket on April 3 will not be doing any spacewalking. No, that historic first will be achieved during thesecondall-civilian trip to orbital space.

Polaris Dawnwill carry out several historic firsts, including the first commercial spacewalk after its November 2022 launch. The free-floating trip outside the crew capsule won't be merely for kicks: The crew members will be lab rats of a sort: Their bodies will be measured for effects of space radiation on human health.

Government agencies have carried out every spacewalk. The vast majority take place outside the International Space Station and are conducted by astronauts and cosmonauts from NASA, Roscosmos, the European Space Agency, and Japan's space agency, JAXA.

The Polaris Dawn team aims to carry out a spacewalk from a relatively tiny SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule orbiting Earth before reaching a record-high orbital altitude.

Jared Isaacman, the billionaire behind SpaceX's first "all-civilian" space mission, Inspiration4,revealed the Polaris Program last month. It aims to advance human spaceflight capabilities simultaneously as raising funds and awareness for causes on Earth.

Polaris will be three separate missions, including two orbital spaceflights and the first crewed launch of SpaceX's Starship launch vehicle. "The Polaris Programis an important step in advancing human space exploration while helping to solve problems through innovative technology here on Earth," Isaacman explained in a February statement.

Isaacman, the 39-year-old founder of online payment processing company Shift4, was the commander for last September's Inspiration4 mission. He will be the commander for the Polaris Program's first mission, Polaris Dawn.

Inspiration4 was the first time an entire crew of civilians reached orbital space, a massive milestone for human spaceflight and space tourism. The mission saw Isaacman and a crew of three others launch aboard a Crew Dragon capsule atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on September 15, 2021, before spending three days orbiting Earth.

Now, Isaacman and a new crew aim to take things several further with the upcoming launch of Polaris Dawn.

The Polaris Dawn mission will take Isaacman and three crewmates pilot Scott "Kidd" Poteet, mission specialist Sarah Gillis, and medical officer Anna Menon up into orbit. This time, they aim to achieve several historic milestones while they're up there.

"On Polaris Dawn, we endeavor to achieve the highest Earth orbit ever flown," Isaacman said in February. The current record is held by NASA's Gemini 11 astronauts,Charles Conrad and Richard Gordon, in 1966, both of whom reached an orbit of 853 miles above Earth.

Before reaching those heights, at approximately 300 miles above Earth, two of the Polaris Dawn crewmembers will attempt the first commercialextravehicular activity (EVA), orspacewalk, in history.

SpaceX's Dragon capsule doesn't feature an airlock, so the entire crew will have to get into their spacesuits as the cabin is depressurized for the spacewalk. The crew will wear newly-designed, pressurized SpaceX spacesuits.

When the Polaris Dawn team reaches its peak record altitude, the crew capsule will pass through parts of the Van Allen radiation belt, which are made up of highly energetic charged particles that originate from the solar wind. This will allow the team and ground control to carry out one of its mission objectives: to collect data on the effects of space radiation on human health.

Not only that, but Polaris Dawn will also be the first mission to test SpaceX's Starlink satellite network for laser-based communications in space, another part of the Polaris Program's plans for advancing human spaceflight capabilities.

The Polaris Program is named after the Polaris constellation, most commonly known as the "North Star." The program chose that name because it aims to be a guiding light, helping future space missions and people here on Earth toward a better future.In its latest update, the program announced that it was sending medical supplies and resources to Poland to aid Ukrainian refugees amid the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces. A Ukrainian flag will also make the trip to orbit.

If all goes well, Polaris Dawn will launch later this year. The second Polaris mission will likely set several new milestone goals based on the learning of the first mission. The third launch will be the first human spaceflight of SpaceX's Starship, and its date will be set after SpaceX conducts the uncrewed maiden flight of the reusable rocket, which will launch at a fraction of the cost of NASA's own Moon-bound SLS launch vehicle.

See the article here:

Humans on the Polaris Dawn space mission will be like lab rats for radiation - Interesting Engineering

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Deals made with special-purpose acquisition companies, also known as blank-check companies, have become wildly popular across all markets in recent years. But capital-intensive industries such as space have especially clamored for the deals, which often come with huge valuations and make going public easier and cheaper than a traditional initial public offering.

The space industry announced at least 13 SPAC deals last year, according to JD Supra. Simon Potter, the head of investment and financial consulting at the industry-research firm BryceTech, told Insider the space-SPAC craze had largely been driven by companies' need for capital, rather than a desire to go public.

But Tim Ellis, a cofounder of Relativity Space which has in its seven years become the second most valuable private space company, behind SpaceX said his company wouldn't be following in the SPAC fad. Ellis told Insider his company had been approached by about 100 SPACs offering to take the business public and rejected them all.

"I sort of just think of SPACs as funding of last resorts, to a certain extent," Ellis, formerly of Blue Origin, said.

The key reason Relativity Space hasn't gone public is that it hasn't needed to. The startup, founded in 2015 by Ellis and Jordan Noone (formerly of SpaceX), has raised more than $1.3 billion for an estimated valuation of $4.2 billion. Its investors include Mark Cuban and Jared Leto.

And, Ellis said, going public means changes to a company's operational and shareholder responsibility. If a company can do its fundraising privately, there's no need for it to go public. He said he believed so many space companies had taken the SPAC route to the public market because it was fast, easy, and cheap.

"It was so much money at such a cheap price that a lot of people were wooed into doing it because they couldn't get that amount of capital or that price privately," Ellis said. "I think people just did it because it was their only option."

