Sohail Amar Aftab’s Post

#SpaceX’s 120 Annual Launch Ambition from #Florida Faces Pushback from Competitors. #SpaceX's ambitious plans to launch its #Starshipmegarocket up to 44 times per year from #NASA’s #KennedySpaceCenter are causing a stir among its competitors. Recently, #BlueOrigin and #UnitedLaunchAlliance submitted comments to regulators, urging them to ensure minimal disruptions to other launch providers in the area. Blue Origin even suggested limiting Starship operations to specific times and giving other launch providers a right of first refusal for conflicting launches. #SpaceX's ambitions extend beyond this, as they are considering a second launch pad at #SpaceLaunchComplex (#SLC)-37 at #CapeCanaveralSpaceForceStation (#CCSFS). Public meetings held in March revealed plans to launch Starship from SLC-37 up to 76 times per year, potentially bringing the total to 120 launches annually within a six-mile area on the Florida coast. The #USSpaceForce is preparing a draft environmental assessment, expected to be released this winter, which will include SpaceX’s final anticipated launch cadence. While these numbers might change based on #Starship’s development progress or environmental considerations, such as the discovery of scrub jay nests, competitors are still referencing the 76-launch benchmark. SpaceX did not immediately return a request for comment. #SpaceX #Provelopers #Starship #LaunchPlans #BlueOrigin #ULA #KennedySpaceCenter #CapeCanaveral #EnvironmentalAssessment #USSpaceForce

SpaceX's new Raptor 3 engine delivers groundbreaking performance improvements with a simpler design, setting a new standard in rocket technology. 🚀 Raptor 3 offers 51% more thrust than the first-generation engine, enhancing spaceflight capabilities. ⚙️ Simplified design reduces weight and external complexity, making the engine more efficient. 🔥 Integral cooling circuits eliminate the need for a heat shield, even during reentry. 🔧 Despite simplifications, servicing Raptor 3 is more challenging due to welded components. 🌑 Designed to support Starship's ambitious missions with increased reliability and reduced risk. 🛠️ Production pace improvements ensure a steady supply of engines for future launches. #SpaceX #RocketTechnology #Innovation 💡 Raptor 3 weighs significantly less than its predecessors, improving fuel efficiency. 📉 Weight reduction lowers the overall cost of space missions, making exploration more feasible. 🎯 Starship's capability to conduct more frequent test flights is enhanced by the new engine. 🌐 Integral cooling circuits throughout the engine's parts increase durability and performance. 🔍 Focus on eliminating bolted joints addresses previous issues with hot gas leaks and engine fires. https://lnkd.in/gCnPBXzK

Starship’s Flight-4 is imminent. The goal this time is to have Starship make it through atmospheric heating and soft land on ocean. Making a 100% rapidly reusable rocket that can launch >150 mt to low Earth orbit will bring down cost of launch down to hundreds of dollars per Kg of payload opening new use cases for space technology. SpaceX , like always, has been transparent about what worked and did not in Flight-3. This article summarizes it well and puts in perspective the stakes involved. Past few months have been hectic preparing for this. Time to take the leap. #SpaceX #Rockets #Starship #Space

🚀 SpaceX’s #Starship successfully completed its fourth test flight, marking a significant milestone in the development of the world’s most powerful rocket. Launched from the Starbase facility near Boca Chica Beach, #Texas, on June 6 the Starship vehicle soared into the sky atop a pillar of fire. The test aimed to achieve a soft splashdown of the Super Heavy booster in the Gulf of Mexico and a controlled reentry of the Starship upper stage. Both #objectives were met with the booster and the upper stage making successful water landings, despite the upper stage suffering some damage to a flap during descent. 🙊 From my perspective, the biggest #innovation are the elements of reusability and the frequency of launches. Believe it or not, but it was 363 launch for the company and 287 reflight.

