SpaceX‘s president and COO Gwynne Shotwell was the star speaker at the Washington Satellite 2024 event. She touched on many key elements. She told delegates to the Satellite 2024 event in Washington that Starship Flight #3 was “incredibly successful” and that #4 would take place in “about 6 weeks”. But the flight would not carry […]
There were 3.3 million people viewing SpaceX’s live web-feed of its March 14th Starship launch, plus many, many millions watching via the world’s news channels as the rocket blasted off on its record-breaking flight. However, the FAA almost immediately issued an investigation order into what it said was a “mishap”. Elon Musk is perhaps not […]
The US Federal Aviation Administration issued its somewhat last-minute approval and licence for the launch today (March 14th) of Elon Musk’s massive Starship rocket and its powerful ‘Super Heavy’ booster. The FAA’s permission was essential, as were the issuing of Marine Hazard notices, Environmental requirements, alerts to aircraft, local road closures and Evacuation notices for […]
Provided the weather is acceptable, and the various government agencies give their final approvals, SpaceX will launch its massive Starship ‘super heavy’ rocket on March 14th from its Boca Chica site in south Texas. The mission manifest – officially IFT3 – opens at launch minus 1 hour, 15 minutes when the launch director approved the […]
SpaceX has announced that the third test flight of its Starship giant ‘Super Heavy’ rocket, subject to the usual weather considerations, will happen on March 14th. Recent days have seen various final tests and rehearsals take place at the Boca Chica launch site and the FAA and other national agencies (for wildlife and environmental impact) […]
Each very well established and highly reliable Falcon 9 rocket can carry 23 Starlink satellites into their transfer orbits. The much larger – but as yet unproved – Starship rocket can carry about 50 satellites. Satellite watcher Ken Kirtland, an industrial designer at Formation Design Group, has compared and contrasted the cost vs effectiveness equation […]
Elon Musk addressed an ‘all hands’ staff Town Hall meeting at the SpaceX Starship site in south Texas on January 12th. He said that the “three Rs: Reliability, Reusable Rockets” were key to SpaceX’s success. Other news also emerged. Some mundane, others perhaps more important. The mundane was that there will be new restaurant, café […]
Communication permissions for Elon Musk’s third test flight of the SpaceX Starship has been issued by the FCC. The communications licence covers a period from December 1st to January 6th 2024. The formal communications licence was issued to SpaceX on November 28th, but is not permission to actually launch. Those final permissions will come from […]
SpaceX plans to sell new shares in December to investors, according to reports. Elon Musk raised around $750 million (€686.9m) in July this year for SpaceX. SpaceX is a closely held business and is expected to issue a tender offer which values the company at about $1.5 billion. The cash raised in July gave the […]
Starship Test Flight Number 3 could be ready for launch this side of Christmas. The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) is currently conducting its post-launch ‘mishap’ investigation on the November 18th Test Flight Number 2. But with zero injuries and no public property damage there is little for the FAA to worry about. The FAA says: […]