Category Archives: Spacex

Space tourism vehicles just might be the only transportation technology out there with the potential to kill humans that doesn't need to undergo independent safety certification. For now, aspiring space travelers seem okay with that, but is the fledgling industry playing a dangerous game?

The four private astronauts of SpaceX's Inspiration4 mission the first-ever all-civilian flight to orbit seemed relaxed a day before their Sept. 15 launch as they pondered the prospect of blasting off into nothingness sealed inside a space capsule, atop a rocket filled with explosive fuel.

Jared Isaacman, the tech entrepreneur who funded the mission and also served as its commander, claimed the crew was probably at a higher risk of an accident during the fighter jet flights they had taken during their training.

"Over the past couple of days, we've been tearing up the sky in fighter jets, which I put at a relatively higher risk than this mission," Isaacman said. "So we are nice and comfortable as we get strapped into [the Dragon Crew capsule]."

Related: Humanity needs a space-rescue capability, report stresses

But how high exactly is the risk of dying during a space mission? Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight for NASA, told the NBC's Today show on Sept. 15 that a ride on SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule is about three times safer than a ride on NASA's space shuttle was in the final years of its operation, a time when shuttle flights were at their safest due to increases in inspections and awareness.

"We were able to incorporate some additional technologies. The Dragon system has an abort capability that we didn't have," McAlister told the Today show. "That has all increased the likelihood that you will have a successful mission."

But what exactly does that mean? Teri Hamlin, the technical lead of space shuttle probabilistic risk assessment at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, told National Public Radio in 2011 that, in the early days, the risk of a space shuttle flight ending in a disaster was a scary 1-in-9 flights.

By the time the shuttle retired in 2011, the fleet having lost two of its vehicles in catastrophic accidents, the risk had dropped tenfold, to about 1in 90. If that number and McAlister's extrapolation are correct, the probability of a catastrophic failure on Inspiration4 were about 1-in-300. (In practice, NASA suffered two fatal accidents in 135 shuttle flights, with the 1986 Challenger accident and 2003 Columbia tragedy killing seven astronauts each.)

Compare that with the 1-in-205,552 lifetime risk of an average American dying in an aircraft accident, according to data from the National Safety Council. On the other hand, the lifetime risk of dying in a car accident in the U.S. is 1 in 107, according to the same source.

Yet many experts warn that something unprecedented is going on in the space tourism industry that might increase the odds of aspiring space tourists dying in a crash.

"The problem is that the current space tourism industry neither has government [safety] regulation nor their own regulation," Tommaso Sgobba, executive director at the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety (IAASS) and former head of flight safety at the European Space Agency (ESA), told Space.com. "Neither do they have any historical record to prove that their technology is safe."

No modern appliance or device from hair dryers and microwaves to cars, aircraft and rollercoasters can enter the market without first receiving a certification from an independent body that its design meets independently set safety standards. These certifications are there to ensure that effort has been made to minimize the risk that these technologies will injure their users and that someone independent from the company thinks they are safe.

But a U.S. Congress moratorium on safety regulations established in 2004 means that space tourism companies are less accountable than you might think.

"The moratorium was put in place to let the industry learn and progress following some very successful lobbying from the industry," Josef Koller, systems director at the center for space policy and strategy at The Aerospace Corporation, told Space.com. "The law specifies that emphasis should be placed on developing best practices and voluntary standards that could eventually lead to the implementation of regulation. But so far there is not much to go around really."

Currently, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires commercial space companies to demonstrate that their operations present no risk to the public on the ground (or in the air space). The agency, however, has no oversight over the safety of the flight participants, nor does it certify the launch and entry vehicles as safe for humans, an FAA spokesperson told Space.com in an email.

"Under federal law, the FAAs commercial space transportation oversight responsibilities are designed to protect the safety of the public on the ground and other members of the public using the national airspace system not the individuals in the space vehicle," Steve Kulm, FAA public affairs specialist, said in the email. "In fact, Congress has prohibited the FAA from regulating the safety of the crew or spaceflight participants. Further, Congress has not authorized the FAA to certify the launch or reentry vehicle as safe for carrying humans."

