llamacoffee @ llamacoffee @lemmy.world

Posts

387

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96

Joined

2 yr. ago

Some photos:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GMvd5rMW0AAYdrO?format=jpg&name=large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GMvYxi4WoAAFum_?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GMvYxi4WsAARFW9?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GMvYxi4XsAAZljT?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GMvYxi4WQAEnMwP?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

Polaris Dawn page also features an update: https://polarisprogram.com/dawn/

More info on the suit on SpaceX's Human Spaceflight page: https://www.spacex.com/humanspaceflight/

I think I may have an idea of why this has been down-voted?

How much you buy into this vision will undoubtedly depend on your predilection toward Musk and your sense of the difficulty of forging habitable communities on an uninhabitable world like Mars.

I wonder who didn't click the article /s

With SLC-40 now ready for crew launches, there are four launch pads at Cape Canaveral designed to support astronaut flights, alongside crew-rated pads for NASA's Space Launch System and ULA's Atlas V rocket. A decade ago, there were none, and during the heyday of NASA's Apollo and shuttle programs, there were two.

If Gwynne Shotwell says six weeks, that means they're pretty damn confident!

A lot wrong here, I'm sorry to say, and I'm really not a fan of Musk. He is absolutely not selling Starlink to be used by Russia. That would be shut down real quick. (They may be using black-market terminals, but that's a different question.) And this new constellation will, as I understand it, be owned and operated by the US govt. Think like every single spy satellite ever: govt finds a contractor and asks them to do a thing.

Because of a relentless focus on costs and cheap building materials, such as stainless steel, SpaceX can likely build and launch a fully expendable version of Starship for about $100 million. Most of that money is in the booster, with its 33 engines. So once Super Heavy becomes reusable, you can probably cut manufacturing costs down to about $30 million per launch.

This means that, within a year or so, SpaceX will have a rocket that costs about $30 million and lifts 100 to 150 metric tons to low-Earth orbit.

Bluntly, this is absurd.

For fun, we could compare that to some existing rockets. NASA's Space Launch System, for example, can lift up to 95 tons to low-Earth orbit. That's nearly as much as Starship. But it costs $2.2 billion per launch, plus additional ground systems fees. So it's almost a factor of 100 times more expensive for less throw weight.

Norminal is one of my favorite space-isms! I think nominal is just tradition at this point

https://spaceflightnow.com/2024/03/07/spacex-tentatively-targets-march-14-for-third-starship-flight/

https://spacenews.com/spacex-adds-tests-to-next-starship-flight/

These pics are unreal!

Booster reentry was sick!

This is a bigger deal than I think people realize! No one else has a rocket ready to go just like that in the industry. No one!

Nope, nothing yet. I think there's been speculation about late March or early April, but it's just that — speculation.

Context: the FAA has closed the mishap investigation of IFT-2

That's right! I haven't heard anything about a West Coast launch site though.

It's not exactly front-page news, but it's exactly stories like this that signal that we truly are in a new space age! And aside from the fact that this is unprecedented in human history, the behind-the-scenes tech that enables this is simply mind-blowing.

The views of splashdown and recovery were amazing!

Absolutely! Just as the article states, small launch is increasingly for niche services. Rideshare is the same simple economies of scale as cargo ships, for example. So it makes sense that more companies are trying to transition to that model.

One thing mentioned was that there is a feeling that transporter missions are actively trying to kill off competition, rather than it happening "naturally". I haven't seen indication that SpaceX is flying them at a loss, so I would be very interested to see documentation whether or not they're engaging in monopolistic practices.

So it begins... :)

Even though IFT-2 didn't reach "orbit", it's clear that it will make it. Even fully expendable, it must be cheaper to launch a space station in one go rather than distributed, even on a falcon.

A SPACE STATION IN ONE LAUNCH!! The future is now. (Or whenever it launches, you know what I mean.)