Y'all... Block 2 Starship really hits different. I can *not* wait to see this thing in the air. @NASASpaceflight pic.twitter.com/qK6ytD38LN

— Jack Beyer (@thejackbeyer) January 10, 2025

WDR happening right now.



New timelines with prop load - basically happening 20 minutes quicker than they expected.

Flight 7 full tanking test (wet dress rehearsal) complete tonight. Lots learned and lots of data to work through this weekend. But only a few things left before flight test. Starship V2 wants to fly!

— Shana Diez (@ShanaDiez) January 11, 2025

Let's ****ing light this candle

For New Glenn's first launch/landing attempt I'd think/guess they would err on the side of not wanting the landing ship bobbing up and down too much and push to Monday as well. I think it's NET tomorrow (Sunday early am) as of right now:

The sea could still be out-of-limits for tonight's launch attempt. @Windycom is forecasting 20 knots, gusting 32kt, 4.1 metre (13.5ft) waves at the opening of the window, settling down slightly towards the end.

A 24 hour delay to Monday morning would see 9kt winds, gusting 14kt,… https://t.co/2rfLpYJlNY

— Ryan Caton (@dpoddolphinpro) January 11, 2025

A timeline for the Blue Origin New Glenn launch, scheduled for Sunday between 1-4am EST. pic.twitter.com/S5Oyp6NKx4

— Jeff Foust (@jeff_foust) January 11, 2025

It will be interesting to see how cautious:aggressive BO gets with respect to New Glenn weather/launches this year (finally), nice to have a competitor trying to land these first stages a la F9 for comparison. To be fair, NG is also a lot bigger/more advanced than F9 with the Merlins etc. Having starship IFT7 and NG launch on the same day is a lot of space geekdom within 12 or so hours.

If Starship is launching at 4pm will they have adequate lighting when they deploy the starlink mockups?

ETA: I see that the payload deploy demo is 17 minutes into the flight.

Here is what T+17 minutes looked like after the last 4pm launch

They don't need daylight for that imo. Local cameras should be enough to see what it's doing.

The 7th Flight of Starship is scheduled to fly next week, as early as 13th of January 2025. This time a whole new, slightly taller Starship will fly, let's see what changed visually:

Link to the Infographic in the comments below!

S33:
- The height increased from 50.3m to 52.1m… pic.twitter.com/kz1sACQvLp

— Boca Bingo (@BingoBoca) January 11, 2025

Now targeting Wednesday, January 15 for the seventh flight test of Starship → https://t.co/QNCSPTdYW2 pic.twitter.com/xz8eNkfV0T

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) January 12, 2025

New Glenn launch delayed 1 day.

https://www.wesh.com/article/new-glenn-rocket-launch-delay-florida/63401290

Damn, no launch tomorrow to look forward to. Nice to see Elon continue to reference plans to go to a larger diameter starship down the road.

There will probably be another 10m added to the Starship stack before we increase diameter https://t.co/SVIfkZHNet

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 12, 2025

Another update on the current iteration:

I would take a Friday at 4pm launch. Will be on a flight back to Houston and based on flight time might be able to see launch from plane.

Bert315 said:

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I would take a Friday at 4pm launch. Will be on a flight back to Houston and based on flight time might be able to see launch from plane.

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I was on a flight to charlotte from Austin during the last one and the pilots came on intercom to let everyone know to look out the window because you could see it.

Edit to add, most people didn't even lift their window shades. Crazy

Wow I didn't realize how big New Glenn is.

Are they trying to compete with starship or Falcon? Or maybe they're hoping to nail an intermediate version that might be more optimized for things that don't quite fit in Falcon or FH?

Recall it's several years behind schedule waiting on it's engines.

I think the goal was best out FH and maybe even Vulcan?

In that case it seems they'd have been trying to beat starship to the heavy lift reusable punch. Hopefully the delays don't cause them to scrap it altogether. The US needs multiple cost effective launch systems and vendors.

Agreed.
I think they definitely need it if they want to move forward their their Internet constellation. Kueiper...

Mass to LEO is closer to Falcon Heavy than Starship.

Ariane 6 w/4 boosters: 21650kg
Vulcan: 27200kg
New Glenn: 45000kg
Falcon Heavy Outer Cores Recovered: 57000kg
Falcon Heavy Fully Expended: 63800kg
Starship (estimated): 50000-100000kg

The big difference between NG and Falcon is the diameter, since NG is not transported on land.

Falcon: 3.7m
Ariane 6: 5.4m
Vulcan: 5.4m
New Glenn: 7m
Starship: 9m

Starship, once fully and rapidly reusable, kind of resets the commercial space launch industry, but until then New Glenn can take missions that no other launch vehicle can take.

