First, there was Endeavor. Then there was Resilience and Endurance.
Now, the fourth SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft, sending the fourth operational crew to the International Space Station, has a name as well.
“FREEDOM!!” NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, commander of the upcoming mission dubbed Crew-4, tweeted enthusiastically. “Crew-4 will fly to the International Space Station in a new Dragon capsule named ‘Freedom.’”.
Mikhail Kokorich is the founder of Destinus. This serial entrepreneur has been dubbed Russia’s Elon Musk by his public relations team. The Russian businessman says his business, Destinus, is developing a hydrogen-powered, zero-emissions transcontinental delivery drone that can travel at speeds up to Mach 15.
Destinus plans to combine the technological advancements from a spaceplane with the ordinary and straightforward physics from a glider to create a hyperplane that will meet the many demands of a hyper-connected world.
This hyperplane will use clean hydrogen fuel to transport cargo between Europe and Australia in mere hours. The hyperplane will be fully autonomous; it will take off from ordinary runways, traveling leisurely to the coast before accelerating to supersonic speeds.
SpaceX plans to send the Starship to orbit.
SpaceX is gearing up to launch the Starship into orbit, the biggest test yet for the ship designed to send humans to Mars and beyond.
Research On Humans Adapting, Living & Working In Space — Colonel (ret) Dr. Samantha Weeks, Ph.D., Polaris Dawn, Science & Research Director
Colonel (ret) Dr. Samantha “Combo” Weeks, Ph.D. is the Science & Research Director, of the Polaris Dawn Program (https://polarisprogram.com/dawn/), a planned private human spaceflight mission, operated by SpaceX on behalf of Shift4 Payments CEO Jared Isaacman, planned to launch using the Crew Dragon capsule.
Polaris Dawn is the first of three planned missions in the Polaris Program (https://polarisprogram.com/), which endeavors to rapidly advance human spaceflight capabilities by demonstrating new technologies and conducting extensive scientific research to expand our knowledge of humans adapting, living and working in space. Much of this research also has purpose and applicability to improve life here on Earth.
Colonel Dr. Weeks, is a retired United States Air Force Colonel, with over 2,200 hours flying the F-15C, F-16, and T-38, including 105 combat hours. She commanded at the squadron, group, and wing level in the Air Force, and today also serves a corporate Vice President at the Shift4 Payments company, focusing on transformation and change management. Her position as Science & Research Director with Polaris comes after two and a half decades of focus on human performance in aviation.
Colonel Dr. Weeks has a BS in Biology from the United States Air Force Academy, a Masters in Human Relations from University of Oklahoma, and a Ph.D. in Military Strategy / Leadership from the United States Air Force, Air University.
For about 9 months, Elon has been suggesting that Booster 4 with Starship 20 on top of it would do the first orbital test of Starship.
The big question was how safe would it be to launch with 29 Raptor engines at once? A lot of people were talking about Russia’s N1 rocket which failed in all four attempts with its 31 engines, causing one of the world’s largest nonnuclear explosions and killing over a hundred people in the process. The most Raptor engines that have ever been static fire tested at once is 6. It would be very difficult to rebuild the Starship tower if it was destroyed. Easily ten times as hard as building another Starship and booster.
Note that using so many engines is not impossible. For example, the Falcon Heavy launches with 27 engines and all its launches have been successful so far. The problem is that the Raptor is the world’s first full-flow staged-combustion-cycle engine and SpaceX has not perfected it yet. For example, the only Starship which successfully landed from a medium-height test almost missed the landing pad and was on fire when it landed. (All other medium-height test Starships exploded, one before it even hit the ground.)
Anyway, today Elon admitted that there will never be an orbital test with Raptor engines and instead plans on doing a test with Raptor 2 engines in two months. This test will be with 33 Raptor 2 engines at once but those engines are considered to be much more stable and also more powerful which matters when you wish to make orbit. The current deal with Raptor 2 engines is they often explode when pushed to 250 tons of force, but work quite well at 230 tons of force. The cranky Raptor engines could do 185 tons of force.
This orbital test will be with a Starship that has 6 engines although Elon has said that eventually Starship will have 9 engines while the booster will have 33 engines.
@thesheetztweetz @QuiltyAnalytics First Starship orbital flight will be with Raptor 2 engines, as they are much more capable & reliable. 230 ton or ~500k lb thrust at sea level.
That’s over double the original expected launch cost.
NASA’s Space Launch System is supposed to ferry astronauts to the Moon, but at an estimated $4.1 billion per launch, it may be doomed before it ever gets off the ground.