Companies, however, have to prove that their technology worked safely during a test flight to gain FAA license approval to carry humans, Kulm added.

Karina Drees, the president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, which represents space tourism companies, told Space.com that early regulation could stifle innovation in the fledgling sector and prevent the best technologies from being developed.

"That's the concern I think a lot of folks have," she said. "If we see regulation a little too soon, then there's a real potential for the best technologies to not come forward. The vehicles that have been designed today are quite different from each other. And so if regulation had been written on any one style, then that would have really prevented some of these designs from coming to the market."

Today's space tourists therefore sign informed consent in which they accept whatever might happen during the mission.

"That's one of the things that makes this country [the U.S.] great: the ability to make your own choices," Drees said. "Americans can choose whether to go scuba diving, which isn't heavily regulated, they can choose to go skydiving, they can choose to have elective surgeries. All of these things are under the same type of informed-consent requirements."

Danielle Bernstein, principal director for federal programs at The Aerospace Corporation, told Space.com that the situation in the commercial human spaceflight sector is similar to that of the early decades of aviation.

"When the Wright brothers finally figured out flying and into the 1910s and 1920s, we didn't have much commercial flight," Bernstein said. "It was more military and exploratory. But then you move later into the century and there was more of it. But still, there wasn't a lot of regulations. And so there were accidents."

The approach taken by the early aviation pioneers is sometimes described as fly-fix-fly or, as Sgobba says, "tombstone technology."

"They would build the machine, fly it, wait for an accident to happen, investigate it, and if they found a problem with the technology, they would learn from it and fix it," said Sgobba.

He added that, unlike the early aviators, space tourism companies are not building a technology from scratch. Government-funded agencies such as NASA or Russia's space agency Roscosmos have accumulated decades of experience managing the risk associated with flying things (and people) to space.

"The approach that has been in place in the space industry for the last maybe 40 years is focused on performance requirements and fault tolerance," Sgobba said. "For example, your design should never allow a single human error to cause a disaster. But if you look at the 2014 Virgin Galactic crash, that's exactly what happened."

On Oct. 31, 2014, Virgin Galactic suffered a fatal test flight crash when its first SpaceShipTwo vehicle, called Enterprise, broke apart during a rocket-powered test flight. One pilot was killed and another seriously injured.

In a subsequent investigation, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board found that the Virgin Galactic crash was caused by the early release of SpaceShipTwo's feathering tail, which is designed to slow down and stabilize the craft during its descent through Earth's atmosphere.

During Virgin Galactic's triumphant first fully crewed spaceflight this past July, which carried billionaire owner Richard Branson on board, the company's VSS Unity space plane deviated from its approved trajectory into the surrounding air space, where it could potentially have jeopardized civilians flying on commercial aircraft.

The incident led the FAA to essentially ground Virgin Galactic until an investigation is completed. The company therefore had to suspend its planned second fully crewed flight, which was supposed to take place in late September or early October. The company is now selling tickets for its flights to suborbital space for $450,000 per seat.

Sgobba questions whether the excitement of a space trip would be enough for enthusiasts (and a lot of bored rich people) if some of these "ordinary citizens" were to perish during their adventure.

"I think that once civilians start dying, the market for space tourism will evaporate," Sgobba said. "Just like it evaporated for Concorde. Concorde was a luxurious version for going from Paris to New York. But once it had an accident, people lost interest. The companies fixed the problem, but the interest was no longer there."

Virgin Galactic's space plane is, according to Sgobba, inherently more dangerous than a capsule such as Blue Origin's New Shepard or SpaceX's Crew Dragon. The reliance on the human factor is higher, and it is impossible to perform tests without human pilots inside.

"Virgin Galactic is more problematic, because there is always a problem when there are safety-critical mechanisms in place," Sgobba said. "It could be a helicopter or another aircraft concept; there is always a higher risk when there are large moving parts that you rely on to accomplish your mission to be safe. That doesn't mean that you cannot operate something like the Virgin Galactic feathering tail safely, but there definitely needs to be extra effort to make this safe."

