Amazon announced Friday that it has purchased three Falcon 9 rocket launches from SpaceX beginning in mid-2025 to help deploy the retail giant's network of Kuiper Internet satellites. //
Last year, Amazon bought up most of the Western world's excess launch capacity from everyone but SpaceX, securing 68 rocket flights from United Launch Alliance, Arianespace, and Blue Origin to deploy thousands of satellites for the Kuiper broadband network. Amazon previously contracted with ULA for nine Atlas V launches to support the initial series of Kuiper launches, the first of which lifted off in October with Amazon's first two Kuiper prototype satellites. More Atlas Vs will start launching operational Kuiper satellites next year. //
Amazon is helping to fund a big expansion in ULA's footprint at its Florida launch base, an effort that will double the ULA's launch capacity. The investment to fund the growth in ULA's capability to support Kuiper launches totals about $2 billion, with around $500 million going toward upgrades at Cape Canaveral.
Those upgrades include the outfitting of a second vertical hangar and a second mobile launch platform for Vulcan rockets, alongside the integration facility and launch table already built to support the first few Vulcan missions. Having dual lanes for launch processing in Florida will allow ULA to fly as many as 25 Vulcan rockets per year, the company says.
ULA and its subcontractors are also expanding factory space at locations around the country to produce more Vulcan engines, solid rocket boosters, and payload fairings for the Kuiper missions.
Amazon and ULA officials hope these investments will spare the Vulcan rocket from the growing pains experienced by other launch vehicles as they enter service. For example, it took 31 months for the Atlas V rocket to reach its fifth flight in the early 2000s. A decade ago, SpaceX's Falcon 9 made its fifth flight 33 months after its inaugural launch.
That won't do if Amazon is going to deploy more than 1,600 Kuiper satellites by mid-2026.
During Artemis I, NASA’s new mega Moon rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), roared into the night sky and sent the Orion spacecraft on a 1.4-million-mile journey beyond the Moon and back. //
The spacecraft reached a maximum distance from Earth when it was 268,563 miles away from our home planet. Orion surpassed the record for distance traveled by a spacecraft designed to carry humans, previously set during Apollo 13.
A close up view of the Orion in space. The orange spacesuit on Commander Moonikin Campos can be seen through one of the crew module's windows. The American flag on the body of the crew module and red NASA lettering can also be seen.
A camera mounted on one of Orion’s solar array wings captured a close up image of the crew module.
Starship Flight Test 2
November 18, 2023, at 7:02 a.m. — SpaceX's Starship launches on its second fully-integrated flight test from the orbital launch pad at Starbase in Texas. The rocket successfully reached stage separation under the power of 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster, with the new hot-staging separation method a success! Starship made it to space and was later terminated, while the Super Heavy booster experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly shortly after stage separation.
Starship returned to integrated flight testing with its second launch from Starbase in Texas. While it didn’t happen in a lab or on a test stand, it was absolutely a test. What we did today will provide invaluable data to continue rapidly developing Starship.
Starship successfully lifted off under the power of all 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy Booster and made it through a successful stage separation. The booster experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly after its boostback burn following the successful stage separation while Starship's 6 second stage Raptor engines fired for several minutes as the Ship climbed to an altitude of ~150 kilometers.
With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multiplanetary.
video
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida—In three-and-a-half years of service, one of SpaceX's reusable Falcon 9 boosters stands apart from the rest of the company's rocket inventory. This booster, designated with the serial number B1058, has now flown 18 times. For its maiden launch on May 30, 2020, the rocket propelled NASA astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken into the history books on SpaceX's first mission to send people into orbit.
This ended a nine-year gap in America's capability to launch astronauts into low-Earth orbit and was the first time a commercial spacecraft achieved this feat. At that time, the rocket was fresh from SpaceX's factory in Southern California, glistening white in color, with a bright red NASA "worm" logo emblazoned on the side.
