🚀 SN15 Launch

On May 5th SpaceX launched SN15 on a 10km test flight at Boca Chica, Texas. It successfully launched, reached the correct altitude, bellyflopped, flipped, and finally landed in one piece! (And didn't explode after)

SN15 has vehicle improvements across structures, avionics and software, and the engines that will allow more speed and efficiency throughout production and flight: specifically, a new enhanced avionics suite, updated propellant architecture in the aft skirt, and a new Raptor engine design and configuration.

» Video of landing «
Stay tuned for more higher quality videos of the flight and landing.

Source
@SpaceX
@EverythingScience

SpaceX's Starship prototype SN15 emerging from the low clouds and landing successfully in Boca Chica, Texas!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je_MWdR4AWI&feature=youtu.be

Submitted May 06, 2021 at 05:30AM by TMahlman
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Space Force to clear refurbished Falcon 9 booster for upcoming GPS launch
https://ift.tt/3vNGfPF

Submitted May 06, 2021 at 03:04PM by ethan829
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The Crew-1 dragon is back at Port Canaveral
https://twitter.com/Kyle_M_Photo/status/1390233705587875840?s=19

Submitted May 06, 2021 at 12:08PM by Kyle_M_Photo
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Elon Musk on Twitter: "Might try to refly SN15 soon"
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1390569345361883136

Submitted May 07, 2021 at 09:36AM by LongBowNL
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'This is not SpaceX property': Elon Musk's company looks to rename South Texas town 'Starbase'
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Submitted May 06, 2021 at 05:08PM by pmsyyz
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The Atlantic: Elon Musk Is Maybe, Actually, Strangely, Going to Do This Mars Thing
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Submitted May 06, 2021 at 04:18PM by theovk
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Elon Musk: "2024 is not out of the question for an uncrewed flight"
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1390386652007251970

Submitted May 06, 2021 at 10:56PM by Exatrynzir
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SpaceX on Twitter: Targeting Sunday, May 9 at 2:42 a.m. EDT for launch of 60 Starlink satellites from Space Launch Complex 40 in Florida → spacex.com/launches
https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1390843232330817539?s=21

Submitted May 08, 2021 at 03:38AM by RevRickee
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Starbase Production Diagram from Brendan Lewis - updated May 8th 2021
https://twitter.com/_brendan_lewis/status/1390872503359213568

Submitted May 08, 2021 at 09:42AM by Twigling
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Why SpaceX Doesn’t Recover the Second Stage
https://youtu.be/8HifC7J715I

Submitted May 07, 2021 at 08:10AM by x2040
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SpaceX's Starship Prototype Takes To The Skies And Returns Safely - Scott Manley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IDMM63InLY

Submitted May 06, 2021 at 10:50PM by Exatrynzir
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SpaceX Lands Starship For The First Time Amid $3 Billion Moon Contract Battle
https://ift.tt/3xYBx3a

Submitted May 06, 2021 at 09:22PM by JakedHavoc
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Tonight’s the night. Falcon 9 B1051 ready for a tenth launch.
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Submitted May 09, 2021 at 02:14AM by johnpisaniphotos
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Starlink-27 with re-entry burn
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Submitted May 09, 2021 at 09:39AM by mdcainjr
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Starship Cargo/Payload Rideshare
Greetings,Starship HLS is aiming to deliver 100 tons to the Lunar surface. That's a lot of cargo for an Artemis crew to take along. Much science will be done, milestones reached, celebrations had. It will be a good time for NASA.But assuming everything goes well, Starship HLS might be a very attractive option for smaller government agencies or private companies to deliver payloads to the moon.So what might a cargo/payload rideshare mission look like?\**In lieu of official numbers from NASA or SpaceX, these numbers are conservative estimates and I would greatly appreciate community feedback to enrich the concept****The Starship HLS contract is for $2.89 billion for development and then two demonstration missions. I do not know how to estimate R&D vs operational costs, but let's start with a safe assumption of 50% of the money is needed for dev work, and then 25% for each mission. So about $725 million to land 100 tons on the moon.How many rideshare customers could that 100 tons support? Well, how much volume are we talking?I could not find an official number anywhere for HLS's internal volume, but a quick rough estimate based on the Starship user guide is 700 meters cubed.Alright, so now we know how much space we've got and what we can carry. What might these customers want to take? Well, rovers with customized science instruments seem like a pretty good idea.For this example, let's compare with the Mars Curiosity rover, which is about 2 tons and 17 meters cubed when operational (I could not find it's compact/transport dimensions). Let's again be conservative and say a similar lunar rover would be 12 meters cubed when folded up. That's enough volume for 58 rovers, but we're a bit overweight. Also, we should leave room for margin and a nice safe elevator to get the rovers up and down. Let's subtract 3 rovers to gain back about 50 meters cubed, and assume the remaining rovers have been put on a diet to shave off 10% of their mass.That would be 55 1.8 ton, Curiosity-size rovers on one HLS mission. So splitting a mission between that many customers, and we're only talking $13.2 million to get a pretty serious payload to the moon.Of course, many customers may not need an SUV-sized rover, so if the rovers were smaller the number of customers could be significantly higher (and the per-customer cost much lower).Let me just say I'm no engineer or rocket scientist, but this napkin math seems pretty doable to me. What do you think? Is there enough of a market for lunar science to make these economics viable?TL;DR Human astronauts are cool, but they take lots of resources and need to come home. Let's load up a bunch of rovers on Starship HLS and let them do science on the moon.https://preview.redd.it/5aovnh7chyx61.jpg?width=520&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0841bc144bd01417bc7b0adad64ddce6da65e06d

Submitted May 08, 2021 at 10:14PM by Lego_Benny
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A shot I’ve coveted for years: Milky Way panorama and Falcon 9 launch of 60 Starlink satellites this morning!
https://ift.tt/3vRkXQV

Submitted May 09, 2021 at 02:47PM by johnkphotos
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