SpaceX News

[WLJ]

Reported the Pad/tower is on fire
Fire extinguishers activated

Edit: Never mind, they just said it's normal for the extinguishers to be activated to wash the soot off from the solids

[WLJ]

Obit
2nd burn in 20 minutes for Lunar injection

[WLJ]

Good TLI burn
Good separation
Peregrine on the way to moon

[RocketMan]

Saw some kind of a flamey bit fall away during boost phase and thought, "This could be it, stand by for a RUD!".  But nothing happened and no more flamey bits fell off.  Good to see that Bezo's engines actually worked for their first launch.  I hope they work again on the New Glenn later this year.

[WLJ]

Saw some kind of a flamey bit fall away during boost phase and thought, "This could be it, stand by for a RUD!".  But nothing happened and no more flamey bits fell off.  Good to see that Bezo's engines actually worked for their first launch.  I hope they work again on the New Glenn later this year.

Could have been ice falling away catching the light of the engine.

[RocketMan]

Could have been ice falling away catching the light of the engine.

Yup, could have been.

[WLJ]

Meanwhile Peregrine is not behaving

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1744371984757121240

[WLJ]

[RocketMan]

Blue smiley face from the BE-4 engines between the booster plumes.

[WLJ]

Blue smiley face from the BE-4 engines between the booster plumes.

Yeah, the NSF people noticed that too last night

[WLJ]

[WLJ]

Ruh Roh, it gets worse

https://twitter.com/astrobotic/status/1744389634568724791

[WLJ]

[MechAg94]

Can't let them see the secret bases.

[RocketMan]

Can't let them see the secret bases.

Are those the Nazi bases or the alien bases, or both?

[Jim147]

Nazi Transformers.

[Jim147]

SpaceX is looking at next month for big boomer 3. Forgot to grab a link but starship should be ready this month and expecting approval in February.

[WLJ]

This is my shocked face
Always thought the fly by was doable timetable wise but the landing timetable was a bit ambiguous. Turns out both are going to be delayed by a considable margin due to issues with life support, launch abort sys, and the heat shield.

NASA is postponing the next two Artemis missions, including the first crewed landing on the moon, by nearly a year to address technical issues that could affect the safety of the astronauts on board.

During a Jan. 9 media teleconference, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson announced that Artemis 2, the first crewed mission that will send four astronauts around the moon, had been pushed back from the end of 2024 to no earlier than September 2025. Artemis 3, the first crewed landing, was in turn delayed from late 2025 to no earlier than September 2026.

 NASA delays Artemis 2 and 3 missions
https://spacenews.com/nasa-delays-artemis-2-and-3-missions/

[RocketMan]

At this point I think NASA would have trouble landing a crew safely in a Walmart parking lot.

[WLJ]

At this point I think NASA would have trouble landing a crew safely in a Walmart parking lot.

$25 billion and 10-15 year later I'm sure they'll could have a plan drawn up

[cordex]

$25 billion and 10-15 year later I'm sure they'll could have a plan drawn up

To be fair, the landing plan will be as safe as is humanly possible and will have a solid focus on diversity and equity.

[WLJ]

Chris Bergin - NSF
@NASASpaceflight
The soon-to-retire Japanese H-2 rocket is set to launch with the IGS-8 military satellite in around 15 minutes.

Livestream:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=2STD1o

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1745663720791920960

Check out that dogleg

Chris Bergin - NSF
@NASASpaceflight
SRB Sep.

And check out the dogleg!

Wow

https://twitter.com/i/status/1745669005149421608

[AZRedhawk44]

This is my shocked face
Always thought the fly by was doable timetable wise but the landing timetable was a bit ambiguous. Turns out both are going to be delayed by a considable margin due to issues with life support, launch abort sys, and the heat shield.

 NASA delays Artemis 2 and 3 missions
https://spacenews.com/nasa-delays-artemis-2-and-3-missions/

This one was entirely predictable and cracks me up that people who follow space didn't see it coming years ago.

The maiden flight of "Orion" on a Delta IV Heavy used no ECLSS at all and had a different heat shield, known to be inferior to the intended one, but they launched it anyways.

The Artemis I mission launched on an SLS block 1 also had an incomplete ECLSS onboard and had reentry problems with its heat shield.

There was no reason to do the DIVH launch if the ECLSS isn't included, and the heatshield was a cobbled together affair.

To my mind, Orion still has never launched.  As bad as it sounds, I think Orion needs a maiden manned flight doing a milk run to the ISS, assuming it isn't too large to dock at one of the IDA ports.  It'd be awful to waste an SLS on that, though.

[WLJ]

To my mind, Orion still has never launched.  As bad as it sounds, I think Orion needs a maiden manned flight doing a milk run to the ISS, assuming it isn't too large to dock at one of the IDA ports.  It'd be awful to waste an SLS on that, though.

Yeah, $3-4 billion for a flight to the ISS when SpX can do it for what? $60-100 mil. It's hard to get a firm trustworthy figure

Speaking of costs

In 2011, SpaceX estimated that Falcon 9 v1.0 development costs were on the order of US$300 million.[40] NASA estimated development costs of US$3.6 billion had a traditional cost-plus contract approach been used.[41] A 2011 NASA report "estimated that it would have cost the agency about US$4 billion to develop a rocket like the Falcon 9 booster based upon NASA's traditional contracting processes" while "a more commercial development" approach might have allowed the agency to pay only US$1.7 billion".[42]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9

Note : That 2011

And it likely would go up even more, way more,  since it would probably still be in development

Government vs commercial

[WLJ]

More info on the loss of S25 from SpX

Flight 2 Ship 25 EOM:

"So Flight 2 actually almost made it to orbit. In fact, ironically, if it had a payload, it would have made it to orbit, because the reason that it actually didn't quite make it to orbit was we vented the liquid oxygen, and the liquid oxygen ultimately led to fire and an explosion. Because we wanted to vent the liquid oxygen because we normally wouldn't have that liquid oxygen if we had a payload.

"So ironically, if it had a payload, it would have reached orbit. And so I think we've got a really good shot of reaching orbit with flight three and then a rapid cadence to achieve full and rapid reusability."

Per Elon at a live company update https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1745941814165815717
Sounds like maybe a whoopsy to me

Also some info on Flight 3 and two towers at Starbase at the link

https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1745952239984738417