https://supload.com/S14kLgA54 **SpaceX Falcon Heavy Arabsat 6A**
Showing posts with label SpaceX. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SpaceX. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
SpaceX Falcon Heavy Arabsat 6A
https://supload.com/S14kLgA54 **SpaceX Falcon Heavy Arabsat 6A**
Thursday, October 8, 2015
Private Moon Race Heats Up with 1st Verified Launch Deal
Private Moon Race Heats Up with 1st Verified Launch Deal
A team from Israel called SpaceIL has signed a contract to launch its robotic lunar lander toward the moon aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in the second half of 2017. SpaceIL is therefore a strong contender to win the $20 million top prize in the Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP), contest organizers said.
“We are proud to officially confirm receipt and verification of SpaceIL’s launch contract, positioning them as the first and only Google Lunar X Prize team to demonstrate this important achievement thus far,” X Prize Vice Chairman and President Bob Weiss said in a statement.
“The magnitude of this achievement cannot be overstated, representing an unprecedented and monumental commitment for a privately funded organization, and kicks off an exciting phase of the competition in which the other 15 teams now have until the end of 2016 to produce their own verified launch contracts,” Weiss added. “It gives all of us at X Prize and Google the great pride to say, ‘The new space race is on!'”
SpaceIL is not the only GLXP team with firm plans to head to the moon. For example, California-based Moon Express announced its own launch deal with the spaceflight company Rocket Lab last week, and Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic signed a contract with SpaceX back in 2011.
Moon Express aims to launch its robotic MX-1 lander to the moon for the first time in 2017, while Astrobotic team members have said they plan to loft their Griffin lander atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sometime next year.
But SpaceIL is the only team so far to initiate the verification process, in which contest organizers review and assess the launch contract and supporting documents, X Prize representatives told Space.com. This milestone is a big deal: At least one GLXP team had to announce a verified launch contract by the end of 2015 for the competition to be extended through Dec. 31, 2017.
The Google Lunar X Prize was created in 2007 to encourage the development of the private spaceflight industry, and hopefully help usher in a new era of affordable access to the moon and other space destinations.
The first privately funded team to successfully land a robotic craft on the moon, have the lander move at least 1,650 feet (500 meters), and beam high-definition video and photos back to Earth by the end of 2017 will win the $20 million grand prize. The second team to accomplish these goals will get $5 million; another $5 million is set aside for other milestones, bringing the total purse to $30 million.
A team from Israel called SpaceIL has signed a contract to launch its robotic lunar lander toward the moon aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in the second half of 2017. SpaceIL is therefore a strong contender to win the $20 million top prize in the Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP), contest organizers said.
“We are proud to officially confirm receipt and verification of SpaceIL’s launch contract, positioning them as the first and only Google Lunar X Prize team to demonstrate this important achievement thus far,” X Prize Vice Chairman and President Bob Weiss said in a statement.
“The magnitude of this achievement cannot be overstated, representing an unprecedented and monumental commitment for a privately funded organization, and kicks off an exciting phase of the competition in which the other 15 teams now have until the end of 2016 to produce their own verified launch contracts,” Weiss added. “It gives all of us at X Prize and Google the great pride to say, ‘The new space race is on!'”
SpaceIL is not the only GLXP team with firm plans to head to the moon. For example, California-based Moon Express announced its own launch deal with the spaceflight company Rocket Lab last week, and Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic signed a contract with SpaceX back in 2011.
Moon Express aims to launch its robotic MX-1 lander to the moon for the first time in 2017, while Astrobotic team members have said they plan to loft their Griffin lander atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket sometime next year.
But SpaceIL is the only team so far to initiate the verification process, in which contest organizers review and assess the launch contract and supporting documents, X Prize representatives told Space.com. This milestone is a big deal: At least one GLXP team had to announce a verified launch contract by the end of 2015 for the competition to be extended through Dec. 31, 2017.
The Google Lunar X Prize was created in 2007 to encourage the development of the private spaceflight industry, and hopefully help usher in a new era of affordable access to the moon and other space destinations.
