SpaceX’s Starship and its massive reusable booster both successfully made their first controlled water landing during a fourth flight test on Thursday.
Why it matters: It’s a significant achievement for the vehicle, which is key to NASA’s Artemis program.
Welcome to episode 2 of our behind-the-scenes series as we document space exploration. In this episode, join our team as we capture slow-motion footage of SpaceX’s Starship at Starbase, record powerful liftoff audio, share stereoscopic VR from up close, and journey to the top of NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building for an exciting astronaut launch. Thank you for watching!
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Starship Flight Test 4 (unofficially IFT-4) will be the 4th flight of Starship. The current launch date is set for NET June 6, 2024. [1] Ship 29 (S29) and Booster 11 (B11) will be used for this mission. Both vehicles have received upgrades since Flight 3. The fourth flight test of Starship is currently planned for the 6th of June, 2024 at 7 am CDT, pending regulatory approval. The test profile of this mission is almost identical to the one on Flight 3, but there are some changes. The most notable of these changes are the jettison of the hot stage ring from B11 and a soft, engine powered landing for S29. The goals for the fourth flight per SpaceX: \.
[TIME SUBJECT TO CHANGE] This is the fourth fully integrated full stack test flight of Starship and the mighty Super Heavy booster, the largest and most powerful rocket to ever fly. It produces over twice as much thrust as the Saturn V that took humans to the moon.
The goal of the test is to get further along than IFT-3 in March, 2024. If all goes well, Starship will re-enter in the Indian Ocean about 65 minutes after it lifts off from Starbase, TX, on a suborbital trajectory.
Continue reading “[4K] Watch SpaceX Starship FLIGHT 4 launch and reenter LIVE!” »
New long-term agreement will help provide responsive access to space for future tech demonstration spacecraft
Cedar Park, Texas, June 5, 2024 – Firefly Aerospace, Inc., an end-to-end space transportation company, today announced it signed a multi-launch agreement with Lockheed Martin for 25 launches on Firefly’s Alpha rocket through 2029. This agreement commits Lockheed Martin to 15 launch reservations and 10 optional launches.
“Firefly is honored to continue this partnership with Lockheed Martin and appreciates their confidence in our rapid launch services to support their critical missions for years to come,” said Bill Weber, CEO of Firefly Aerospace. “The Firefly team has scaled up Alpha production and testing and significantly streamlined our launch operations to fly Alpha more frequently and responsively. This allows us to continue delivering the one metric ton rocket the industry is demanding.”
Making Humanity A Multi-Planetary Species — Dr. Eliah Overbey, Ph.D. — Assistant Professor, Bioastronautics, University of Austin; CSO, BioAstra.
Dr. Eliah Overbey, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Bioastronautics at The University of Austin (UATX — https://www.uaustin.org/people/eliah–…) where she is involved in pioneering research in the field of astronaut health, specializing in spaceflight-induced genomic changes. Her work focuses on mapping changes in the human body during spaceflight and developing Earth-independent laboratories to make humans a multi-planetary species (https://www.eliahoverbey.com/).
The space agency has been around since 1958, yet only a select few spacecraft have transported NASA astronauts to space. Boeing’s Starliner could join a rather exclusive list should it succeed in docking with the ISS and delivering its precious human cargo. We’ve put together a list of all the spacecraft that have flown, or will soon be flown, with NASA crews on board.
MIT scientists found that metals like copper can become stronger when heated and impacted at high velocities, challenging traditional views and potentially enhancing materials for extreme environments like space and high-speed manufacturing.
Metals get softer when they are heated, which is how blacksmiths can form iron into complex shapes by heating it red hot. And anyone who compares a copper wire with a steel coat hanger will quickly discern that copper is much more pliable than steel.
But scientists at MIT have discovered that the opposite happens when metal is struck by an object moving at a super high velocity: The hotter the metal, the stronger it is. Under those conditions, which put extreme stress on the metal, copper can actually be just as strong as steel. The new discovery could lead to new approaches to designing materials for extreme environments, such as shields that protect spacecraft or hypersonic aircraft, or equipment for high-speed manufacturing processes.
