Once they are proven safe and reliable with a good track record, that won't be an issue. Same as it is with Falcon 9.

When do y'all think the next launch will be ? May need to head down there to see that

Caliber said:

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PJYoung said:

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OK my new date is Monday October 9th.

And if we don't launch then the next guess will be Monday October 16th.

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They should try for noon on the 14th. Epic shots with the solar eclipse!

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This cracks me up.

Taking the kids to south Texas already for the eclipse. If, and holy **** it's a huge IF, but if there's some way Elon can get that cleared and launched that day when the sky is dark........

It sounds like Blue Origin is flaking out as one could have predicted about their commitments to Sierra Space/Nasa toward a "commercial" space station, as is Northrop Grumman.

At least Sierra raised some more solid funds and is progressing slowly but steadily on dream chaser.

Quote:

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Blue Origin and NASA confirmed to Gizmodo on Friday via email that Orbital Reef is still full steam ahead, with Sierra Space serving as a sub-contractor. Sierra Space is expected to provide its Large Integrated Flexible Environment (LIFE) habitat for Orbital Reef. The habitats consist of a three-story platform designed for both low Earth orbit and long-duration missions that can house habitation and science efforts.

Announced in 2021, the planned space station passed a System Definition Review in August 2022, with NASA approving Blue Origin's plans for the project, allowing the company to move into the design phase. Some staff originally assigned to the space station have reportedly been redirected to work on the Blue Moon lunar lander, according to Reuters. The lander is being developed after Blue Origin won a $3.4 billion contract to build and test a human landing system in collaboration with Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Draper, Astrobotic, and Honeybee Robotics. The fully reusable Blue Moon lander will hold a crew of four and is expected to be a part of the Artemis 5 mission, scheduled for launch in 2029. The outlet reports that Brent Sherwood, who serves as the company's head of Advanced Development Programs, is eying an exit by the end of the year.

"We are actively engaged in designing and testing a multitude of deliverables to NASA for our CLD Phase 1 contract, and we're excited about how this work will help shape NASA's CLD Phase 2 destination goals," a Blue Origin spokesperson told Gizmodo in an email today. "Sierra is and will continue to be part of the Orbital Reef program." The spokesperson also told Gizmodo that Sherwood is simply retiring.

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IF NG does drop out…it's frustrating as Blue Origin is a producer mostly of vapor ware, for nasa to rely on for low earth orbit:

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Nearly two years ago, NASA placed its bets to develop commercial space stations on four companiesBlue Origin, Nanoracks, Northrop Grumman, and Axiom Space. Now, as the US space agency looks to find a successor to the International Space Station in low-Earth orbit, this landscape is shifting dramatically.

At the International Astronautical Congress meeting this week in Azerbaijan, sources report that there is widespread speculation that one of these four companies, Northrop Grumman, is dropping out of the competition. Northrop's plan had been to leverage its successful Cygnus spacecraft design to build a free-flying space station.

However, Northrop no longer plans to do so. Rather, it will join the venture backed by Voyager Space, which is partnering with Europe-based Airbus to develop a commercial space station. It's likely that Northrop would provide cargo transportation services, with Cygnus as part of the team. Officials from Voyager and Northrop Grumman declined to comment on the change in strategy, which could be announced soon.

Et tu, Blue?

Other changes appear likely with the commercial space station program. Multiple sources have told Ars that Blue Origin, which proposed a lavish station concept called 'Orbital Reef,' is hedging on its plans. Sources have indicated that Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos is not particularly interested in a low-Earth orbit space station, preferring instead to focus on the company's efforts to develop a lunar lander and other Moon infrastructure.

Last week, CNBC reported that Blue Origin and its primary partner on Orbital Reef, Sierra Space, were reevaluating their partnership as it was "on rocky footing." The publication reports that Blue Origin and Sierra Space will likely go their separate ways, and it's unclear whether the companies would pursue individual space station efforts.

NASA has a lot riding on these initiatives. The agency plans to operate the International Space Station in conjunction with its partners until 2030, after which time it intends to transition to leasing time on commercial space stations. NASA officials have said repeatedly that they do not want to have a gap in having a place for its astronauts to live and work in orbit around Earth.