The first privately funded team to successfully land a robotic craft on the moon, have the lander move at least 1,650 feet (500 meters), and beam high-definition video and photos back to Earth by the end of 2017 will win the $20 million grand prize. The second team to accomplish these goals will get $5 million; another $5 million is set aside for other milestones, bringing the total purse to $30 million.
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
SpaceX Narrowly Misses Rocket Landing After Dragon Spaceship Launch Success
SpaceX Narrowly Misses Rocket Landing After Dragon Spaceship Launch Success
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the company’s Dragon cargo capsule toward the International Space Station today, then turned around and nearly pulled off a soft landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
The unmanned Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 4:10 p.m. EDT (2010 GMT) today (April 14), sending Dragon to orbit on a resupply mission for NASA. SpaceX then attempted to bring the rocket’s first stage back down for a vertical landing on an “autonomous spaceport drone ship,” in a highly anticipated reusable-rocket test.
The unprecedented maneuver almost worked — but not quite.
“Ascent successful. Dragon enroute to Space Station. Rocket landed on droneship, but too hard for survival,” SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said via Twitter today. “Looks like Falcon landed fine, but excess lateral velocity caused it to tip over post landing,” he added in another tweet.
Today’s launch was originally scheduled for Monday (April 13) but was delayed a day by bad weather.
Developing fully and rapidly reusable rockets is a key priority for SpaceX and Musk, who has said that such technology could slash the cost of spaceflight by a factor of 100.
SpaceX has now attempted the rocket landing twice. The previous try occurred on Jan. 10, during the last Dragon launch; the Falcon 9 first stage came down on target that day as well, but it hit the drone ship too hard and exploded on the deck.
Musk said in the aftermath of the Jan. 10 attempt that the rocket stage’s stabilizing “grid fins” ran out of hydraulic fluid. SpaceX addressed that issue and also upgraded the drone ship — which is called “Just Read the Instructions,” after a sentient colony ship in the novels of sci-fi author Iain M. Banks — to be more stable in rough seas, company representatives have said.
Musk is probably not particularly surprised or disappointed by today’s near-miss. On Monday, he tweeted that the chances of landing success were less than 50 percent.
While the reusable-rocket test has been grabbing most of the headlines, the main goal of today’s launch was to get Dragon aloft. SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion NASA contract to fly at least 12 resupply missions to the orbiting lab using Dragon and the Falcon 9; today’s launch kicked off the sixth of those cargo missions.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched the company’s Dragon cargo capsule toward the International Space Station today, then turned around and nearly pulled off a soft landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean.
The unmanned Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 4:10 p.m. EDT (2010 GMT) today (April 14), sending Dragon to orbit on a resupply mission for NASA. SpaceX then attempted to bring the rocket’s first stage back down for a vertical landing on an “autonomous spaceport drone ship,” in a highly anticipated reusable-rocket test.
The unprecedented maneuver almost worked — but not quite.
“Ascent successful. Dragon enroute to Space Station. Rocket landed on droneship, but too hard for survival,” SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk said via Twitter today. “Looks like Falcon landed fine, but excess lateral velocity caused it to tip over post landing,” he added in another tweet.
Today’s launch was originally scheduled for Monday (April 13) but was delayed a day by bad weather.
Developing fully and rapidly reusable rockets is a key priority for SpaceX and Musk, who has said that such technology could slash the cost of spaceflight by a factor of 100.
SpaceX has now attempted the rocket landing twice. The previous try occurred on Jan. 10, during the last Dragon launch; the Falcon 9 first stage came down on target that day as well, but it hit the drone ship too hard and exploded on the deck.
Musk said in the aftermath of the Jan. 10 attempt that the rocket stage’s stabilizing “grid fins” ran out of hydraulic fluid. SpaceX addressed that issue and also upgraded the drone ship — which is called “Just Read the Instructions,” after a sentient colony ship in the novels of sci-fi author Iain M. Banks — to be more stable in rough seas, company representatives have said.
Musk is probably not particularly surprised or disappointed by today’s near-miss. On Monday, he tweeted that the chances of landing success were less than 50 percent.
