Test flight #10

Win or lose, "the goal is always to collect as much data as possible," to learn what works and what doesn't, to test for weaknesses. Test flights take place so SpaceX can intentionally stress Starship.

If you want to fly to Mars, you have to get out of the office and up into real space so you can learn what you don't know: like how to build the world's first "reusable orbital heat shield." It's never been done. But it will be.

After two scrubbed launch windows, Starship test flight #10 got off the ground Tuesday evening. SpaceX posted a two-hour live video full of information about work they did after the last flight and what they hope for in this flight. Actual launch starts at 46:45.

Elon interview

Big thinker Elon Musk goes after exciting goals. No, that's an understatement. Make that "impossible" or "near-impossible" goals. 

He wants to be inspired. As he's said before, "life can't just be about solving one miserable problem after another." He chuckles a bit as he mentions that he and staff acknowledge a "giggle factor" when they talk about these ideas that make you excited to get up in the morning.

Catching the "biggest flying object ever made" out of the air was one of those goals. Enabling space travel for colonization of Mars will be another (assuming that one is not actually impossible). Starship will need to be fully and rapidly reusable, able to be refueled in space at an orbital re-filling depot.

But there's much more than space. He sees a huge future for Tesla's robotaxi service, Optimus robots, Neuralink, Grok AI. 

Big ideas, all addressed in this video.

 

Space econ

Space came back to the headlines in America when SpaceX started a new era.

Cost was the huge deterrent to exploration. When SpaceX began to produce rockets that could be re-used, the enormous cost of getting out of earth's atmosphere was cut spectacularly.  

Other space companies followed, and space was no longer un-reachable. What else could we do out there?  

Materials - including water - exist on the Moon and Mars and beyond. When we get there, we'll apply intellect and knowledge and turn some of those materials into resources for humanity. A Hillsboro professor explains:

Test flight #9

Starship test flight #9 finally got off the ground (after some delays in FAA approval) yesterday.

After the first stage booster separated to leave Ship (second stage) in space, its engines shut down and then did a "boost back burn" to turn and come back to the launch site. A landing burn to slow it down would have been next, but control was lost. It was the first re-use of a Super Heavy booster, and some vital data was gained before its end in the Gulf.

Ship's engines ignited at separation and burned for a couple of minutes to propel Ship toward orbit. Then they stopped at SECO (ship engine cutoff). The SpaceX narrators seemed very relieved at the achievement of this important milestone.

One of the goals of this flight was to push Starship to its limits. One hundred heat shield tiles were intentionally removed over critical areas in order to see what would happen during re-entry. Unfortunately it didn't make it to re-entry.

So both stages eventually failed, but vital data was gathered.

Starship V3

How can we make it better? That's a central question which SpaceX addresses to its Raptor engines, but it doesn't stop there. Innovation keeps coming with regard to the "ship" spacecraft which is the top half of the integrated "Starship." 

Version 2 is currently being used for test flights, but V3 is coming (see this video from one of the many avid SpaceX watchers to learn the details) and it's full of upgrades. 

It's bigger, to accommodate both more fuel capacity and bigger payload. Elon's X post shows Starship 3 in comparison to Falcon 1, the first rocket they produced (still in use). 

Vast improvement was made in the relative cost to put payload into orbit: 400x better. (Click on the image to see the small print.)

25 in 2025

SpaceX started testing the integrated Starship (the ship mounted on the giant booster) two years ago, April of 2023. Test flight #8 took place two months ago, so that's eight test flights in two years.

Things are going to get a lot busier. SpaceX asked the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for permission to launch 25 test flights this year, and FAA just issued its approval.

Starbase, the SpaceX launch site, will soon officially be a city: Starbase, TX.

Raptor engine

Dozens and even hundreds of improvements are made as a result of every Starship test flight.

The Raptor engine has evolved from its first design to a simpler one.