#SpaceX #Starship #IFT3Review "... During that flight, SpaceX also attempted a soft landing of the Super Heavy first stage. After its separation from the Starship upper stage, as intended, 13 of Super Heavy's 33 Raptor engines successfully relit to make a controlled flight through the lower atmosphere. During this boostback burn, however, six of these engines shut down early. Later in the descent, as the rocket neared the sea surface, the rocket was supposed to use the same 13 engines to make a final landing burn. "The six engines that shut down early in the boostback burn were disabled from attempting the landing burn startup, leaving seven engines commanded to start up with two successfully reaching mainstage ignition," the company said in its recap of the flight. "The booster had lower than expected landing burn thrust when contact was lost at approximately 462 meters in altitude over the Gulf of Mexico and just under seven minutes into the mission." The cause of this failure was traced to blockage in a filter where liquid oxygen flows into the Raptor engines. Notably, a similar problem occurred during the second test flight of Starship in November 2023. SpaceX says it implemented "hardware changes" to address this blockage issue for the third test flight. Now, the company said, "Super Heavy boosters for Flight 4 and beyond will get additional hardware inside oxygen tanks to further improve propellant filtration capabilities." It will be interesting to see whether the company's engineers have successfully addressed this issue. As for the Starship upper stage, the vehicle began losing the ability to control its attitude during its coast phase in space. This was found to be due to clogged valves used by reaction control thrusters on the upper stage. The company's update notes that "SpaceX has since added additional roll control thrusters on upcoming Starships." But it is not clear that they will be available for Flight 4. Indeed, the fact that SpaceX is not attempting an in-flight relight of Raptor engines on the Starship upper stage suggests these new roll control thrusters are not yet in place. Ultimately this lack of attitude control during Flight 3 resulted in a non-nominal reentry to Earth's atmosphere. SpaceX was able to maintain contact with the vehicle down to 65 km in altitude before telemetry was lost due to excess heating. On Flight 3, SpaceX achieved some important milestones, including the opening of the Starship payload bay door in space and a small propellant transfer demonstration. Due to the loss of attitude control, however, a planned Raptor rocket engine re-light test was not conducted. This is an important test, as Raptor ignition is needed to perform a controlled reentry—essentially to ensure that Starship returns to a remote section of ocean rather than land. For the next flight, SpaceX is focused on solving the technical issues observed on Flight 3: the filter blockages observed during Super Heavy's boostback ..."

[Daily Focus News] Space "#SpaceX is aiming to launch its massive Starship rocket for the third time as soon as March 14, the company confirmed in a social media post Wednesday. SpaceX is still awaiting regulatory approval from the Federal Aviation Administration for the launch, without which Starship will remain grounded. But even though the FAA has yet to give SpaceX the green light for the next mission, there are signs that the company has been anticipating receiving it — soon. Just this past weekend, teams at the Starbase facility in southwest Texas completed a critical “wet dress” rehearsal for launch, loading the nearly 400-foot-tall rocket with more than 10 million pounds of propellant and practicing the countdown sequence to T-minus 10 seconds." #SpaceX #Starship #rocket #launch #March14 #regulatory #approval #FAA #grounded #anticipating #mission #Starbase #facility #Texas #rehearsal #propellant #countdown #kotra #kotrasvitc

In a shocking announcement this week, the European intergovernmental organization responsible for launching and operating the continent's weather satellites has pulled its next mission off a future launch of Europe's new Ariane 6 rocket. Instead, the valuable MTG-S1 satellite will now reach geostationary orbit on SpaceX's #Falcon 9 rocket in 2025. “This decision was driven by exceptional circumstances” said Phil Evans, director general of the organization EUMETSAT. “It does not compromise our standard policy of supporting European partners, and we look forward to a successful #SpaceX launch for this masterpiece of European technology.” The decision, taken at a council meeting of Eumetsat's 30 member nations on Wednesday and Thursday, comes less than two weeks before the debut of the Ariane 6 rocket, scheduled for July 9. 📖 Source https://lnkd.in/gAKC9gmT for more details 🗣️my take: "Economics was the reason for sure 😉 50% less costly 👍⚡" #IONAXS #CleanMobility #eMobility #ElectricCars  #FutureMobility #Batteries #Automotive  #ElectricVehicles #AutonomousVehicles  #EV #Lithium #Innovation #Sustainability  #Recycling #Future #Energy #Efficiency #Technology #AVEVAI #TomTsogt 🔔👍