Blue Origin shares information about its approach to safety in a video on its website. The company stresses a multiply redundant approach that should ensure that no critical system can break down without a backup being available, Blue Origin representatives said.

SpaceX benefited during the development of its crewed system from cooperation with NASA. The company has a contract to fly NASA astronauts to and from the International Space Station, so it has to meet the space agency's rigorous safety standards.

Still, Sgobba questions some of SpaceX's practices.

"For the Inspiration4 mission, they replaced a docking port on the Dragon crew capsule with this beautiful cupola," Sgobba said. "But my question is, who, independent from the project, reviewed this change to make sure it's safe?"

Before NASA, ESA or the other space agencies launch anything into space, they conduct flight readiness reviews, Sgobba explained. The independence of the panel conducting the review is a key requirement to making its findings valid. During such a review, every part is scrutinized to minimize the chance that problems will occur.

"But who was in charge of reviewing the changes they made for the Inspiration4 mission?" said Sgobba. "Was it just Elon Musk giving his approval? That would be the first case in the history of technologically advanced industries when a single person, the owner, has the final word on an activity like this."

Again, in the current regulatory environment, there is no one to ask questions about such procedures.

The 2004 U.S. Congress moratorium on the safety regulation of space tourism is set to expire in 2023. But what exactly will happen next is still unclear.

The Commercial Spaceflight Federation has been cooperating with standards organization ASTM International on guidelines and has already published recommendations on fault tolerance, data exchange to support the integration of space operations into air traffic management and classification of safety events, said Drees.

When asked whether the industry would be ready for more stringent regulations after 2023, she said she doesn't think so. It's still the early days, and regulation would impede innovation, she said.

For the foreseeable future, aspiring space tourists, or spaceflight participants, will have to trust the companies that they want to fly with. To help the customers make the decision whether to sign the informed consent waiver, the companies are obliged to disclose their safety record, and Drees believes everybody is ready to do so.

"It's really in the company's best interest to make sure they're disclosing in pretty clear terms the track record of the vehicle, because they want their companies to be ongoing for years to come," Drees said. "There's really no incentive for the companies to not disclose any of that information. And there's no incentive for the companies to take shortcuts to not practice safely."

Some might question how justified such trust in those companies really is. Bank of America, which covers Virgin Galactic's publicly traded stock, last week criticized the company's failure to disclose that VSS Unity veered off course during the July flight, the incident that led to the grounding by the FAA.

Sgobba, in the meantime, calls for a more "mature" approach and, together with other industry veterans like Koller and Bernstein, proposes the creation of a new independent body overseeing the safety of commercial spaceflight operations, the Space Safety Institute.

"The Space Safety Institute would serve as an independent reviewer," Sgobba said. "It would also focus on education and research in critical areas of space systems' safety."

Koller added: "The Space Safety Institute would provide a platform where people and entities could come together and discuss ways of accomplishing their goals. If a company has a new idea, it's important to provide support and technical analysis on whether the system can actually achieve that goal and be safe."

Drees said the commercial spaceflight industry might be supportive of such an idea, as long as it doesn't inhibit its ability to innovate.

"That's going to be really critical to the future of the industry that we don't write standards and regulations before we have that opportunity to innovate and design new vehicles," she said. "So, as long as we still have that opportunity to design and build and fly the vehicles without being subject to stringent regulations right from the start, then I think industry is generally supportive of that idea."

Follow Tereza Pultarova on Twitter @TerezaPultarova. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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Do space tourists really understand the risk they're taking? - Space.com

Elon Musk, Grimes' baby name 'X A-12' broken down

Entrepreneur Elon Musk and musical artist Grimes welcomed a baby boy, "X A-12," to the world. Here's a possible explanation of the name.

USA TODAY

EntrepreneurElon Musk and musician Grimes, otherwise known as Claire Boucher, are "semi-separated."In a exclusive interview with Page Six, Musk said the two remain on good terms.

Musk said a reason for the breakup was due to his work with SpaceX and Tesla requiring him to be in Texas whereas Grimes work as a recording artists is mostlyin Los Angeles.

