Starship – Page 5 – Spaceflight Now

SpaceX clears big hurdle on next-gen Starship rocket program

August 5, 2020 Stephen Clark

A prototype rocket for a massive reusable vehicle SpaceX is designing to fly people to the moon and Mars took off from a launching stand in South Texas on Tuesday, flew to a height of roughly 500 feet, then made a controlled descent to a nearby landing pad.

SpaceX Starship test vehicle explodes moments after test-firing

May 29, 2020 Stephen Clark

A full-size prototype of SpaceX’s Starship violently exploded in South Texas moments after a test-firing of its Raptor engine Friday, dealing a setback to the company’s next-generation reusable rocket program.

SpaceX test-fires Raptor engine on Starship test rocket

May 6, 2020 Stephen Clark

A test-firing of a Raptor engine on the latest in a series of Starship test rockets Tuesday night in Texas moved SpaceX closer to performing a low-altitude “hop” to gather data on the vehicle’s launch and landing characteristics.

NASA identifies risks in SpaceX’s Starship lunar lander proposal

May 1, 2020 Stephen Clark

SpaceX’s proposal to land astronauts on the moon using the company’s reusable Starship vehicle could be “game-changing” for space exploration, but comes with risks and complexity that “threaten the schedule viability” to achieve NASA’s goal of returning crews moon by the end of 2024, agency officials said.

Companies release new details on human-rated lunar lander concepts

April 30, 2020 Stephen Clark

The next time astronauts land on the moon, they will ride to the lunar surface in a spacecraft that looks a lot different than the Apollo-era landing module last used in 1972. Lander concepts proposed by SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics — which won a combined $967 million in NASA funding Thursday — take wildly different approaches to carrying crews to the moon.

Blue Origin wins lion’s share of NASA funding for human-rated lunar lander

April 30, 2020 Stephen Clark

NASA has selected Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX to move forward with development of human-rated lunar landers, committing nearly $1 billion in funding for a range of moonship concepts that include a variant of SpaceX’s next-generation Starship vehicle, officials announced Thursday.

SpaceX to debut satellite-dimming sunshade on Starlink launch next month

April 28, 2020 Stephen Clark

A new sunshade, or visor, designed to reduce the brightness of SpaceX’s Starlink broadband Internet satellites will debut on the company’s next launch, a measure intended to alleviate astronomers’ concerns about impacts on observations through ground-based telescopes, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said Monday.

Starship prototype clears cryogenic pressure test

April 27, 2020 Stephen Clark

SpaceX founder Elon Musk said a prototype for the company’s planned Starship launch vehicle passed a cryogenic proof test Sunday night in South Texas, clearing the way for teams to install a Raptor engine this week for a test-firing.

SpaceX loses third Starship prototype in cryogenic ground test

April 3, 2020 Stephen Clark

A prototype for SpaceX’s Starship space vehicle collapsed during pressure testing early Friday at the company’s facility in South Texas — the program’s third failure during such testing since November — but assembly of a new version is already underway.

Second Starship test article implodes during pressure test

March 2, 2020 Stephen Clark

A prototype for SpaceX’s Starship vehicle imploded during a pressurization test at the company’s facility in South Texas Friday night, an event captured on video by local residents.