SpaceX fires up its SN10 Starship prototype for the second time
SpaceX has continued SN10’s test-launch prep with a second fire up. Starship SN10 ignited its three Raptor engines for a brief period on Thursday 25th February 2021 at SpaceX's South Texas site. During SN10’s first fire up, it revealed an issue with one of the vehicle's Raptor engines. SpaceX quickly removed and replaced the engine and got SN10 ready for another static fire, a common preflight checkout for the company's rockets.
If all goes well after the second fire up, we could see SN10 get off the ground within the next few days. The vehicle will fly 10 kilometres into the atmosphere during its launch test. This test is similar to the ones performed by the SN8 and SN9 Starship prototypes.
Both previous prototype’s launch tests went well until the very end. Both SN8 and SN9 reached their targeted landing zones but did not survive the touchdown, both exploding into huge fireballs.
SpaceX is developing Starship to get people and cargo to the moon, Mars and beyond. The system consists of two fully reusable elements: a 50 meter spacecraft called Starship and a huge rocket known as Super Heavy. The final Starship will have six Raptors, and Super Heavy will be powered by about 30 of the engines, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk has said.
According to Elon Musk, if all future prototype tests goes well, we could see a Starship prototype launched into orbit sometime later this year and possibly have people regularly sent into space by the year 2023.
Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin won't launch its 1st New Glenn rocket until late 2022
Blue Origin, which is run by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, announced on Thursday 25th February 2021 that it has pushed the target date for the debut launch of its heavy-lift New Glenn rocket from late 2021 to the fourth quarter of 2022.
This decision coincides with the United State’s Space Force Branch announcement in August 2020 on not selecting Amazon’s New Glenn Rocket at its carrier for the National Security Space Launch (NSSL) Phase 2 Launch Services Procurement (LSP) program. Space Force decided to use SpaceX and Unite Launch Alliance for its program.
New Glenn is a two-stage rocket that stands at 98 meters and is named after NASA astronaut John Glenn, who was the first American to circumnavigate the Earth in space in February 1962.
The rocket is said to be capable of launching 45 Metric Tons to low Earth orbit when it's operational. Bezos has said he hopes New Glenn will fly people as well as payloads.
According to Blue Origin representatives, each New Glenn first stage will be capable of landing back to Earth on a ship at sea and be able to launch up to 25 missions during its lifetime. This type of launch is similar to what we have seen in the first stages of SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy Rockets.
China's Tianwen-1 lowers its orbit around Mars to prepare for rover landing
China’s Tianwen-1 spacecraft, which arrived into Mars' orbit 10th February 2021, has trimmed its orbit around Mars to allow the spacecraft to analyze the chosen landing region on the Red Planet.
Tianwen-1 commenced its engine burn on Tuesday 23rd February 2021 and is now in position to begin imaging and collecting data on primary and backup landing sites for the mission's rover, which will attempt to touch down in May or June.
Tianwen-1's new elliptical orbit takes the spacecraft as close as 280 kilometres and as far as 59,000 kilometres to Mars’ surface. Its new orbit will allow the orbiter to capture sharp images of the targeted landing site. The mission orbiter is also now firing up its camera and science payloads, preparing to assess the landscape and dust conditions at the rover’s primary landing site. The primary landing site is located within an area called Utopia Planitia, a vast plain on the Red Planet. Tianwen-1 will photograph the region on multiple occasions to evaluate the topography and dust conditions in the landing zone.
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