It's electric: With Tesla leading the way, Austin revs up as a key electric vehicle hub

Musk made the move to Texas last year, reportedly buying a multi-million dollar home in Austin and a tiny home in Boca Chica near SpaceX's operational center, too.

We are semi-separated but still love each other, see each other frequently and are on great terms, Musk told Page Six.

The two began dating in 2018. Grimes gave birth to the couple's son in 2020. A boy, the two named him "X A-Xii." Musk told Page Six the two will continue to co-parent their son.

Elon Musk has five other children with his ex-wifeJustine Musk.

In a 2010interview with Marie Claire just two years after their divorce, Justine said she was estranged from her ex-husband. She said they shared custody of the children but deals with his assistant on those matters.

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Elon Musk says Tesla, SpaceX commitments in Texas a reason for split with Grimes - austin360

Amazon slammed Elon Musks SpaceX as a serial rule-breaker on Wednesday amid an enduring fight over the two companies plans to build rivaling satellite networks. The conflict, waged within lengthy filings to the Federal Communications Commission, is nothing new. But this time, Amazon sent FCC officials a laundry list of Musks past troubles with other regulators, mounting its most aggressive attempt yet to push back on SpaceXs speedy timeline for deploying its broadband satellites.

Try to hold a Musk-led company to flight rules? Youre fundamentally broken, Amazon wrote in its filing, referring to the time Musk complained that the Federal Aviation Administrations regulatory structure slowed down SpaceXs operations. Try to hold a Musk-led company to health and safety rules? Youre unelected & ignorant, it added, referring to Musks beef with officials who sought to keep factories closed to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

This particular fight there have been many goes back to earlier this year when SpaceX proposed an update to its Starlink network, a vast constellation of satellites in low-Earth orbit designed to beam broadband internet to rural areas with little to no internet connections. SpaceX has over 1,700 satellites in orbit so far, with about 100,000 customers using its internet services in a beta phase. Amazon is planning a similar satellite network called Kuiper with more than 3,000 satellites, but it hasnt revealed production plans or launched any satellites to space yet.

Last month, SpaceX filed a request to tweak its proposal to the FCC, asking the commission to approve two plans for deploying Starlink satellites in the future. SpaceX, its filing said, would only implement one of the two plans, mainly hinging its decision on how quickly its next generation of Starlink satellites will be ready for launch and when its Starship rocket would be ready to start launching those Starlink satellites. Since 2019, SpaceX has used its Falcon 9 rockets to launch dozens of dedicated Starlink satellite missions to space. But Starship, a much bigger rocket thats still under development, would more quickly send satellites in their target orbit, SpaceX says.

Amazon called foul days later, saying SpaceXs strategy to propose two mutually exclusive plans runs afoul of precedent and requires significant effort for the FCC and other companies to scrutinize. SpaceX wasnt buying it. Amazon strains credulity by suggesting it lacks the resources to analyze SpaceXs application, especially considering Amazon routinely brings as many as six lobbyists and lawyers to its many meetings with the Commission about SpaceX, SpaceX shot back in another filing.

Amazon, in its latest filing, acknowledged its well positioned to evaluate the proposals but added that this burden may weigh more heavily on the other companies that commented on SpaceXs plan. Companies are allotted time to analyze and oppose other companies proposed plans in case theres a chance it interferes with their operations.

SpaceXs rapid development pace of new technologies supercharged by funding from Musk and lofty investment rounds often moves faster than government agencies are able to regulate them, creating all sorts of trouble and drama and, sometimes, direct violations. Proposing two tentative plans for the FCC to review, while unconventional, is a bid to get the FCC on board with SpaceXs speedy development ethic, which is defined by the companys heavily boasted iterative approach: deploy the things first, get them in orbit, then plan gradual updates or iterations to weed out inefficiencies in the next satellites design. SpaceX started launching the first iteration of some 30,000 planned Starlink satellites in 2019 and has over 1,700 currently in orbit.

Now, SpaceX wants to deploy an upgraded generation of satellites, built bigger and with added capabilities like laser links, which waive the need for ground stations by allowing the satellites to talk to each other and relay communications in orbit as they pass over user areas.

