More than two years after the rocket’s last launch, SpaceX appears to have finally decided to give at least one of two surviving Falcon Heavy Block 5 cores a new lease on life as a Falcon 9 booster. Known as B1052, the Falcon Heavy side core or booster debuted in April 2019 as part of…
SpaceX has successfully launched NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer telescope, paving the way for a unique aspect of black holes, a variety of dead stars, and other odd phenomena to be explored in unprecedented breadth and detail. Marking the first time a NASA payload has launched on the fifth flight of a reused SpaceX rocket,…
CEO Elon Musk says he may finally present the first cohesive update on SpaceX’s next-generation Starship rocket development program in more than two years. While Musk routinely makes Starship-focused appearances and comments in public or by webcast every 3-6 months, there is a certain brand of update – along the lines of a high-profile tech…
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA’s tiny IXPE X-ray telescope has rolled out to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Pad 39A for the last time ahead of a planned Thursday, December 9th launch. Falcon 9 is scheduled to lift off at the start of a 90-minute window that opens at 1am EST (06:00 UTC). The…
As of late November, SpaceX has begun stacking two Starship prototypes simultaneously for the first time in ten months. Known as Starship S21 and S22, SpaceX began stacking the latter prototype inside Starbase’s ‘midbay’ in mid-October – the first Starship assembly work seen in more than two and a half months. For about half a…
SpaceX says it has successfully static fired Falcon 9 ahead of the company’s second scientific NASA spacecraft launch in just two weeks. On November 24th, SpaceX successfully launched the small Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft, marking Falcon 9’s first direct interplanetary launch and the rocket’s first flight-proven mission for NASA’s Launch Service Program (LSP).…
After another few weeks of downtime, SpaceX has simultaneously tested the first orbital-class Starship prototype and a Frankenstein-esque ‘test tank’ at its South Texas facilities. While nothing that occurred was all that visually spectacular, the afternoon of testing was still noteworthy for a couple of reasons. https://twitter.com/NicAnsuini/status/1466245707023765508?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://youtu.be/EIKlWRerkaM First up, following a successful six-engine Raptor…
In a new leaked email, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk says that the company could go bankrupt if, by the end of 2022, it can’t achieve Starship and Starlink milestones that are by all practical appearances out of reach. The news – first broken by SpaceExplored – comes about a week after CNBC reported that Musk was “shaking up” SpaceX’s…
SpaceX’s newest drone ship is on its way out into the Atlantic Ocean for a Starlink mission that will break the company’s record for annual launch cadence. Somewhat confusing known as Starlink Shell 4 Launch 3 or Starlink 4-3, the batch of 53 laser-linked V1.5 satellites is scheduled to fly before Starlink 4-2 for unknown…
SpaceX appears to have begun tying up a number of loose ends at Starship’s first orbital launch site, potentially setting the stage for major rocket testing CEO Elon Musk has stated could begin next month. The list of tasks started or completed in just the last week or two is significant and each one is…