Much of the "fiddly bits" on Raptor 1 have been "deleted, combined, simplified on Raptor 2: a gigantic difference in complexity." 

It's simplified, and yet it's more powerful. The first version produced 185 tons of thrust, the simplified version 2 produces 230 tons of thrust. 

When the next test flight (#9) of Starship launches, it will reuse the same booster and 29 of the same Raptor 2 engines used in test flight #7. It will be the first time for booster and engine reuse in a Starship flight.

Raptor 3, a new design, is still in the testing process.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Flying home

Follow-up to this post

Astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams (along with two others) have returned. Their mission to the International Space Station is finally at an end, having expanded from eight days to about nine months.

SpaceX launched Dragon Freedom spacecraft last Friday on a Falcon 9 rocket; it docked with the ISS on Saturday night, and yesterday it returned to Earth with Crew 9 about 6 pm EDT, with splashdown in the Gulf of America.

It wasn't a record for time served on the ISS. Several U.S. astronauts have spent more time there, up to a record number of 371 days. Butch and Suni were there for 286 days, though of course they weren't planning on it at the beginning. NASA missions are always understood to be a little flexible, depending on conditions. 

Stranded?

Follow-up to this post

As you know, two astronauts (photo) have been at the International Space Station for nine months instead of their original assignment of eight days. Now a small controversy has blown up around it because maybe they didn't have to be there all these months.

 

Elon Musk says he made an suggestion to the U.S. government last fall, offering to send SpaceX up to the ISS to get them and bring them home. But the president at that time would not allow it.

Elon speculates that they wouldn't allow it because of the political "optics" of the thing: he was aiding the rival political party during the presidential campaign, and they didn't want him and his company to look like a hero. 

Astronaut Wilmore says they knew nothing about the offer, but he believes it. A article different article says ten times that the astronauts never felt "stranded", so they never needed rescuing--so Elon and the current president are spreading false claims.

Almost everything these days is political drama. 

Flight test #8

Starship's flight test #8 was scrubbed last Monday, but it finally flew yesterday afternoon from Starbase in Texas. 

The ship itself separated from Super Heavy booster successfully. More than 30 cameras on the exterior provided beautiful views, and gave visual information to SpaceX engineers. 

But some of its engines failed over the ocean. It lost attitude control (started tumbling) and ended up in the dreaded RUD, rapid unscheduled disassembly, as it did on the previous test flight. 

Meanwhile, Super Heavy functioned beautifully. Its engines slowed its speed and directed it right into the "chopsticks" arms for a perfect catch seven minutes after launch.

Almost home

Follow-up to this post

Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are test pilots who flew up to the International Space Station last June on ULA's  spacecraft Starliner, its first astronaut-crewed flight. But NASA would not permit Starliner to carry them back home at the end of their one-week mission because they judged the craft unsafe due to technical problems.

Instead of spending a week there, it's been about nine months. They say they want to go home, and that's coming soon. 

SpaceX will launch Crew-10 to the ISS on March 12, and then Butch and Suni will get their ride back to Earth on SpaceX's Dragon craft, returning home next week (weather permitting) . . at last. Suni said in yesterday's news conference that her message to family is that she'll be home soon, so "Don't plan anything without me!"

COO

Space operations used to be the domain of governments only. But now there's a big private sector. In the private, non-government space business, there's no more important name than Gwynne Shotwell, President and Chief Operating Officer of SpaceX.

photo

Super celebrity Elon Musk hired her as an engineer way back in 2002. As Director of Business Development, she successfully negotiated the contract (2008) with NASA to deliver commercial resupply services to the International Space Station. Promotion to the position of president followed. 

Gwynne is a superstar herself. She led the effort to build the Falcon rocket. Under her leadership, SpaceX was the first private company to successfully launch to orbit and recover a spacecraft and send one to the ISS . . plus all the recent SpaceX achievements. 

Test flight #8 of Starship may take place today, depending on conditions.