While the reusable-rocket test has been grabbing most of the headlines, the main goal of today’s launch was to get Dragon aloft. SpaceX holds a $1.6 billion NASA contract to fly at least 12 resupply missions to the orbiting lab using Dragon and the Falcon 9; today’s launch kicked off the sixth of those cargo missions.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
SpaceX: No One Laughs Anymore When We Talk About Colonizing Mars
SpaceX: No One Laughs Anymore When We Talk About Colonizing Mars
When Elon Musk founded SpaceX, way back in 2002, the plan was to colonize Mars. The company is now profitable, America’s number one choice for flying astronauts to the International Space Station, and thinking about building a satellite-based internet to connect the world. But all of those are stepping stones for the Mars plan, which is very much still the focus of the company.
“We’re not shy about talking about Mars, which would be an extraordinary step for humans, to actually have a settlement there,” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said Tuesday at the Satellite conference in Washington, DC. “The whole company is geared up on that, everybody’s eye is on the Red Planet.”
Mars One, a long shot, crowdsourced plan to colonize Mars, is apparently in shambles, so, even on the non-SpaceX front, there’s not much in the way of a concrete plan to get to Mars. We know that SpaceX is developing a methane-based rocket engine known as Raptor to get to Mars, but beyond that, much of it is speculative. That said, the company is still deadly serious about getting there, eventually.
“When we talked about Mars before, people thought we were certifiable,” Shotwell said. “Now, people kind of groove on it and they like to hear about it.”
Unlike the Mars One mission, Shotwell said that SpaceX has no intention of sending people to Mars to die. That’s one reason (of many) why the company is working on reusable rockets.
When Elon Musk founded SpaceX, way back in 2002, the plan was to colonize Mars. The company is now profitable, America’s number one choice for flying astronauts to the International Space Station, and thinking about building a satellite-based internet to connect the world. But all of those are stepping stones for the Mars plan, which is very much still the focus of the company.
“We’re not shy about talking about Mars, which would be an extraordinary step for humans, to actually have a settlement there,” SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said Tuesday at the Satellite conference in Washington, DC. “The whole company is geared up on that, everybody’s eye is on the Red Planet.”
Mars One, a long shot, crowdsourced plan to colonize Mars, is apparently in shambles, so, even on the non-SpaceX front, there’s not much in the way of a concrete plan to get to Mars. We know that SpaceX is developing a methane-based rocket engine known as Raptor to get to Mars, but beyond that, much of it is speculative. That said, the company is still deadly serious about getting there, eventually.
“When we talked about Mars before, people thought we were certifiable,” Shotwell said. “Now, people kind of groove on it and they like to hear about it.”
Unlike the Mars One mission, Shotwell said that SpaceX has no intention of sending people to Mars to die. That’s one reason (of many) why the company is working on reusable rockets.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Monday, October 8, 2012
Liftoff! SpaceX Dragon Launches 1st Private Space Station Cargo Mission
Sunday night’s launch was nearly flawless. One of the Falcon 9 rocket nine engines apparently shut down unexpectedly during the ascent, but the booster’s eight other engines compensated for the glitch and delivered the Dragon spacecraft into its intended orbit, SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said after the flight. The rocket is designed to do exactly that in the event of an engine anomaly, she added.
via megalextoria.com
"Nearly Flawless" might be a bit of an exaggeration. The engine that "shut down unexpectedly" appeared to actually disintegrate or explode as can be seen in this slow-motion youtube video (at about the 30 second mark): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6zsZiVa998
Having said that, the Falcon 9 is designed to function normally with failures in up to two of the nine engines and it did just that. Congrats SpaceX!
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
NASA Clears SpaceX for Private Cargo Delivery Missions
SpaceX will fly 12 logistics missions to the station under its $1.6 billion Commercial Resupply Services contract awarded in 2008. The first of those flights is scheduled for no earlier than Oct. 5.
via megalextoria.com
Friday, August 24, 2012
NASA Administrator Announces New Commercial Crew And Cargo Milestones
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced Thursday new milestones in the nation’s commercial space initiatives from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The latest advances made by NASA’s commercial space partners pave the way for the first contracted flight of cargo to the International Space Station (ISS) this fall and mark progress toward a launch of astronauts from U.S. soil in the next 5 years.
via megalextoria.com
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