SpaceX
Final yr was unquestionably one of the best yr in SpaceX’s historical past, CEO Elon Musk instructed his staff throughout an all-hands assembly in South Texas final week.
There have been 96 flights of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets, plus the primary two take a look at flights of the big new Starship rocket. In 2024, SpaceX stated it goals for greater than 140 launches of the Falcon rocket household. There could also be as much as 10 Starship take a look at flights this yr, in response to the NASA official who manages the company’s contract with SpaceX to develop Starship right into a human-rated Moon lander.
SpaceX posted a video late Friday on the social media platform X of Musk’s all-hands assembly on the Starbase launch facility close to Brownsville, Texas. The hour-long video contains Musk’s feedback on SpaceX’s current accomplishments and plans, however the video ends earlier than staff ask questions of their boss.
Whereas it might be good to see house reporters get extra alternatives to query Musk about SpaceX, it is good to see the corporate sharing these sorts of movies. Musk has offered a number of formal updates on Starship previously—in individual and digital—and brought questions from reporters and house lovers.
Nonetheless, the current all-hands assembly included important updates on Starship and different SpaceX packages. We now know a little bit extra about what occurred on the finish of an in any other case profitable Starship take a look at flight from South Texas in November, stopping the rocket from reaching its deliberate trajectory. And Musk talked about what we are able to count on in upcoming Starship take a look at flights.
He additionally touched on the information set by SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon rocket household this yr. Till Starship is totally operational, Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy will preserve flying. SpaceX has launch contracts for each rockets into the late 2020s.
Musk stated SpaceX is engaged on extending the lifetime of Falcon 9’s reusable first-stage boosters. Initially, SpaceX stated every Falcon 9 booster may fly as much as 10 occasions with out a main overhaul. Some Falcon 9s have now flown virtually twice that variety of missions.
“We’ve carried out a nineteenth re-flight,” Musk stated. “We’re now qualifying Falcon 9 to have the ability to do 40 flights, and we’re aiming for possibly as a lot as 150 flights this yr.”
Ramping up the launch cadence would require SpaceX to extend manufacturing facility all through to provide extra Falcon 9 second phases, that are solely used as soon as. And SpaceX might want to get even higher at turning round its Falcon 9 launch pads between missions
“We’re aiming to hopefully, I feel, get beneath 24 hours pad turnaround by the top of this yr,” Musk stated.
What occurred on the final Starship flight?
Maybe essentially the most attention-grabbing a part of Musk’s presentation centered on Starship.
Starship’s second full-scale take a look at flight on November 18 surpassed SpaceX’s targets going into the launch. Musk stated the first goal was to get the rocket previous staging, a milestone simply shy of three minutes into the flight when Starship’s higher stage separated from its Tremendous Heavy booster.
Attending to that time, the Tremendous Heavy booster’s 33 Raptor engines all labored, apparently flawlessly, then Starship’s higher stage lit its six Raptor engines to proceed the climb into house.
The Tremendous Heavy booster exploded moments later because it started a boost-back burn to information itself towards a managed splashdown within the Gulf of Mexico. This was a secondary goal, however SpaceX engineers must right this challenge earlier than it may well get better and reuse a Tremendous Heavy booster.
Starship—the rocket’s higher stage—continued flying till round eight minutes into the flight, when it broke aside in house over the Gulf of Mexico. This occurred lower than 30 seconds earlier than Starship’s engines have been supposed to chop off, when the automobile would have accrued sufficient velocity to achieve its deliberate trajectory, taking it many of the manner all over the world. If all the things went completely, the ship would have reentered the environment and splashed down close to Hawaii.
Musk did not talk about what occurred with the Tremendous Heavy booster on the November flight, however he stated Starship disintegrated throughout a liquid oxygen vent late in its burn. The Raptor engines eat liquid oxygen and methane as propellants.
“Flight 2 really virtually made it to orbit,” Musk stated. “The rationale that it really didn’t fairly make it to orbit was we vented the liquid oxygen, and the liquid oxygen in the end led to a fireplace and an explosion. We wished to vent the liquid oxygen as a result of we usually wouldn’t have that liquid oxygen if we had a payload. Sarcastically, if it had a payload, it might have reached orbit.”
SpaceX
Musk did not supply any extra particulars in regards to the liquid oxygen vent however stated he thinks SpaceX has a “actually good shot of reaching orbit” on the subsequent Starship take a look at flight. This third full-size Starship take a look at flight is probably going weeks away. Jessica Jensen, SpaceX’s vp of buyer operations and integration, stated in a NASA teleconference final week that SpaceX goals to have {hardware} for the subsequent Starship launch prepared this month.
She stated SpaceX anticipates getting a business launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration in February. SpaceX launched its first two Starship take a look at flights inside a number of days of receiving its FAA license.
SpaceX launched quite a few modifications to the Starship design between its first and second flights final yr, together with a water deluge system on the launch pad, a redesigned stage separation method, and changing hydraulic thrust vector controls with an electrically pushed engine steering system.
“With Flight 1, the aim was to not blow the pad up and ideally get a ways, which we did,” Musk stated. “With Flight 2, it was to get previous staging, so we achieved the aim of getting previous staging and virtually to orbit.”