This production strategy is somewhat akin to SpaceXs development with Starship: launch the thing first, work out any errors or design inefficiencies that pop up along the way, make design changes, launch again, rinse and repeat. In SpaceXs rocket world, the iterative approach has pissed off regulators. And in the satellite world, its pissing off SpaceXs competitors. SpaceX has largely moved ahead regardless of those obstacles.

On the iteration side of things, thats what keep people engaged, Jonathan Hofeller, SpaceXs vice president of commercial Starlink sales, said on Wednesday. With Starlink were certainly capitalizing on it, and we challenge everybody else to capitalize on it, he said, adding that the conventional way of doing satellites just takes too long.

People come to SpaceX because they see action, Hofeller said. Thats how you get people engaged in what youre doing.

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Amazon, fighting SpaceXs Starlink plans, says Elon Musks companies dont care about rules - The Verge

SpaceX's first true Super Heavy rocket is back on the launch stand.

Technicians lifted the 29-engine Super Heavy vehicle known as Booster 4 onto the orbital launch mount at SpaceX's Starbase site in South Texas on Wednesday (Sept. 8), photos by observers in the area show.

The move came just over a month after the 230-foot-tall (70 meters) Booster 4 was first hoisted onto the pad, then topped with a prototype spacecraft called SN20 (short for "Serial No. 20") in the first-ever stacking of a full-size Starship vehicle. The duo was quickly de-stacked, however, so that further work could be performed on both elements.

Related: SpaceX's Starship and Super Heavy rocket in pictures

Starship is the transportation system that SpaceX is developing to take people and cargo to the moon, Mars and other deep-space destinations. Both Super Heavy and the 165-foot-tall (50 m) upper stage which is, somewhat confusingly, also called Starship are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable.

SpaceX has conducted a number of 6.2-mile-high (10 kilometers) test flights with Starship prototypes, including an end-to-end successful jaunt this past May by the SN15 vehicle. No Super Heavy has gotten off the ground yet, and SpaceX is grooming Booster 4 to be the first.

Booster 4 and SN20 will conduct the Starship program's first-ever orbital test flight, if all goes according to plan. Booster 4 will splash down in the Gulf of Mexico shortly after liftoff, and SN20 will power itself to orbit, circling our planet once before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean near the Hawaiian island of Kauai.

Wednesday's Booster 4 move could presage a series of trials intended to pave the way for that test flight. But it's unclear when Booster 4 and SN20 will be able to get off the ground, no matter how well the various prelaunch trials may go. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is conducting an environmental assessment of Starship's launch operations, and the end date of that review is unknown.

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.

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SpaceX lifts giant Super Heavy rocket onto launch stand again (photos) - Space.com

The rock band Kings of Leon are headed to space. Well, sort of. When SpaceX's private Inspiration4 mission lifts off next week, it will carry one of the band's songs and a gallery's worth of digital art to orbit.

The all-civilian spaceflight, which is scheduled to launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center on Tuesday night(Sept. 14), will carry 51 non-fungible tokens (NFTs), including a never-before-released performance of Kings of Leon's "Time in Disguise."

"Time in Disguise" will get a workout during the mission, becoming the first minted NFT song ever to be played in orbit, Inspiration4 team members said in a statement today (Sept. 9). The 50 other NFTs short for "non-fungible tokens" are pieces of art created by 50 different artists, they added.

Related: SpaceX shows off its huge dome window on Dragon for private Inspiration4 spaceflight

Inspiration4 is a three-day free-flying trip to Earth orbit aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. (There will be no meetup with the International Space Station.) It was planned and booked by Jared Isaacman, the billionaire founder and CEO of Shift4 Payments. He's commander of the mission, whose other crewmembers are Hayley Arceneaux, Sian Proctor and Chris Sembroski.

Inspiration4 aims to raise $200 million for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, and the NFTs are part of this plan. They and many other items flying on the mission, which you can read about here will be auctioned off to support the hospital and its work.

The "Time in Disguise" auction, organized by Yellowheart, is underway and runs through Sept. 20. The high bid as of this afternoon was $50,000.

