SpaceX

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SpaceX will try to launch most powerful rocket ever Monday
https://phys.org/news/2023-04-spacex-po ... onday.html

A prototype of Starship, a huge rocket made by SpaceX, sits on a launchpad in Boca Chica, Texas in February 2022.

SpaceX plans to carry out its first test flight on Monday of Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, designed to send astronauts to the Moon and eventually beyond.

The launch is scheduled to take place at 7:00 am (1200 GMT) from the sprawling Texas base of the private space company owned by billionaire Elon Musk.

Fallback times are scheduled later in the week if Monday's attempt is postponed.

The US space agency NASA has picked the Starship capsule to ferry its astronauts to the Moon as part of the Artemis III mission, set for late 2025 at the earliest.

Starship consists of a reusable capsule that carries crew and cargo and the first-stage Super Heavy booster rocket.

The 164-foot (50-meter) tall Starship spacecraft sits atop the 230-foot tall Super Heavy rocket.

SpaceX conducted a successful test-firing of the 33 Raptor engines on the first-stage booster of Starship in February.

The Super Heavy booster was anchored to the ground during the test-firing, called a static fire, to prevent it from lifting off.

The rocket has never flown in its full configuration, powered by the first stage.

"Success maybe, excitement guaranteed!" Musk tweeted late Friday.

NASA will take astronauts up to lunar orbit itself in November 2024 using its own heavy rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS), which has been in development for more than a decade.

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SpaceX scrubs launch of Starship's first integrated test flight from Texas
Source: USA Today

SpaceX scrubbed the Monday morning liftoff of the first test launch of the company's fully integrated Starship vehicle minutes before it was scheduled to occur. The company pivoted to a "wet dress rehearsal" of the launch, broadcasters said on SpaceX's live stream, continuing with preparations right up until 10 seconds before the scheduled launch. The launch will be postponed at least 48 hours.

"A pressurant valve appears to be frozen, so unless it starts operating soon, no launch today," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted.

If everything goes according to plan with the postponed launch, it will mark the first time the combined system – Super Heavy booster below and Starship vehicle on top – takes flight from Starbase, a SpaceX-owned facility just outside Brownsville, Texas. Previous test flights, which often ended explosively, only featured the Starship vehicle itself, but this time the combined 400-foot vehicle is taking flight.

After liftoff from Starbase, Starship and Super Heavy will fly east over the Gulf of Mexico. Once the booster's job is done, it will attempt a soft landing in the waters of the Gulf. Starship will continue on through the Straits of Florida, perform nearly one orbit, and end in the Pacific Ocean with a controlled water landing of its own.

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... 680619002/

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SpaceX's Starship Rocket Ends in Explosion After Launch
Source: New York Times

The most powerful rocket ever built got off the launchpad in South Texas, but did not achieve its most ambitious goals on Thursday.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/04/20 ... ticleShare

SpaceX successfully launches largest ever space rocket
By David Szondy
April 20, 2023
https://newatlas.com/space/spacex-succe ... -starship/

History was made today as a private company leapfrogged ahead of NASA by launching the largest, most powerful rocket ever. At 8:36 am CDT, SpaceX's uncrewed Starship lifted off from the company's Starbase at Boca Chica, Texas, on an orbital test flight that came to an explosive end four minutes into the flight.

Under mostly clear skies and moderate winds, the Starship lifted off as its 33 Raptor liquid-fuel engines in the Falcon Heavy first stage built up 16,700,000 lb of thrust. At the one-minute-20-second mark, the rocket passed through Max Q or the point of maximum mechanical stress.

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That huge slab of concrete flying all the way up there...

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FAA to ground the SpaceX Starship Super Heavy launch program pending a "mishap investigation."
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/24/spacex- ... miles.html

SpaceX launched the largest rocket ever built for the first time on Thursday from its Boca Chica, Texas, spaceport. The Starship spacecraft, designed to fly people on a Mars mission someday, lifted off the launch pad then blew up in mid-flight, with no crew on board.

