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Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an American spacecraft manufacturer, launch service provider and satellite communications company headquartered in Hawthorne, California. The company was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk with the goal of reducing space transportation costs and ultimately developing a sustainable colony on Mars. The company currently produces and operates the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets along with the Dragon, and Starship as a hybrid between a rocket and a spacecraft.
The staged combustion cycle is a power cycle of a bipropellant rocket engine. In the staged combustion cycle, propellant flows through multiple combustion chambers, and is thus combusted in stages. The main advantage relative to other rocket engine power cycles is high fuel efficiency, measured through specific impulse, while its main disadvantage is engineering complexity.
NASASpaceflight, more often referred to as NSF, is a private aerospace news organization, which operates a YouTube channel, website, and forum, which launched in 2005, as well as various social media channels covering crewed and uncrewed spaceflight and aerospace engineering news. Its original reporting has been referenced by various news outlets on spaceflight-specific news, such as MSNBC, USA Today and The New York Times, among others. NASASpaceflight also produces videos and live streams of rocket launches online, with a special focus on developments at SpaceX's Starbase facility, for which they were recognized with an award by SpaceNews. NSF is currently providing three 24/7 live-streams covering the following:
SpaceX has privately funded the development of orbital launch systems that can be reused many times, similar to the reusability of aircraft. SpaceX has developed technologies over the last decade to facilitate full and rapid reuse of space launch vehicles. The project's long-term objectives include returning a launch vehicle first stage to the launch site within minutes and to return a second stage to the launch pad, following orbital realignment with the launch site and atmospheric reentry in up to 24 hours. SpaceX's long term goal would have been reusability of both stages of their orbital launch vehicle, and the first stage would be designed to allow reuse a few hours after return. Development of reusable second stages for Falcon 9 was later abandoned in favor of developing Starship, however, SpaceX developed reusable payload fairings for the Falcon 9.
Starbase is an industrial complex for Starship rockets, located near Brownsville, Texas, United States. It has been under construction since the late 2010s by SpaceX, an American aerospace manufacturer. Starbase is composed of a spaceport near the Gulf of Mexico, a production facility at the Boca Chica village, and a small structure test site along the Texas State Highway 4.
Boca Chica Village or Kopernik Shores, formerly Kennedy Shores, is a small unincorporated community in Cameron County, Texas, United States. It was formed in the late 1960s, and is still extant as of 2021, although the village proper has changed greatly since 2018 as SpaceX came to purchase much of the land of the village. It lies 20 miles (32 km) east of the City of Brownsville on the Boca Chica peninsula, and forms part of the Brownsville–Harlingen–Raymondville and the Matamoros–Brownsville metropolitan areas. It is situated on Texas State Highway 4, immediately south of the South Bay lagoon, and is located about 2 mi (3.2 km) northwest of the mouth of the Rio Grande. Although the name Kopernik Shores is no longer in popular use, it remains its official name per the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, and is still occasionally used in official contexts.
Chaetocnema rileyi, the Boca Chica flea beetle, is a species of flea beetle in the family Chrysomelidae. It is known to be found only in a dune system at Boca Chica Beach, in Boca Chica, Texas, United States. The beetles inhabit the stems of sedges in the beachside dunes, while the larvae are subterranean and feed on the underground portions of their host plants.
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Raptor is a family of rocket engines developed and manufactured by SpaceX. A notable trait of this engine family is the use of a full-flow staged combustion cycle (FFSC). They are powered by cryogenic liquid methane and liquid oxygen, a mixture known as methalox.
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Boca Chica is an area on the eastern portion of a subdelta peninsula of Cameron County, at the far south of the US State of Texas along the Gulf Coast. It is bordered by the Brownsville Ship Channel to the north, the Rio Grande and Mexico to the south, and the Gulf of Mexico to the east. The area extends about 25 miles (40 km) east of the city of Brownsville. The peninsula is served by Texas State Highway 4—also known as the Boca Chica Highway, or Boca Chica Boulevard within Brownsville city limits—which runs east–west, terminating at the Gulf and Boca Chica Beach.