"We're honored to participate in this historic journey in an effort to raise money for St. Jude, and were sending all our best to the crew of Inspiration4," Kings of Leon said in the same statement.

The auction for the art NFTs will run on the platform of Origin Protocol, which also minted them. Bids will open at launch on Sept. 14 and close upon Crew Dragon's Atlantic Ocean splashdown on Sept. 17.

The myriad other items Isaacman and his crew are carrying to and from orbit will be auctioned at various times between now and November. You can learn more about these sales here.

NFTs are pieces of data, stored in a digital ledger called a blockchain, that represent unique assets. NFTs are a burgeoning business in the art world, with some selling recently for millions of dollars.

A few NFTs have already made it to space. In late July, for example, the companies Nanoracks LLC and Artemis Music Entertainment beamed a piece by artist Micah Johnson called "Why Not Me," as well as a recording of Claude Debussy's piano masterpiece "Clair de Lune," to and from the International Space Station.

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.

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A Kings of Leon NFT will launch soon on SpaceX's private Inspiration4 spaceflight - Space.com

Featured Photo: SpaceXs rocket development and testing facility in McGregor, south of Waco, will undergo a range of infrastructure improvements and facility expansion. Image: SpaceX

Posted: 9-8-2021

by Art Benavidez

McGregor (McLennan County) SpaceX has entered into a $150 million development agreement with the City of Waco for the expansion of its McGregor facility.

Tuesdays City Council agenda included a resolution stating the Waco-McLennan County Economic Development Corporation will give $6 million to assist with the expansion.

The project calls for real and personal property improvements, creation and retention of 400 new full-time jobs with benefits, along with the retention of 578 existing jobs at the companys 1 Rocket Road location.

SpaceX currently leases approximately 4,280 acres from the City of McGregors Industrial Park, which it began testing in 2003, and the company will expand operations over two phases of development to keep its rocket facility in the county.

Elon Musk tweeted about a new engine project at the McGregor facility in July.

We are breaking ground soon on a second Raptor (engine) factory at (the) SpaceX Texas test site, he wrote. This will focus on volume production of Raptor 2, while (the) California factory will make Raptor Vacuum and new, experimental designs.

Musk added the new factory will be the highest output and most advanced rocket engine factory in the world with the ability to manufacture 800-1,000 engines per year.

The improvements include infrastructure upgrades on the site, along with upgraded electric reliability, water, noise suppressions and road improvements.

Phase I will require the company to invest in $100 million in real and personal property improvements by June 30, 2024, along with a minimum of 250 new full-time jobs by June 30, 2025.

The city-county EDC will provide a Phase I incentive of $4 million.

Phase II will require the company to invest another $50 million in real and personal property improvements by June 30, 2025, along with a minimum of 150 new full-time jobs and Phase I facility investment by June 30, 2026.

The project will provide an incentive of $2 million by the countys economic development corporation.

SpaceX will also continue working with the City of Waco, and its partners, to promote science, technology, engineering and math (STEAM) programming, including the establishment of a permanent display at the Mayborn Museum Complex located on the Baylor University campus.

The promotion of STEAM will allow enhanced student education experiences and opportunities for space-related tourism, along with the establishment of a STEAM Center at the Bledsoe Miller Community Center.

The development agreement also states that SpaceX will also host or participate in at least one vendor fair annually.

VBX Project ID: 2021-66E4

art@virtualbx.com

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SpaceX has entered into a $150 million development agreement with the City of Waco for the expansion of its McGregor facility. - Virtual Builders...

The Space Force is investing in reusable rockets and other cutting-edge technology from firms like SpaceX.

NASA Space Flightsaid that a Falcon 9 rocket has previously flown a new-generation GPS Block III Space Vehicle 5 for the US Space Force. The Space Force committed a satellite worth roughly half a billion dollars to the new technology, marking a watershed event for the US military and the notion of reusable rockets.

The Space Force saved money by using a reconditioned booster. This specific first stage had previously carried a GPS III satellite in November 2020.Ars Technicasaid the US government effectively saved $52 million by consenting to launch two of its new GPS III satellites on old rockets. Officials from the Space Force said this was a good development, and it's wonderful to have the option of increasing launch rates.

