NASA says that the astronauts responsible for SpaceX’s first crewed Dragon test flight will be awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor for their bravery. Kamala Harris, the sitting US Vice President and Chair of the National Space Council, will bestow the exceptionally rare awards to former NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken in a…
SpaceX is less than a month into 2023, but CEO Elon Musk’s wildly ambitious goal of 100 launches in one year is already looking doable. Announced last August, Musk’s 100-launch 2023 target followed goals of 52 – and then 60 – Falcon rocket launches in 2022. Both 2022 goals were incredibly ambitious, with 60 requiring SpaceX to almost double its previous…
SpaceX President and Chief Operation Officer Gwynne Shotwell was honored by the Rotary National Award for Space Achievement (RNASA) Foundation’s 2023 National Space Trophy. RNASA will hold a black-tie banquet honoring Ms. Shotwell in Houston on April 28, 2023. Every year an American who has made major contributions to the U.S. space exploration programs is…
SpaceX has set the stage for a record-breaking Starship booster static fire after the rocket completed a complex fueling test and launch rehearsal earlier this week. On January 25th, a tower the size of a skyscraper activated a pair of giant mechanical arms to disassemble the largest rocket ever built. The arms carefully grabbed Starship using hard points under…
SpaceX’s fully-assembled Starship rocket appears to have sailed through a major wet dress rehearsal test on the first attempt. With the completion of that test, the next-generation SpaceX rocket has taken a big step toward its first orbital launch attempt. Starship measures around 120 meters (~394 ft) tall and 9 meters (~30 ft) wide, making…
SpaceX’s Starlink internet continues to find success in Antarctica, Earth’s icy southernmost continent and has spread beyond McMurdo Station. The company first reported that Starlink reached Antarctica as part of a National Science Foundation experiment in September 2022. The milestone also marked the satellite internet network’s arrival on all seven continents. https://twitter.com/icy_pete/status/1617016022468526080?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1617016022468526080%7Ctwgr%5E18b718f1511302f5f5929703b9c850ab7949f1ee%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.teslarati.com%2Fspacex-starlink-internet-antacrtica-coldex-nsf-testing%2F A SERIES OF LASERS Just ~5%…
SpaceX appears to be preparing to ship a huge collection of hardware – including parts of a possible launch deluge system – from Florida to Texas. Captured live by NASASpaceflight’s 24/7 Space Coast Live webcam, hardware began accumulating at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Turning Basin on January 12th. Within a few days, four midsize…
SpaceX may be focused on preparing Starship S24 and Super Heavy Booster 7 for their potentially imminent orbital launch debut, but the rest of the company’s Starship factory isn’t just sitting around. The laser focus on carefully testing Ship 24 and Booster 7 may have limited the effectiveness of Starbase rocket production, but the factory has continued…
CEO Elon Musk says that SpaceX’s South Texas Starship aims to build up to five of the two-stage megarockets in 2023. SpaceX’s Boca Chica, Texas hardware endeavors began in an empty field in late 2018, kicking off Starhopper testing in 2019. In late 2019 and early 2020, the company began building the bones of the…
SpaceX signed a new agreement with the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) to prevent Starlink satellites from interfering with astronomy. SpaceX has long been criticized by astronomers for the brightness of its Starlink satellites. Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, said in 2019 that SpaceX would ensure that Starlink has no material effect on discoveries in…