🚀 Do you know why Static fire test is done for a Rocket engine before launch❓ 1️⃣ What is a Static Fire test? A static fire test is a critical pre-launch procedure where a rocket's engines are ignited while the vehicle is securely anchored to the launch pad. This allows engineers to thoroughly test the rocket's systems, ensure the engines are functioning properly and make any necessary adjustments before attempting an actual rocket launch. 2️⃣ Why a Static Fire test? Static fire test are essential step in the development and qualification of new launch vehicles. They help identify and resolve potential issues early in the process, reducing the risk of failure during the liftoff. ☄ The video in this post shows the recent static fire test of SpaceX's Flight 5 Super Heavy Booster. The successful completion of this static fire test is a significant milestone for the company and a clear demonstration of their engineering excellence. video credits: SpaceX #space #test #mission #rockets #science #mars #SpaceX

Still reeling under the realization that SpaceX's Starship rocket performed its third test flight meeting most of the mission objectives. When you work on problems that haven't been solved or analyzed ever before, you can only gain confidence in the design up to a certain point. The only way ahead is to test, learn, refine your design, and then test again. From the outside, the process looks messy but there is a deliberate method to this seeming madness. Every flight gives us insight into what needs to get fixed and a team of engineers does its best to use first principles to take the best shot possible at success in the next test. I am humbled and thrilled to be part of this team. Here's a quick recap of some major successes from the test: Successes repeated from Flight 2: > All 33 Raptor engines completed a full-duration burn in Stage 1 ascent. > Hot Staging - starting the ship engines while three booster engines are still providing thrust to the booster and ship,- worked again! This maneuver adds a ~10% performance gain and is extremely challenging since the first stage needs to be preserved for re-use. > All 6 raptors on the ship worked after the stage separation. New milestones reached in Flight 3: > The first stage booster completed a full boostback burn, flew through the atmospheric entry, and managed to re-ignite a few engines attempting a landing burn (propulsive landing like the F-9). > Starship completed a full-duration stage -2 burn staying on course in the planned orbit ( intentionally keeping a sub-orbital path to ensure entry) > Demo of the payload door opening and propellant transfer between tanks while the ship was in exo-atmospheric coast (micro-gravity). > Starship experienced its first entry at nearly 25 times the speed of sound giving valuable data on heating, control, and aerodynamic loads. > The cherry on top: Starlink was used on the ship to get high-speed real-time video while the ship was engulfed with plasma (from the high heating caused by air friction) which would have blacked out all ground communication links. The data received is a thousand times better than any wind tunnel test or simulation. What needs to be resolved further: > Re-light of ship raptor engines in space. > Booster landing softly by completing the landing burn. Flight 4 has a high bar to meet and exceed. But heck, that's what makes this interesting. Kudos to all my colleagues at SpaceX and everyone who has helped and encouraged us through this journey. #rockets #spaceX #starship #spacetechnology #spaceengineering https://lnkd.in/gUgSRSXf

FAA Concludes Investigation into SpaceX's Starship Mishap: Urgent Fixes Await Liftoff The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has wrapped up its probe into SpaceX's Starship's dramatic second flight, but that doesn't mean it's ready for liftoff number three just yet. Despite the investigation's end, SpaceX has to make some fixes and get a thumbs-up from the FAA before launching again. The review uncovered 17 things that need correcting, including hardware tweaks and updates to control systems. SpaceX's Starship is a massive rocket designed for ambitious missions to the Moon and Mars, but it's grounded until all safety concerns are addressed. So, for now, it's back to the drawing board for Elon Musk's space company. #FUTURENEWS #Rocketscience #Spacex #Technology #Science #News #Taffds