Spaceship Flight Test: better than I expected, not as much as I hoped.

I watched the launch. I cheered when Starship cleared the pad, because that was the big hurdle. The farther along the big explody thing gets from the launch pad, the less you have to clean up before you test the next big explody thing. Starship got to the upper atmosphere before “rapid unplanned disassembly” occurred (I agree with a certain reader here that this phrase deserves wider use) in lieu of stage separation. Well, that’s why they test.

On to the next test! Certain parts of the Internet feel it should happen on June 9th, which admittedly would be nice. Seven weeks isn’t a bad turn-around time.

Link: SpaceX Starship Flight Test live feed.

Assuming there is a launch today, the SpaceX feed starts at 8:15 AM Eastern time:

There are a bunch of reasons why there might not be a launch, of course. There are also a bunch of reasons why the test results might be, Yeah. Don’t do it that way, huh? Eventually you have to put the sucker on a launch pad and see if you forgot to carry the one. But it’s still exciting.

Starship Launch / Spectacular Explosion April 17th?

…Look, test rockets blow up on the pad all the damn time. Even Elon Musk himself isn’t going to commit to it working on the first try. This is why they had to have FAA approval.

So adjust your expectations. The important thing will be, What do we learn from any oopsies? Failure is just another data point.

First Starship orbital tests in January.

But let me translate Elon Musk, here:

It was announced earlier this month that Elon Musk, the creator of SpaceX, will make an effort to launch his company’s futuristic, bullet-shaped Starship into orbit in January, but he is not optimistic about the outcome of that maiden test flight.

(Via Instapundit) Translation: that sumbitch gonna blow up. Which is why there’s not going to be a single thing on that prototype that won’t be a sensor to help engineers better understand why it blew up. Fortunately for Musk, by now it’s understood that SpaceX routinely incinerates a few rockets on its way to the next step. That has proven to be quite valuable to his long-term plans…

Tweet of the Previous Weekend, This Is Getting Excitingly Dull, Fast edition.

Oh, look. It was just another successful private space mission. This one happened to be manned, fully automated, and involved multiple orbits. Oh, yes, and there were the usual reusable booster and all the rest of the things SpaceX does, sure, sure.

How… prosaic.

Civilian orbital space mission going fine.

…Damn, but I love living in the future sometimes.

The crew of the first all-private orbital space mission has spent Thursday, the first full day of the mission, circling the Earth every 90 minutes at over 17,000 mph.

SpaceX reported the Crew Dragon Resilience capsule with four civilians inside was traveling 363 miles high over Asia as of mid-morning, quickly moving over the massive continent. The altitude is a full hundred miles higher than the International Space Station.

Continue reading Civilian orbital space mission going fine.

USAF officially interested in SpaceX’s upcoming line of suborbital strategic transport shuttles.

Excuse me: ‘Starships.’

“The Department of the Air Force seeks to leverage the current multi-billion dollar commercial investment to develop the largest rockets ever, and with full reusability to develop and test the capability to leverage a commercial rocket to deliver AF cargo anywhere on the Earth in less than one hour, with a 100-ton capacity,” the document states.

Continue reading USAF officially interested in SpaceX’s upcoming line of suborbital strategic transport shuttles.

SpaceX launches Starship, lands Starship, Starship survives.

SN15th time’s the charm:

Via @IMAO_. I’ve always felt Elon Musk’s operating philosophy draws much from the below. Note, by the way, that I say that respectfully. The philosophy below works:

SpaceX Splashdown tonight.

Or early tomorrow morning? It’s complicated.

 SpaceX’s first long-duration astronaut mission is coming to an end, with a Crew Dragon capsule undocking from the International Space Station and headed for a splashdown off the coast of Florida early Sunday (May 2). 

Strapped inside the Dragon capsule, called Resilience, are four astronauts who will make the first U.S. night water landing in more than 50 years. The crew, NASA astronauts Mike Hopkins, Victor Glover, Shannon Walker and Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi, is wrapping up a six-month mission to the station. 

Good luck and Godspeed, folks.