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Super Heavy is the first stage of the SpaceX Starship super heavy-lift launch vehicle, which it composes in combination with the Starship second-stage. As of 2024, Super Heavy prototypes are being flight tested. Super Heavy flew for the first time on April 20, 2023, during the first orbital launch attempt of the Starship rocket.
Starship is a spacecraft and second stage under development by American aerospace company SpaceX. Stacked atop its booster, the Super Heavy, it composes SpaceX's new super heavy-lift space vehicle, also called Starship. The spacecraft is designed to transport both crew and cargo to a variety of destinations, including Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars. It is intended to enable long duration interplanetary flights with a crew of up to 100 people. It will also be capable of point-to-point transport on Earth, enabling travel to anywhere in the world in less than an hour. Furthermore, the spacecraft will be used to refuel other Starship vehicles to allow them to reach higher orbits and other space destinations. Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, estimated in a tweet that 8 launches would be needed to completely refuel a Starship in low Earth orbit, extrapolating this from Starship's payload to orbit and how much fuel a fully fueled Starship contains. To land on bodies without an atmosphere, such as the Moon, Starship will fire its engines and thrusters to slow down.
Starship flight test 2 was the second flight test of the SpaceX Starship launch vehicle. SpaceX performed the flight test on November 18, 2023. The mission's primary objectives were for the vehicle to hot stage—a new addition to Starship's flight profile—followed by the second stage attaining a near-orbital trajectory with a controlled reentry over the Pacific Ocean, while the booster does a boostback burn with a propulsive splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
Starship flight test 3 was the third flight test of the SpaceX Starship launch vehicle. SpaceX performed the flight test on March 14, 2024.
Starship flight test 4 was the fourth flight test of the SpaceX Starship launch vehicle. The prototype vehicles flown were the Starship Ship 29 upper-stage and Super Heavy Booster 11. SpaceX performed the flight test on June 6, 2024.
Starship flight test 5 will be the fifth flight test of a SpaceX Starship launch vehicle. The prototype vehicles planned to be flown are the Ship 30 upper-stage and Booster 12. This fifth flight test is expected to include the first attempted "catch" of the Super Heavy booster using the Orbital Launch Mount tower at the Starbase launch site.
References
- ↑ SpaceX Revving Up for Starship Flight 3: | Starbase Update, January 29, 2024, archived from the original on January 29, 2024, retrieved February 13, 2024,
Then there's Flight 6, which if all of the other numbers line up as we suspect, is slated to be flown by Booster 13 and Ship 31.
- ↑ Weber, Ryan (May 16, 2024). "Starship Flight 4 begins Wet Dress Rehearsal campaign". NASASpaceflight . Retrieved July 17, 2024.
Ship 31's other half, which is assumed to be Booster 13
- ↑ RGV Aerial Photography (May 19, 2024). Starbase Weekly, Ep.116: Ship 26 Testing at the new Test Stand! . Retrieved May 19, 2024– via YouTube.
- ↑ "SpaceX aims to launch Starship after Memorial Day". KVEO-TV. May 14, 2024. Retrieved May 21, 2024.
- ↑ Bergin, Chris (May 11, 2024). "With Booster 11 (Flight 4) now at the launch site. Ship 31 (Flight 6) is preparing to roll to Masseys". X (formerly Twitter). Retrieved May 11, 2024.
- ↑ Ship 29 Rolled Out for Full Starship Stack Testing | SpaceX Boca Chica . Retrieved May 14, 2024– via www.youtube.com.
- ↑ NASASpaceflight (July 12, 2021). Starbase Live: 24/7 Starship & Super Heavy Development From SpaceX's Boca Chica Facility . Retrieved May 15, 2024– via YouTube.
- ↑ WAI Plus (July 4, 2024). SpaceX' Tower 2 is getting Ready for Stacking! - Ship 31 Cryo Test . Retrieved July 7, 2024– via YouTube.
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