According to the same Ars Technica report, Space Force personnel worked alongside SpaceX workers. The agency had to fully understand the hardware and reuse process while certifying the earlier flown Falcon 9 rocket and prepping it for a relaunch. For the military, this was both an opportunity for learning and to become more acquainted with SpaceX and its attempts to push the frontiers of reuse.

The most essential aspect, according to the US Space Force's commander, is leveraging American ingenuity.

(Photo : Joe Raedle/Getty Images)TITUSVILLE, FLORIDA - APRIL 11: People watch as the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket lifts off from launch pad 39A at NASAs Kennedy Space Center on April 11, 2019 in Titusville, Florida. The rocket is carrying a communications satellite built by Lockheed Martin into orbit.

In astatement, Chief of Space Operations Gen. John "Jay" Raymond said the largest threat to their success is moving too slowly and refusing to adjust. This launch, according to Raymond, demonstrates the Space Force's ability to innovate and grow our national advantage in a competitive space environment.

This isn't the first time SpaceX has pushed the US military to embrace technological advancements. TheUS Space Forcerecently decided to test and implement an autonomous flight termination system for launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida, as part of its "Range of the Future" initiative.

The military has also indicated an interest in SpaceX's "Starship" program, which aims to create a completely reusable super-heavy lift rocket. The Air Force is attempting to use growing commercial rocket capabilities to launch goods from one point and land it somewhere else on Earth as part of a new "Rocket Cargo" program.

Earlier this year, Air Force scientist and the Rocket Cargo program manager Greg Spanjers toldArs Technicathis notion has been around since the start of spaceflight. He added that it's always been a fascinating concept. According to Spanjers, they looked at it every ten years or so. But he acknowledged that it never made sense to us. We're doing it now because it appears that technology has finally caught up with a good concept.

The US military has a reputation for taking a cautious approach to high-risk undertakings such as spaceflight. However, one of the benefits of establishing the US Space Force has been a push to reconsider space operations and a readiness to adapt to once-radical concepts.

RELATED ARTICLE: SpaceX to Reuse Dragon Spacecraft Fleet After Rocket Booster from NASA Crew-1 'Leaned'

Check out more news and information on SpaceX in Science Times.

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SpaceX Working With Space Force for Innovative Launches Like Falcon 9 With GPS III Satellite; Here's What It Means - Science Times

The past nine months have been a whirlwind for an Edmonton man.

In January, Zachary Aubert, 25, launched a passion project a space-themed YouTube channel called The Launch Pad.

For his first episode he landed U.S. billionaire entrepreneur and pilot Jared Isaacman.

This is something me as a kid and teenager that I dreamt of and never thought would happen, but from one random email ended up happening, Aubert said.

Isaacman is the commander of the SpaceX flight dubbed Inspiration4. Its the first all-civilian mission to space.

One of the things they did for everyone that applied for the Prosperity seat was actually invite them to come up to the launch, and I just thought thats such an amazing opportunity, Aubert said.

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Since the interview with Isaacman, the two have kept in touch. In March, Aubert asked if he could come experience the launch in person too and document the historic moment.

In August he got a response.

At about three in the morning he said yes, Aubert explained.

A couple of weeks ago the email actually came through from SpaceX, saying we need your information to get you badged on to the government base and well go from there.

The crew dragon spacecraft is scheduled to take off on Sept. 15. Aubert will arrive at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on Monday and stay for 10 days.

Just grasping the fact that we are going to be there for that first civilian flight. Its not just a cargo mission or normal crewed one. Its the first there will never be another first, he said.

2021 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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Edmonton YouTuber invited to watch launch of historic SpaceX flight - Global News

Elon Musk's spaceflight company SpaceX was the first company to successfully launch a first-stage rocket booster and land it upright for reuse.

The idea of having a reusable object was once deemed "ridiculous", but the world was proven wrong when SpaceX achieved it. Now, the company is paving the way forward in spaceflight by nailing the process of landing a launched rocket, and with every launch, the landing becomes more and more precise. The idea behind having a reusable rocket is to reduce the overall costs for space missions, which are very expensive.

