spacex - What is the advantage of catching a rocket booster with a . . . All other practical aspects be damned, SpaceX did just successfully maneuver a massive >200-ton steel vehicle through the air faster than sound, safely returning it to its site of launch after delivering one of the largest spacecraft ever built on its way, and then caught it midair with massive robotic arms for later reuse If absolutely
SpaceX Starship : Texas Prototype (s) Thread 25 : Discussion I didn't consider the SS exhaust impingement force on booster in my calculation I just ran the numbers now the impingement force required for the booster acceleration to be <=0 is at least 350 tons SS raptors are very much capable of that But if SpaceX is planning to shut down booster engines after stage separation this wont be an issue
SpaceX F9 : Bandwagon 4 Rideshare : VSFB SLC-4E : NET July 2025 Discussion thread for SpaceX's Bandwagon 4 dedicated rideshare flight Discussion thread for SpaceX Rideshare Program Discussion thread for Bandwagon 3, Bandwagon 2, Bandwagon 1 Launch targeting NET July 2025 from Vandenberg, on Falcon 9 (booster 10xx x) to 45 4 deg, with deployment orbits around 510km and 590km? Booster will land at LZ-4
launch - What happens to the Falcon 9 second stage after payload . . . SpaceX would love to recover the second stage, which they had planned But it sounds like they have given up on that Transcript - Elon Musk at MIT's Aero Astro Centennial (part 1 of 6) [What about the second stage?] The next generation vehicles after the Falcon architecture will be designed for full reusability
SpaceX F9 : NROL-69 : CCSFS SLC-40 : 24 March 2025 (17:48 UTC) SpaceX doesn’t often discuss this grey stripe, but it was briefly brought up by Ronnie Foreman, a SpaceX commercial sales manager, during the July 28, 2023, launch of the Jupiter-3 mission on a Falcon Heavy rocket According to Forman, the mission debuted a new medium-coast configuration
Starship Flight 8 UPDATES : Starbase TX : 6 March 2025 (23:30 UTC) Should SpaceX not complete its planned flight-testing activity on February 26, 2025, then SpaceX may use the alternate dates to complete its testing activities,” Treviño stated SpaceX and law enforcement authorities will be coordinating to ensure that no individuals or vehicles are allowed access to these areas during these times of the day
SpaceX F9 : Transporter-14 Rideshare : Vandenberg SLC-4E : 20 Jun 2025 . . . SpaceX was the obvious choice due to its combination of affordable cost and impeccable reputation in commercial launches The decision was confirmed during a presentation to the Parliament's Defence and Budget Committees on 5 February 2024
SpaceX F9 : Intuitive Machines IM-2 : KSC LC-39A : 26 27 Feb 2025 (00: . . . SpaceX is targeting Wednesday, February 26 for a Falcon 9 launch of the Intuitive Machines IM-2 mission to a lunar transfer orbit from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida Also on board this mission is NASA’S Lunar Trailblazer, Astroforge’s Odin, and Epic Aerospace’s CHIMERA GEO 1 spacecraft
spacex - What computer and software is used by the Falcon 9? - Space . . . SpaceX uses an Actor-Judge system to provide triple redundancy to its rockets and spacecraft The Falcon 9 has 3 dual core x86 processors running an instance of linux on each core The flight software is written in C C++ and runs in the x86 environment For each calculation decision, the "flight string" compares the results from both cores