Makes sense. Didn't realize they were less than FH in mass but it is a pretty strong lifter with the three boosters.

Have they ever considered a falcon double heavy? There's room for two more boosters...

bthotugigem05 said:

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Mass to LEO is closer to Falcon Heavy than Starship.

Ariane 6 w/4 boosters: 21650kg
Vulcan: 27200kg
New Glenn: 45000kg
Falcon Heavy Outer Cores Recovered: 57000kg
Falcon Heavy Fully Expended: 63800kg
Starship (estimated): 50000-100000kg

The big difference between NG and Falcon is the diameter, since NG is not transported on land.

Falcon: 3.7m
Ariane 6: 5.4m
Vulcan: 5.4m
New Glenn: 7m
Starship: 9m

Starship, once fully and rapidly reusable, kind of resets the commercial space launch industry, but until then New Glenn can take missions that no other launch vehicle can take.

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I was in a meeting where a large defense/space contractor was discussing their launch trade study and the constraints each vehicle would put on their new project. Fairing size was a key driver for them more-so than mass.

New Glenn's best in class fairing is going to bring them quite a few orders. Starship's current Pez dispenser is unique to Starlink and will surely result in other satellite developers adopting that architecture down the road but until Starship develops a demogorgon style faring, New Glenn has a commercial advantage.

Knowing Musk and his companies, if New Glenn has commercial advantages, they won't last long before they innovate and reclaim the top spot.

After left-wing activists & the Italian media, a French MP is now trying to block the Starlink deal with the Italian government.

Starlink can provide Italy with the most secure & advanced connectivity. These people want this deal blocked because of their hatred toward Elon Musk. pic.twitter.com/DPkl90WovV

— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) January 12, 2025

Kansas Kid said:

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Knowing Musk and his companies, if New Glenn has commercial advantages, they won't last long before they innovate and reclaim the top spot.

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Space-X could probably produce an expendable Starship variant with a 9m faring in a few months but that sort of defeats the purpose of having a fully reusable launch system. If the market is large enough, I'm sure they'll do it.

I think SpaceX is still working on a variety of deployment options from the cargo bay from Starship, pretty easy problem to solve. Pez dispenser works for Starlink because of the trains and how they need to be deployed in the constellation, a simple hatch system for a singular payload could work for deployment in the early days, even if the ships are expended.

bthotugigem05 said:

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Mass to LEO is closer to Falcon Heavy than Starship.

Ariane 6 w/4 boosters: 21650kg
Vulcan: 27200kg
New Glenn: 45000kg
Falcon Heavy Outer Cores Recovered: 57000kg
Falcon Heavy Fully Expended: 63800kg
Starship (estimated): 50000-100000kg

The big difference between NG and Falcon is the diameter, since NG is not transported on land.

Falcon: 3.7m
Ariane 6: 5.4m
Vulcan: 5.4m
New Glenn: 7m
Starship: 9m

Starship, once fully and rapidly reusable, kind of resets the commercial space launch industry, but until then New Glenn can take missions that no other launch vehicle can take.

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New Glenn is also hyping their ability to go straight from launch to TLI without having to refuel in space. If you want to do it in one launch, New Glenn is it. But if you are willing to use multiple launches to refuel starship, the payload mass and cost hugely favor Starship (once Spacex proves out their refueling in space capability).

Totally. And NG can absolutely go directly to the moon...at the expense of 38000kg.

New Glenn will be able to go to the moon "out of the box" with a 7000kg payload in a 7m fairing.

If (and it's a size large if right now) SpaceX gets in-orbit fueling sorted, it blows NG out of the water, taking 10 NG launches compared to one refueled Lunar Starship lander.

Launch of NG on target for 12:00 CST

The live stream has started.

LIVE NOW: Tune in to watch the NG-1 webcast https://t.co/WQR7sJIU6I

— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) January 13, 2025

Now saying 2:07am EST.

bthotugigem05 said:

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Now saying 2:07am EST.

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Sorry, I'm stuck on a work call and can't listen to the audio, I've been told by others they've been saying it over and over again on the stream

Now it's counting down to 2:47am EST. They're running out of launch window.

Just checking in, they keep moving it back a little, I guess It will happen this time ? Some big launches this week with Starship 7 launching Wednesday hopefully

Just changed liftoff once again…. T38 min now (2:15 am CT now) may wait out one more then back to bed..

Whomp whomp… mission scrubbed. (I was curious when the countdown disappeared on the screen)

Good night folks

Berger calling scrub

Yeah the weather is pretty poor the next couple of days I read, out of Florida.

The starship v. NG comparisons will continue for quite a while imho.


Hopefully IFT7 fires off on Wednesday.