American astronauts aren’t heading back to the moon just yet. NASA’s pricey Artemis mission is facing technical challenges. The space agency is now working with both SpaceX and Blue Origin.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida, March 3 (Reuters) — A SpaceX rocket safely lifted off from Florida on Sunday night carrying a crew of three U.S. astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut on their way to the International Space Station (ISS) to begin a six-month science mission in Earth orbit.
The two-stage Falcon 9 rocket topped with an autonomously operated Crew Dragon capsule dubbed Endeavor was launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, along Florida’s Atlantic coast, at 10:53 p.m. EST (0353 GMT Monday).
A live NASA-SpaceX webcast showed the 25-story-tall rocketship ascending from the launch tower as its nine Merlin engines roared to life in billowing clouds of vapor and a reddish fireball that lit up the night sky. The rocket consumes 700,000 gallons of fuel per second during launch, according to SpaceX.
SpaceX’s next Starship to fly has passed a critical fueling test, setting the stage for a highly anticipated third launch attempt of the world’s biggest rocket.
The gleaming, stainless-steel Starship rocket and its Super Heavy booster, which together stand 400 feet tall (122 meters), were filled with more than 10 million pounds of liquid methane and liquid oxygen propellant during the recent launch dress rehearsal, which was performed at SpaceX’s Starbase facility near Boca Chica Beach in southern Texas.
SpaceX has set plenty of spaceflight records in its 22-year history, and in the coming weeks, one of its boosters is expected to set another one.
Some of the 43 contested acres are landlocked with no public access but with protected plant and animal species. Although SpaceX is proposing swapping the public land for 477 acres, it has not yet purchased that property. None of the land in the deal has beach access, but the 43 acres sit near protected federal land and lagoons that stretch along the coast.
“Through this transaction we are guaranteeing the conservation of 477 acres, which would otherwise potentially be developed into condominiums or strip centers,” Jeffery D. Hildebrand, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission chairman appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott, said at the meeting’s close.
The deal started in 2019 as a conversation between the state and SpaceX. But it was finally worked out in 2023, said David Yoskowitz, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s executive director.
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Pre-orders for a “flying car” have soared in recent months leading industry experts to question how close we are to small passenger vehicle flight. Alef Aeronautics, a company backed by Space-X, specialising in the production of flying cars, has achieved 2,850 pre-orders for its electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicle. The firm is backed by Tesla investor and venture capitalist Tim Draper, which has helped draw attention. Based in San Mateo, California, Alef Aeronautics is allowing customers to pre-order its two-seater flying car, the Alef Model A, online with a $150 deposit. Customers are allowed to withdraw the deposit at any time to cancel the pre-order.
The car is expected to be priced at around $300,000 when it becomes commercially available, which gives the company an order value of over $850 million to date. Jim Dukhovny, Alef’s CEO, stated: “As of today we have a little bit more than 2,850 pre-orders with deposits down, which makes it the bestselling aircraft in history, more than Boeing, Airbus, Joby Aviation and most of the eVTOLs combined.”
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Crew-8 marks the fifth flight for Endeavour, the maximum number of flights Crew Dragon spacecraft have been qualified for. But this spacecraft, what NASA and SpaceX refer to as the “fleet leader,” could potentially prove itself worthy of more flights — possibly many more. According to NASA officials, Crew Dragon might be able to fly up to 15 times, depending on the results of a requalification campaign the agency and SpaceX will undertake this year and next.
Related: SpaceX launches Crew-8 astronaut mission to International Space Station for NASA (video)
During a press briefing on Feb. 28 to discuss the Crew-8 mission, Steve Stich, program manager for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, said SpaceX is currently performing qualification tests of “every single” component on the Dragon spacecraft in order to determine how many flights the spacecraft might be capable of making.
NASA astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt, and Jeanette Epps, as well as Roscosmos cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin arrived at the International Space Station, as the SpaceX Dragon, named Endeavour, docked to the complex at 2:28 a.m. EST on March 5 while the station was 260 statute miles over Newfoundland.
Following Dragon’s link up to the Harmony module, the astronauts aboard the Dragon and the space station conducted standard leak checks and pressurization between the spacecraft in preparation for hatch opening.
