A new NASA video advertises a suite of its real-life missions as previewing an “Exoplanet Travel Bureau” of the future.
SpaceX has aced its first operational interplanetary launch, sending NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft on its way out of the Earth-Moon system as part of the world’s first planetary defense mission.
Right on time, SpaceX’s flight-proven Falcon 9 booster lifted off at 10:21 pm PST with an expendable upper stage, new fairing, and the ~630 kg (~1400 lb) DART spacecraft in tow, reaching a nominal low Earth parking orbit about eight minutes later. A few seconds after the second stage’s first engine cutoff (SECO-1), booster B1063 safely landed on drone ship Of Course I Still Love You (OCISLY), wrapping up its third orbital-class launch and spaceflight in twelve months.
Around 28 minutes after liftoff, Falcon 9’s orbital second stage fired up for the second and final time. In just 53 seconds, Falcon 9’s upper stage accelerated from a stable velocity (relative to Earth’s surface) of 7.5 kilometers per second (4.7 mi/s) to almost 11.1 km/s (6.9 mi/s), sending DART (and itself) from low Earth orbit (LEO) to an Earth escape trajectory that will ultimately leave them in orbit around the sun.
For decades, Jim Woodward dreamed of a propellantless engine to take humans to the stars. Now he thinks he’s got it. But is it revolutionary—or illusory?
SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic, and others are launching more rockets than ever. But the environmental impact and carbon emissions are poorly understood.
If we knew that a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) was headed for Earth could we deflect it?
Seeking to find out is the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), a mission from NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) to smash a 500kg spacecraft into binary asteroid 65,803 Didymos and its moonlet Dimorphos (also called, rather cutely, “Didymoon.”)
And it could halve the transit time to Mars.
Pulsar Fusion Ltd., a nuclear fusion company based in the United Kingdom, has recently designed and successfully tested its first launch-capable, high-power chemical rocket engine.
Continue reading “A UK Rocket Company Wants to Put Nuclear Fusion Power in Orbit by 2027” »
After raising $1.4 billion.
Long ago, the writer Edward Albee wrote: “Good, better, best, bested.”
Continue reading “A New Challenger for Elon Musk? Another Company Plans to Settle Humans on Mars” »
The feat drew the attention of Musk.
On Saturday, Astra announced via Twitter that its LV0007 mission reached orbit from the Astra Spaceport in Kodiak, Alaska. The rocket, which carried a payload for the United States Space Force, took off at 1:16 a.m. Eastern time. The feat earned the praise of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who wrote on Twitter: “Congrats! Orbit is not easy.”
Continue reading “Look: Awe-inspiring video shows the ‘FedEx of Space’ reach orbit” »
SpaceX is making good progress on Starship’s first two Super Heavy boosters, both of which could potentially be ready for their first major test campaigns before the end of the year.
On November 19th, some ten weeks after the process began, SpaceX craned Super Heavy B5’s methane (LCH4) tank on top of its oxygen (LOx) tank, marking the end of major structural assembly for the 69m (~225′) tall booster. A team of welders has since been working around the clock to weld the two tanks together and complete a transfer tube that routes methane propellant down through B5’s oxygen tank.
Two days prior, CEO Elon Musk shared a photo of SpaceX’s other Super Heavy booster (B4) which has been slowly progressing towards test readiness for more than three months. It’s unclear why SpaceX has been so sluggish to prepare Super Heavy B4 for testing but with B5 finally approaching the finish line, the company will soon find itself in a position where it will need to decide which booster to proceed with towards the program’s near-term end goal: the first orbital Starship test flight.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCABjYITbco&feature=share
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You’re on the PRO Robots channel and in this episode we’re going to talk about a vacation in space. When will this cherished dream come true? How will such a trip take place, what will the preparation consist of, how much does a trip and service in space cost, what will be the food for the space tourists and what are the living conditions and dangers awaiting them — watch this video! Watch this episode to the end and write in the comments: would you dare to go on a space vacation?
