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Category: space travel – Page 172

FAA requires SpaceX to make environmental adjustments to move forward with its Starship program in Texas

FAA to require SpaceX to write a report of the events of the Mexican and Civil Wars.

If people are wondering why the USA rarely has big construction projects anymore, the FAA is requiring that SpaceX write a report of the events of the Mexican and Civil Wars.

From the text: “The company will also contribute to local education and preservation efforts — including preparing a historical context report of the events of the Mexican War and the Civil War that took place in the area as well as replacing missing ornaments on a local historical marker.”

The FAA said SpaceX will be required to take more than 75 actions to mitigate environmental impacts before the company can receive a launch license.

Elon Musk’s SpaceX pulls another $1.7 billion in funding

Space Exploration Technologies Corp., better known as SpaceX, has pulled in another $1.7 billion in equity funding, according to a filing Monday.

Privately held SpaceX, led by Tesla Inc. TSLA,-7.10% Chief Executive Elon Musk, sold about $1.68 billion in new equity in a $1.72 billion offering, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The first sales occurred late last month, it said.

SpaceX-Affiliated Group Giving Out Funding for Warp Drive Research

Covering interstellar distances rapidly may still be a distant dream, but it’s now getting unprecedented financial support.

A nonprofit called the Limitless Space Institute, co-founded by former NASA warp drive researcher Harold “Sonny” White and retired astronaut Brian Kelly in 2020, is generating enough excitement — and funding — for the concept that it’s started giving out educational and research grants to schools and universities, as detailed by Universe Today.

The Institute, whose mission statement is to “inspire and educate the next generation to travel beyond our solar system and support the research and development of enabling technologies,” has even picked up some increasingly mainstream support. Take Gwynne Shotwell, the chief operations officer and second-in-command of SpaceX, who joined as an independent advisor in April, joining other bigshots in the aerospace sector including several retired astronauts involved with the venture.

Europa Clipper’s main body complete, teams continue work toward 2024 launch

In early June, the main body of NASA’s upcoming Europa Clipper spacecraft completed construction and was shipped to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California soon after. The arrival of Europa Clipper’s main body marks a major milestone in the construction of the spacecraft and shows that the spacecraft and its teams are on track for a launch in 2024.

“It’s an exciting time for the whole project team and a huge milestone. This delivery brings us one step closer to launch and the Europa Clipper science investigation,” said Europa Clipper project manager Jordan Evans of JPL.

While the construction of the spacecraft’s main body is complete, that does not mean construction of the spacecraft as a whole is finished. Numerous mission-critical components are yet to be assembled and installed onto the spacecraft.

NASA and SpaceX stand down on Dragon launch to study hydrazine issue

It rarely makes the news that SpaceX has to fix stuff because they generally fix it within a few weeks and that is not considered newsworthy.

Anyway, at the moment the next Cargo Dragon flight is being delayed due to a thruster propellant leak and the next Crew Dragon capsule has a defective heatshield that is going to have to be replaced before launch. (The heatshield is less of an issue as the flight isn’t until September anyway.)

This Cargo Dragon has flown twice before so it is interesting that it suddenly decided to leak. Its thruster fuel is extra explosive, so SpaceX will need to figure this out. (3 years ago, a Crew Dragon was destroyed by such a leak during testing.)

Misplaced hypergols are not something one messes around with.