He added: "A lot of people undervalued the operational trade-offs that were going to come with it."

A public listing can mean more scrutiny and, sometimes, pressure from investors eager for a quick return.

When asked about Ellis' decision to keep Relativity private, Potter said it "makes sense, on the basis that they have a range of options to choose from in terms of how they raise capital, given their success."

Chris Quilty, the founder and a partner at the boutique space advisory Quilty Analytics, agreed with Potter.

"I think they've avoided the SPAC path because they don't have to," he said.

But just because Relativity won't be the next space company to trumpet a billion-dollar SPAC deal doesn't mean it will never go public. Ellis said he wasn't opposed to taking the company public down the line through a more traditional route, like an IPO.

"I think there's lots of great public companies that let you be ambitious, so I don't see it as mutually exclusive," he said. "It definitely makes it harder in some ways, and you have to navigate it. For me, I care more about getting Relativity to a scale where then taking it public does not preclude that."

More here:

Why Relativity Space Rejected 100 SPAC Offers As It Challenges SpaceX - Business Insider

This press release was orginally distributed by SBWire

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For more information on this press release visit: http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/space-tourism-market-next-big-thing-major-giants-space-adventures-spacex-boeing-1354829.htm

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Space Tourism Market Next Big Thing : Major Giants Space Adventures, SpaceX, Boeing - Digital Journal

Between April 31 and December 31, 2021, 866 satellites were put into orbit. While not as dramatic as the 836 launched in the first four months of the year, it completes a meteoric rise of 1,702 satellites for the year. The graph below shows the incredible acceleration in the number, up to a total of 4,852 satellites as of the end of 2021.

The growth is astounding. For example, the number launched this year is more than thetotalnumber of operating satellites in 2016, just six years ago. Over the last six years, the number increased 20% annually on average, jumping to more than 30% the last two years.

Moreover, while the rate of increase almost certainly wont endure much longer, the number of operating satellites will continue to grow dramatically. Aswidely reported, the Starlink network already has permission to launch up to 12,000 satellites and Elon Musk would like to a second generation of 30,000 more satellites. Those numbers haveNASA worried. In a submission to the Federal Communications Commission, the agency wrote: NASA has concerns with the potential for a significant increase in the frequency of conjunction events and possible impacts to NASAs science and human spaceflight missions.

And Starlink isnt alone. If all the planned networks move forward perhaps a dubious proposition, but possible the total number of satellites wouldnear 100,000. At that point, not only would our database become unwieldy(!), the likelihood of adverse outcomes rises significantly, including increased risk of collisions, impacts on the International Space Station, and complications forearth-based astronomy.

As always, kudos to my colleague, Teri Grimwood,UCS Satellite Databaseresearcher, for tracking down 28 pieces of information for each of these 4,852 satellites. If youd like email notification when the updates are made, please sign uphere.

On November 15,Russia conducted a direct-ascent anti-satellite test(DA-ASAT),destroying one of its own space objects, a defunct satellite, in low-earth orbit. Direct ascent means that the missile was launched from the ground, not from within space. The test createdthousands of pieces of debrisat an altitude that is widely used for space activities by many countries. The test was widely condemned by the international community.

There were some hopes that the international reactions to the Russian test could present awindow of opportunity, including the possibility ofa multilateral ban on destructive ASAT tests. Unfortunately, the current crisis in Ukraine will likely prohibit near-term progress but could if resolved diplomatically lead to a new chance to negotiate such a ban. Though somewhat dated now, in 2012 UCS produced this helpfulhistory of ASAT programsfrom the 1950s and onward.

The last six months of 2021 saw a massive race to space by billionaires. On July 11,Virgin Galactic launched its first tourist flight with its founder, Richard Branson, on board.The flight was launched from the companys facility in New Mexico,Spaceport America, with a four-person crew and two pilots.It flew just above the boundary of space (100 kilometers), where everyone experienced about four minutes of weightlessness.The cost of a spaceflight ticket with Virgin is now$450,000.

Blue Origin, with founder Jeff Bezos and three others,flew for the first time on July 20. The flight included Wally Funk, a Mercury 13 aviator. The vehicle, named New Shepard, flies autonomously, so there werent any pilots on board. The flight reached 107 kilometers above earth and lasted about 10 minutes.

On September 16 Elon Musks SpaceX joined the trend with athree-day orbital missionaround the Earth featuring an all-civilian crew on Inspiration 4. Paid for by Jared Isaacman, his guest, Hayley Arceneaux, 29, is a childhood bone cancer survivor and now a physician assistant at St. Jude Childrens Research Hospital in Memphis, where she received treatment as a child. Isaacman has already donated $100 million to St. Judes and hopes to raise another $100 million in donations. The capsule, Inspiration 4, was fully automated, orbited the earth for three days at 160 kilometers, and then splashed down off the Florida coast for recovery.

On October 13,the New Shepard took its second flightwith four passengers, including William Shatner. The final flight for 2021 took place onDecember 11, with six passengers including Michael Strahan, host ofGood Morning America.

Finally, on December 9, Yusaku Maezawa, a Japanese billionaire,arrived at the International Space Stationfor a 12-day stay after riding into outer space aboard a Russian-built Soyuz capsule. The capsule was launched from Russias Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. This was the first self-funded tourism mission to the International Space Station in a decade.

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The Meteoric Rise in Satellite Numbers - Union of Concerned Scientists - All Things Nuclear