Over the course of its flights to space and back, that white paint has darkened to a charcoal color. Soot from the rocket's exhaust has accumulated, bit by bit, on the 15-story-tall cylinder-shaped booster. The red NASA worm logo is now barely visible. //
With Friday night's flight, this particular booster has launched 846 satellites, most of which have been Starlinks. When you let it sink in, that's a remarkable number. It's more than the total number of satellites in OneWeb's broadband network. The launch Friday night, numbered Starlink 6-26, brought the total number of functional Starlink satellites in orbit to more than 5,000, according to a tabulation by Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist and expert tracker of spaceflight activity. //
SpaceX officials often emphasize that, even after 277 launches of Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy rockets, engineers learn something with each flight. It certainly helps when you get the majority of the rocket (the booster and the payload fairing) back after each launch, allowing technicians to perform inspections and refurbishment, occasional engine swaps, upgrades, or anything that needs to be done between missions.
all the tags from https://b.plas.ml
1st-amendment 2nd-amendment 4th-amendment 5th-amendment 9/11 a8 abortion acl adhd afghanistan africa a/i air-conditioning amateur-radio amazon america american android animals anti-americanism antifa anti-semitism antiv antivirus aoip apollo apple appliances archaeology architecture archive art astronomy audio automation avatar aviation backup bash batteries belleville bible biden bill-of-rights biology bookmarks books borg bush business calibre camping capitalism cellphone censorship chemistry children china christianity church cia clinton cloud coldwar communication communist composed computers congress conservatives constitution construction cooking copyleft copyright corruption cosmology counseling creation crime cron crypto culture culture-of-death cummins data database ddt dd-wrt defense democrats depression desantis development diagrams diamonds disinformation diy dns documentation dokuwiki domains dprk drm drm-tpm drugs dvd dysautonomia earth ebay ebola ebook economics education efficiency electricity electronics elements elwa email energy engineering english environment environmentalism epa ethernet ethics europe euthanasia evolution faa facebook family fbi fcc feminism finance firewall flightsim flowers fonts français france fraud freebsd free-speech fun games gardening genealogy generation generators geography geology gifts git global-warming google gop government gpl gps graphics green-energy grounding hdd-test healthcare help history hollywood homeschool hormones hosting houses hp html humor hunting hvac hymns hyper-v imap immigration india infosec infotech insects instruments interesting internet investing ip-addressing iran iraq irs islam israel itec j6 journalism jumpcloud justice kindle kodi language ldap leadership leftist leftists legal lego lgbt liberia liberty linguistics linux literature locks make malaria malware management maps markdown marriage mars math media medical meshcentral metatek metric microbit microsoft mikrotik military minecraft minidisc missions moon morality mothers motorola movies mp3 museum music mythtv names nasa nature navigation navy network news nextcloud ntp nuclear obama ocean omega opensource organizing ortlip osmc oxygen paint palemoon paper parents passwords patents patriotism pdf petroleum pets pews photography photo-mgmt physics piano picasa plesk podcast poetry police politics pollution pornography pots prayer pregnancy presentations press printers privacy programming progressive progressives prolife psychology purchasing python quotes rabbits rabies racism radiation radio railroad reagan recipes recording recycling reference regulations religion renewables republicans resume riots rockets r-pi russia russiagate safety samba satellites sbe science sci-fi scotus secularism security servers shipping ships shooting shortwave signal sjw slavery sleep snakes socialism social-media software solar space spacex spam spf spideroak sports ssh statistics steampowered streaming supplement surveillance sync tarsnap taxes tck tds technology telephones television terrorism tesla theology thorium thumbnail thunderbird time tls tools toyota trains transformers travel trump tsa twitter typography ukraine unions united.nations unix ups usa vaccinations vangelis vehicles veracrypt video virtualbox virus vitamin vivaldi vlc voting vpn w3w war water weather web whatsapp who wifi wikipedia windows wordpress wuflu ww2 xigmanas xkcd youtube zfs