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The grid fins have been moveable for quite a few iterations. The last test flight had moveable grid fins. The confusion here may be that they made the decision to not have deployable grid fins that are folded down during launch.

The mechanisms to deploy them adds a few points of failure and extra weight. The benefits of including this functionality are negligible. Instead they lock the fins perpendicular to the flight path as they present the least drag in this orientation.

TexAgs91 said:

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nortex97 said:

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1 Starship built/day?

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SpaceX can probably achieve this. But what about the elephant in the room? The bottleneck is the FAA.

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I think Space-X wants to have launch sites around the globe to provide sub-orbital hot-shot deliveries as well as passenger service everywhere. Obviously this isn't something that can be implemented overnight and the FAA and other national regulators will have to get used to multiple launches per day from each launch site.

Kceovaisnt- said:

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The grid fins have been moveable for quite a few iterations. The last test flight had moveable grid fins. The confusion here may be that they made the decision to not have deployable grid fins that are folded down during launch.

The mechanisms to deploy them adds a few points of failure and extra weight. The benefits of including this functionality are negligible. Instead they lock the fins perpendicular to the flight path as they present the least drag in this orientation.

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One of the Everyday Astronaut interviews with Elon goes into quite a bit of detail. But basically on launch the atmosphere is thickest when the rocket is moving the slowest so the drag penalty is minimal.

Kceovaisnt- said:

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The grid fins have been moveable for quite a few iterations. The last test flight had moveable grid fins. The confusion here may be that they made the decision to not have deployable grid fins that are folded down during launch.

The mechanisms to deploy them adds a few points of failure and extra weight. The benefits of including this functionality are negligible. Instead they lock the fins perpendicular to the flight path as they present the least drag in this orientation.

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Pretty sure I read that they were completely fixed for the first launch, but maybe not. I certainly can't remember them waiving about for tests prior to going up.

On the 1-a-day plans/comments (by others), I think this clearly requires them to get to offshore launches/new oil rigs etc, but it's gonna take quite a while. The other issue is the pretty substantial liquid methane/liquid oxygen transport to those places, it will take a small navy, and some substantial coastal logistical planning as well. They had mooted a few years ago about piping it out undersea to these things 7+ miles off shore but I really think that is unrealistic.

Here we go! The long 12-hour closures! Potential testing up to WDR level for Starship!

(Could also be Ship 26 in play, but I'm really hoping we get some full-stack fun). https://t.co/B8AxiS9saa

— Chris Bergin - NSF (@NASASpaceflight) October 4, 2023

Watch live as @elonmusk provides an update on the development of Starship https://t.co/GgFUK1d8Ec

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 5, 2023

Does anyone ever ask Elon what's up with Ship 26 (the one with no heat shield and fins)

He puts very little effort into being a good public speaker, no doubt.

Musk is giving a virtual Starship update at IAC in Baku, Azerbaijan. He says Starship in its upcoming test flight has a "decent chance of reaching orbit" if it can separate from the Super Heavy booster. pic.twitter.com/dcpqUgyZbF

— Joey Roulette (@joroulette) October 5, 2023

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The conversation starts with a comparison between Falcon 1 and Starship. Starship has approximatively 900 times more capacity than Falcon 1.

Elon: With the upgrades we are preparing, Starship will have about three times more thrust than Saturn V, with about 20 million pounds. @elonmusk

Elon on the second test flight of Starship: I don't want to set the expectations too high. We changed the separation mecanism to hot staging and we will try it for the first time. We want to go to a system that has no parts for pushing the second stage. Hot staging is the most efficient way to separate the stages. The second stage will almost do a full orbit, then we will see if the heat shield works. @elonmusk

Elon about catching Starship with Mechazilla: "Success is among the possible outcomes, but it will be a few flights with landing at a precise location in the water before trying a catch with Mechazilla. Regarding the booster, there is a decent chance that we catch it in less than a year. For the ship, it will probably be at the end of next year". @elonmusk

"The goal is *rapid* reusability. That's the idea with Mechazilla. The booster uses it's propellant quite quickly, we are trending towards about 100 seconds of booster flight. The booster will come back after 4 or 5 minutes. The ship is going to take a minimum of 1.5 hours to go around the Earth." @elonmusk

On launching Starlink with Starship: "There is a good chance we start deploying V3 Starlink satellites about one year from now with Starship. We don't have to wait until full reusability since the upper stage of Falcon 9 is expandable anyway."