US in space

No day goes by without space operations of some kind, even though we don't commonly see them. Consider that roughly 10,000 satellites are in orbit around the world in use for GPS, communication, surveillance, military.

Cyber attacks and the jamming of our satellites are just a couple of threats that our enemies could employ. That's why the U.S. has a military branch dedicated to space operations, in an environment where there's no up or down, no left or right: the United States Space Force.

"We won't just think outside the box. We'll think outside the atmosphere."

Bullet speed x2

If a huge object, say 250 tons, were free-falling from the sky onto earth, how fast would it be traveling? Elon Musk answered that question on X this week. Before Super Heavy booster was caught on SpaceX's launch tower, it was moving this fast:

"Atmospheric reentry speed is more than twice as fast as a bullet from an assault rifle . .

When Super Heavy is stacked with Starship, it's about 403 feet tall, ". . and this is the largest flying object ever made." 

If you've ever watched re-runs of the 1950's tv show Superman, you remember the words "faster than a speeding bullet."

Test flight #7

Yesterday was the seventh test flight of Starship and its booster Super Heavy rocket. A lot of modifications were tried (including a 25% increase in propellant volume and an additional 6.5' of length for "Ship") with some success and some failure.

Super Heavy performed beautifully, the megazilla "chopsticks" catching it out of the air just as they did in flight test #5. A thrilling success.

Starship ("Ship") didn't fare as well. There was a rapid unplanned disassembly (SpaceX term for explosion) over the Atlantic ocean, and a beautiful sky show as the debris streaked to earth.

There may be as many as 25 test flights of Starship this calendar year, every one being an opportunity to get more things right.

Chopsticks

How big are those SpaceX "chopsticks" that caught a descending 250-ton rocket in mid-air? 

This big (photo):

ISS view

The International Space Station has been up there a long time, continuously occupied since 2000. Astronauts are commonly there six to twelve months. It can be uncomfortable.

But the view is amazing.

The catch

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

To remind yourself why they would try to do something as monumentally difficult as catching a rocket in mid-air, go here. 

What a moment that turned out to be. After boosting "Starship" through the thickest part of the atmosphere, seven minutes after launch "Super Heavy" disengaged from it and came hurtling back to earth. 

Precision firing of its raptor engines slowed the 250-ton rocket down til it hovered right over its target. It slowly descended into the "chopstick" arms of the "mechazilla" launch tower, back into the position where in the future it will be readied for the next flight in as little as one hour. 

This process will help attain the goal of the rapid reuse of Starship, essential to Elon's vision. He posted on X: "Big step towards making life multiplanetary was made today."

Test flight 5

After telling SpaceX that approval of their next Starship test flight would probably not be granted until late November, the government (FAA) suddenly approved it last Saturday afternoon, three days ago.

SpaceX was ready, and the flight took place just 19 hours later on Sunday morning. To my complete surprise, I saw the tweet on X as we drove home from church (which explains why this post didn't appear yesterday 😐).

As planned, the spectacular accomplishment of the day was the amazing catch of the returning first stage booster in mid-air for the first time ever. In the words of one of the engineer/narrators, history was made. 

Here is the flight video. To see SpaceX's full video at sunrise with more information and more excitement, go here.

Can ULA compete?

United Launch Alliance, formed by Boeing and Lockheed Martin back in 2006, is America's "most experienced" launch service. But after enjoying their cash-cow of NASA business for many years, they now struggle to keep up.

Their one reusable rocket, Vulcan, finally flew for the first time this year. For comparison, SpaceX Falcon 9 rockets have safely landed back on Earth since 2015. If you don't have to build a brand new rocket for every launch, it saves a lot of money.

ULA can't compete with young private space companies in cost. A vice president of engineering said that in a lecture and soon resigned--or was fired by his boss. Tory Bruno, the CEO, says they can so compete and will prove it. Some doubt it. A sale of the company is being negotiated.