So far, SpaceX has delivered cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) twenty-three times, with the most recent mission occurring on August 29. The following Wednesday, SpaceX posted a video of the landing process with the camera positioned on the booster. The video shows the Falcon 9 boosters descending through the clouds for a calm touchdown on the landing pad. For more information on this story, check out this link here.

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Video shows SpaceX's once 'ridiculous' rocket landing in the dark - TweakTown

When the Ice Cream Delivery comes to ISS (Photo credit: ESA/NASA/Thomas Pesquet on Flickr) 

Between umpteen scientific duties, the crew onboard the International Space Station (ISS) knows how to have fun despite the limitations of space (literally) and restricted movement. The NASA astronauts at the International Space Station got to enjoy a "half-day off" from work on Labor Day (September 5) and boy, did they have fun! French astronaut Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency captured some fun moments on his camera and posted them on Flickr.com.

Remember, the ISS is in an orbit around the Earth at a distance of 408 km and travels at a speed of 28 000 km/h - making the ISS and the astronauts stay in a continuous state of freefall and therefore feel "weightlessness". The three NASA astronauts at the orbiting laboratory Mark Vande Hei, Shane Kimbrough and Megan McArthur have a few science tasks on their schedules, Dan Huot, a NASA spokesperson with the Johnson Space Center in Houston, told Space.com.

Space station astronauts conduct hundreds of scientific experiments while living and working at the International Space Station. The Expedition 65 crew just received a fresh shipment of science gear and other cargo last week with the arrival of SpaceX's Dargon CRS-23 cargo resupply mission, reports Space.com. Along with bone, plant and materials science investigations, the astronauts also received a special treat with SpaceX's cargo shipment: plenty of ice cream.

You must also check out their pictures on Flickr where the four astronauts are posing inside cargo boxes. "We refurbished the Quest airlock and installed an amazing new deck. Itll be more convenient to stow all our spacewalk equipment Marie Kondo style, and in the meantime, it could serve as a place to nap!!!!"

"Astronaut ice creamDe la glace de lespace !! Elle tait dans un conglateur du cargo Dragon, merci NASA pour la surprise ! Cest en dchargeant et reangeant une douzaine dexpriences scientifiques que nous sommes tombs dessus Merci toutes celles et ceux qui ont t impliqus dans cette aventure glace, ctait notre dernire livraison avant le retour (qui approche inexorablement)."

Wrote Thomas Pesquet on his Flickr account under the pictures he posted of the "tomfoolery" and light fun the astronauts indulged in with the ice cream packages. They looked like kids opening Santa's gifts on Christmas morning.

The translation under the post in French reads its English translation:"Astronaut ice cream! Dragon keeps delivering and thank you NASA for the surprise. Now, on to the dozens of science experiments, we unpacked today before we came across this nice treat (but beware of the ice cream shark, I see it lurking). Thanks to everyone involved in the process! Last surprise until its time to go home (yes, our return to Earth is approaching)."

The journey back home:There are currently seven international crewmembers living and working at the orbiting laboratory. Along with the three US astronauts, the Expedition 65 crew includes cosmonauts Oleg Novitskiy and Pyotr Dubrov of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) astronaut Akihiko Hoshide, and French astronaut Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency.

All of them arrived at the ISS in the following order: Vande Hei, Dubrov and Novitskiy on April 9 on board the Russian Soyuz MS-18 mission. About two weeks later, Kimbrough, McArthur, Pesquet and Hoshide arrived on SpaceX's Crew Dragon Endeavour with the Crew-2 mission. The Crew Dragon is expected to return to Earth with the same four-person crew in November.

According to Space.com, Vande Hei and Dubrov will stay back at the station until March; their two seats on the returning Soyuz MS-18 spacecraft next month will be filled by Russian filmmakers Kim Shipenko and Yulia Peresild, who will launch on a two-week mission to the ISS on October 5.

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ISS astronauts have fun with many pints of ice cream cargo delivered by SpaceX Dragon, pose in cargo boxes - Times Now