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Quote:

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"More profound than its size, the significance of Starhip is that it is fully and rapidly reusable. Its size is only due to the fact that we want to create bases on the Moon and on Mars" @elonmusk

Elon on Starship's size: When I saw the first prototype, I though "What have we done, this thing is ridiculously big!" It feels like a cathedral @elonmusk

Elon also notes that the size of Starship gives intersting perspectives for telescopes and space science. @elonmusk

"We are building a giant factory for giant rockets. I recommend people visit Starbase. It's literally along the highway. It's easy to come, no permission required" @elonmusk

About a self-sustaining city on Mars: "You have to think in terms of tonnage. We have to aim to one million ton of useful mass delivered to Mars to create a self-sustaining city. This means bringing about 5 million tons of mass to Earth orbit." @elonmusk

"An uncrewed flight to Mars is doable within the next 4 years. More generally, Starship is intended to be a transport vehicule to go anywhere in the solar system. The Moon is harder than you would think, but I'm optimistic that we can take a Starship that is quite unmodified to the Moon. Once you have a propellant plant on Mars, you could then go to the Astroid Belt, to the moons of Jupiter, then from there to the moons of Saturn and beyond." @elonmusk

On launch sites and capacities: "We will have a launch pad in Texas, in Florida, and we will probably have a location at the Cape. Within 4 or 5 years, when we will launch several times a day, we might need to go to a specially-designed ocean-based launch facility. We are talking here about thousands of launches per years. If you just do 1000 launches per year with 100 tons per flight, that amounts to only 10% of what is required to do a self-sustaining city on Mars. These are big numbers. But either we do these numbers, or we stay a single-planet civilization forever." @elonmusk

On Starship as a space station: "It has a similar volume as the space station. There is no limit to how much it could stay up there, you just need to add some solar panels" @elonmusk

On Starship as a mode of transportation: "Physically, the fastest way to go from point A to point B on Earth is with an intercontinental missile. If you can land on the Moon and Mars, then you could technically use Starship as a mode of transportation on Earth. And I think it has a shot at being economically viable. You could go from Los Angeles to Sidney in about 20 minutes, against 14 hours with an airlines. And you don't need pilots, don't need food or bathrooms. You could have breakfast in LA, lunch in London, supper in Singapur and be back in time for bed in LA." @elonmusk

On Internet between Earth and Mars: ultimatly, you would want a terabit connection if there is a city on Mars. You would need satellites as relays and use a bunch of lasers. Starlink already uses this today in Earth orbit" @elonmusk

Message to young people: "I'm intersted in the future of humanity, in what can expand the span and scope of human consciousness. I'm just curious as of the nature of reality. Where will we go? Where are the alien? Are we alone? Unfortunately, I have not seen evidence of alien yet. We are the alien. This suggests that we should protect this tiny candle of consciousness". @elonmusk

Last question: When could we host an IAC in outer space? Elon's answer: Probably in less than 10 years!

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LOL, lot's of optimism, of course/as usual.

He says you don't need permission to visit Starbase. Do they have a your or is he simply saying you can drive by at any time. Oh man, if they have tours that is my next road trip.

Sea Speed said:

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He says you don't need permission to visit Starbase. Do they have a your or is he simply saying you can drive by at any time. Oh man, if they have tours that is my next road trip.

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No tours unfortunately. You can drive by any time (except during tests, launches, etc) and you can park on the opposite side of the road from SpaceX infrastructure and take pictures.

"Along the highway" doesn't sound like much of a tour. I imagine at some point once they get the restaurant etc. going they will have some sort of a tour offering.

His optimism is great but I do think he is a bit dismissive about the hazards of radiation in space. Total volume of starship is one thing but…that's not really relevant once you pack it with shielding/life systems (and backups) etc.

We are a long, long ways from having a propellant plant on Mars.

