Recent content by mfb

SpaceX shared multiple pictures of Starship, with engineers on top, inspecting the heat shield: The booster for flight 14 has been moved to the launch site, presumably to prepare a static fire test.

SpaceX created a page for "Starbase Louisiana", their planned site for polar Starship launches. Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is in its payload fairing for a launch in a bit over 4 days. Starship is being loaded onto the Forte. Someone is nearby, uploading video clips. Edit: It's on the...

SpaceX ends Falcon 9 Starlink launches from Florida. Future East Coast Starlink launches will use Starship. The last launch set a new booster reuse record at 37 missions. SpaceX will keep flying missions for other customers from Florida, and Starlink missions to large inclinations will keep...

SpaceX hired the semi-submersible Forte to carry Starship home

Chang'e 7 has been moved to 2027, no meaningful reason given ("Chang'e-7 lunar probe does not meet launch conditions"). Whatever they discovered that late in the launch preparations, it must have been serious.

Zhuque-3's booster had a larger fire after landing, tilted and then fell over. LandSpace didn't plan to reuse this one anyway and the overall booster structure is still intact so they can still inspect everything. 2 days (47 hours and 20 minutes) until the launch of Chang'e 7. Maybe there...

Katalyst Space is unable to raise Swift's orbit The rescue spacecraft will still try to approach it to test proximity operations, but the telescope is doomed. It will likely reenter towards the end of the year. Edit: Video of Zhuque's booster (full flight with original sound)

Zhuque-3 has landed its booster on the second attempt. This is the second booster recovery for China, the first for LandSpace, and the first Chinese recovery with landing legs. RocketLanding attemptsLanding successesReuses Falcon 9/Heavy~660~650~620 Starship432 New Glenn321...

We now have high resolution pictures of the crater produced by the Falcon 9 upper stage that hit the Moon. It almost matched an identical-sized crater that existed in the same spot before. More pixels for Starship at Christmas Island:

That attack could also affect the crewed Soyuz 2 variant. Russia will likely prioritize these (and ISS resupply missions) to avoid any gap. The floating Starship has arrived at Christmas Island, an Australian territory that was likely easier to reach. Edit: Higher resolution picture

The "Dear Rodeo" team reached space (115 km) with an amateur rocket Coincidentally (or maybe not?), the USC Rocket Propulsion Laboratory released a documentary of their 143 km rocket from 2024. They reached space again (third time total) in April this year. There are also many groups developing...

Ion thrusters are routinely used on spacecraft - sometimes only to maintain their orbit, but many spacecraft now also use it to raise their orbit. It means the rocket can deploy the spacecraft in a lower orbit, which means you can build a larger spacecraft (or launch more satellites per launch)...

Not sure if there is a clickable link but you can make a URL: Take the normal link to a page, e.g. https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/space-stuff-and-launch-info.879196/page-57 and change page to something very large and add #footer...

Launch failure of Long March 7A, ending a 25 launch success streak (27/29 total). Looks like the front fell off:

Software finds far more vulnerabilities in software than humans did. It's more than a factor 10 for critical vulnerabilities, all within the last 6 months. Patching all these makes the software more robust, but at least for now the bug-finding is ahead of the bug-fixing.