Tag: Starship
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Experts warn current Starship heat shield tech is a “dead end” for rapid reuse
SpaceX successfully launched its Starship vehicle on Friday and appeared to demonstrate important and credible steps toward fulfilling the massive rocket’s immense promise. As soon as the vehicle’s next flight, Starship could go orbital, begin delivering satellites into space, and potentially return to the launch site to be ‘caught’ by the tower. All of this…
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SpaceX eyes tower catch for next Starship after auspicious end to 13th flight
SpaceX was more than lucky Friday, sending its 13th full-scale Starship test flight halfway around the world from South Texas to an on-target, intact splashdown in a remote section of the Indian Ocean. Starship has made precise splashdowns before. This time, however, the ship gently tipped over and came to rest floating in a remote…
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SpaceX Declines Falcon 9 Bookings Beyond 2028 to Steer Customers Toward Starship
The decision represents one of the most aggressive product-transition bets in aerospace history. Falcon 9 is the world’s most-flown orbital rocket and a proven revenue engine. Declining paying customers on a working vehicle in favor of one still in its test-flight phase is a move without real precedent at this scale. Starship’s most recent test,…
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Rocket Report: Lightning strikes in China; Starship launch on deck
Welcome to Edition 9.04 of the Rocket Report! We’ve had to wait an extra week for SpaceX to get its 13th Starship test flight off the ground. A last-second abort on July 16 led engineers to roll the booster back to its hangar in South Texas to swap out engines. Starship is now back on…
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SpaceX Targets July 23 for Second Flight of Moon-Bound Starship V3
The 90-minute launch window opens at 6:45 p.m. EDT from Starbase, Texas. During the July 16 attempt, four of the Super Heavy booster’s 33 Raptor 3 engines failed to ignite as the countdown reached zero, triggering an automatic abort seconds before liftoff. Flight 13 will repeat most of the objectives of Flight 12 while adding…
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AST Eyes $1B Notes as Vikram-1 Targets Orbit
What Is Driving AST SpaceMobile Toward Vertical Launch Integration? AST SpaceMobile announced $1 billion in convertible notes — and its stock dropped more than 10 percent the same evening. The stated rationale tells the more important story: the direct-to-device satellite operator says it needs more rockets, and it is explicitly considering "partnerships and/or acquisitions" to…
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Starship Flight 13 Aborts at Engine Startup, SpaceX to Swap Two Raptors
The launch team at Starbase, Texas, north of the US-Mexico border, aimed to lift off at 5:45 pm local time. The countdown had proceeded smoothly through the day, including the loading of more than 11.5 million pounds of liquid methane and liquid oxygen into the two-stage rocket, which stands more than 400 feet tall. The…
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Starship Flight 13 Set to Deploy First V3 Starlink Satellites in Operational Debut
Flight 13 is the 13th test launch overall of the Starship megarocket and the second flight this year, following the May 22 launch of Flight 12. It will also be the second flight of SpaceX’s new Starship Version 3, or V3. The vehicle stands more than 400 feet tall and is being designed as a…
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NASA Artemis III Demo Will Fly Two HLS Landers in 2027
Does NASA’s 2027 Artemis III Mission Actually Land on the Moon? No — and that distinction matters enormously for anyone tracking the Artemis Program schedule. NASA’s Artemis III, currently planned for 2027, is a crewed rendezvous-and-docking demonstration in low Earth orbit and cislunar space, not a lunar surface landing. The actual crewed Moon landing is…
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Starship Flight 13 Carries 20 Starlink V3 Sats July 16
Does Starship Flight 13 Carry Its First Real Payload? Yes — and it matters. SpaceX has confirmed Starship Flight 13 is targeting liftoff from Starbase, Texas, as early as Thursday, July 16, carrying 20 Starlink V3 satellites: the vehicle’s first operational payload in 13 flights of developmental testing. For the first time, the world’s most…