Edit: he really is a cross between PT Barnum, Harold Ford, Andrew Carnegie, and I dunno maybe Steve Wozniak who was a great engineer but more importantly a good manager of engineers with a marketing plan/focus himself.

Definitely Howard Hughes.

ISS: In the last few minutes, MCC-Houston asked the ISS crew to go to the cupola and look for any signs of "flakes" toward the aft of station; Jasmin Moghbeli reported "yeah, there's a leak coming from the radiator on MLM;" the MLM is the Russian Nauka multi-purpose lab module

— William Harwood (@cbs_spacenews) October 9, 2023

Starting to wish there was a way to cut the Russian segment out of ISS, it seems to be becoming rapidly more problematic as time goes by.

It really just needs to be de-orbited in a couple years. The whole thing is way past its sell-by date, and the Russian parts are…dangerous.

I agree, I'm just not sure there's a viable replacement within the decade.

I like the concept being floated a while back of using ISS to build a standalone station that would eventually take one of the current modules, then cut loose.

IMHO it would be better to just set up a prize to any private contractor that can orbit one that can be safely controlled/operated via Nasa first (with some space/performance/capability caveats/requirements). There's no real risk of it being de-orbited this year or next but I bet with a few billion on the line one of the newer players could make it happen pretty quickly.

Frankly, I think similar incentives should also be provided for other space exploration objectives like the lunar base/venus lander/mars etc. too. But, that would probably not be popular to the senate launch system voters up on the hill.

Ag_of_08 said:

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I agree, I'm just not sure there's a viable replacement within the decade.

I like the concept being floated a while back of using ISS to build a standalone station that would eventually take one of the current modules, then cut loose.

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I believe you're referring to Axiom's proposal. Not sure how far along they are.

nortex97 said:

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IMHO it would be better to just set up a prize to any private contractor that can orbit one that can be safely controlled/operated via Nasa first (with some space/performance/capability caveats/requirements). There's no real risk of it being de-orbited this year or next but I bet with a few billion on the line one of the newer players could make it happen pretty quickly.

Frankly, I think similar incentives should also be provided for other space exploration objectives like the lunar base/venus lander/mars etc. too. But, that would probably not be popular to the senate launch system voters up on the hill.

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A space station even a fraction of the scope of ISS would be an audacious undertaking for any company not named SpaceX.

NASA: "A view of the outside of the OSIRIS-REx sample collector. Sample material from asteroid Bennu can be seen on the middle right. Scientists have found evidence of both carbon and water in initial analysis of this material. The bulk of the sample is located inside."

Photo:… pic.twitter.com/N3CSZIyond

— Chris Bergin - NSF (@NASASpaceflight) October 11, 2023

Enhance: pic.twitter.com/4hmhAuGqso

— Chris Bergin - NSF (@NASASpaceflight) October 11, 2023

It's not a surprise that there was carbon and water on an asteroid is it?

OnlyForNow said:

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It's not a surprise that there was carbon and water on an asteroid is it?

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It's always interesting to find water, but no, not unusual. It's interesting because water from different sources in the solar system have different isotope ratios that can be used to trace origins.

NASA and SpaceX teams are set to launch the Psyche mission to metal asteroid 16 Psyche from LC-39A in Florida. Falcon Heavy and Psyche are scheduled to liftoff at 10:19 AM EDT (14:19 UTC) on Friday, Oct. 13.

More on the mission, launch, and asteroid ⬇️https://t.co/wqnN9IGpeL

— Haygen Warren (@haygenwarren) October 12, 2023

My wife's cousin will be on the ops floor at JPL as part of this mission.

Falcon Heavy launch in 45 minutes

link?

OnlyForNow said:

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link?

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https://www.youtube.com/live/npIDMxrzm_o?si=FAOvph4Bh5iifqVE

Literally just picked a number from thin air it seems.

NASA even says in a report that building 2 per year would only have a 33% reduction. And nothings going to help more than cadence to lower that number… pic.twitter.com/6wZjv4vLgi

— Ken Kirtland IV (@KenKirtland17) October 12, 2023

LOL.

Awesome launch
Looking forward to the asteroid data in 6 years

Yep. Interesting to see the side boosters coming in more staggered than usual today. Hard to beat a Falcon Heavy launch