Now, residents and researchers are scrambling to assess the impact of the explosion on local communities, their health, habitat and wildlife including endangered species. Of primary concern is the large amount of sand- and ash-like particulate matter and heavier debris kicked up by the launch. The particulate emissions spread far beyond the expected debris field.

As a result of the explosion, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded the company’s Starship Super Heavy launch program pending results of a “mishap investigation,” part of standard practice, according to an email from the agency sent to CNBC after the launch. No injuries or public property damage had yet been reported to the agency as of Friday.

SpaceX did not immediately return a request for comment.

Not in the plan

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, speaking publicly on Twitter Spaces on April 16 ahead of the test flight, acknowledged that a vehicle with 33 engines is akin to “a box of grenades,” and that the Starship vehicle was not likely to reach orbit but was likely to explode.

However, Musk and SpaceX did not accurately predict that their launchpad would be destroyed, nor that particulate matter would rain down on residents and habitat as far away as Port Isabel, a town about six miles from the launchpad, and South Padre Island, a few miles up the coast from the site.

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SpaceX to take over West Coast launch pad previously used by ULA
Space Force awarded SpaceX the lease for SLC-6, where ULA launched Delta 4 Heavy rockets
Sandra Erwin April 25, 2023
https://spacenews.com/spacex-to-take-ov ... ed-by-ula/

Visitors tour Space Launch Complex-6 at Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif. Credit: U.S. Space Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Luke Kitterman

WASHINGTON — SpaceX is getting a second launch pad on the West Coast after gaining approval to lease Space Launch Complex 6 (SLC-6) at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, a historic site previously occupied by United Launch Alliance.

Space Launch Delta 30, the Space Force unit that manages the West Coast launch ranges, announced April 24 that SpaceX will use the pad to launch Falcon rockets.

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Massive, exploded SpaceX rocket devastated a town and a wildlife reserve — and locals are furious

From destroying a parked van to burning a state park, SpaceX's April 20 Starship explosion is raising eyebrows

By Troy Farah
Published April 28, 2023 3:37PM (EDT)

SpaceX's high-profile rocket explosion on April 20 has angered environmental and civil liberty groups who are furious about the level of damage caused to the local environment in Texas. The explosion created significant pollution that impacted local communities, and could threaten endangered species on Boca Chica Beach near Brownsville, Texas. Some experts say the whole scenario likely could have been avoided if the aerospace company had installed a flame diverter or flame trench, a long channel built into the ground beneath the launchpad that diverts heat and energy away from the rocket.

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The community living near the launch site has been dealing with fallout from the launch, in both senses of the word. The explosion essentially obliterated the launch pad, carving a massive crater and sending chunks of concrete, sheets of stainless steel and other debris flying into the ocean on Boca Chica Beach. A Dodge Caravan was smashed with wreckage, which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported was scattered over 385 acres, causing a fire that burned 3.5 acres on Boca Chica State Park land.

Clouds of ash and particulates rained down on residents of Port Isabel, about six miles away, settling onto homes, cars, and streets, breaking several windows. It's not clear if the particulate matter is dangerous to breathe or touch, or if it will pollute the soil. An FAA environmental assessment of the spacecraft notes that some stages of the rocket used kerosene as fuel, which is toxic to breathe; the assessment also notes over 100 gallons of hydraulic fluid in the rocket, which is often hazardous.

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One Port Isabel resident, Sharon Almaguer, told the New York Times the situation was "terrifying" and described locals as "being sacrificed."

"He just wanted to get this thing up in the air," Almaguer said of Musk. "Everybody else sort of be damned."

Prior to this calamity, multiple organizations in the Rio Grande Valley Community released a strongly-worded press release opposing SpaceX launches like this one. On April 19, 27 organizations, including the Sierra Club, Voces Unidas and the South Texas Environmental Justice Network, signed onto a letter expressing concerns that the aerospace company's activities were "destroying wildlife refuges and sacred lands of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas and are threatening Rio Grande Valley communities with explosion risks."

https://www.salon.com/2023/04/28/massiv ... e-furious/