Beccab

That's likely, it's how Dragon does it and how Apollo did it too

Scaffolding continued to grow for a while up to the now-shut payload bay - thankfully, it has also started to decrease now, so the end may be near Nothing much on the booster, B7 and B9 are both together in the high bay 2 being finalized - the first for launch, since if it's the one to fly this is probably the last high bay visit, and the latter to begin testing

I mean, not really? The closest examples, even if they're both pretty far, are STS and F9; both of them had a single engine failure during launch, and in neither it took out the rest. Even an SN-something launch lost an engine during ascent, with no damage reaching the rest, and that's with the unshielded engine block that flew during the atmospheric flight tests. Like, the only example of I know of at all in rocket history is the second N1 launch, and even then it wasn't because it actually took out the rest of the engine block but because of terrible programming logic in its avionics. I'm sure that there are some example, but they seem to be extremely rare for sure As for failing during launch, sure, but again, that's a catastrophic failure your talking about. Both 6-engine and 9-engine variants (and by the time people fly on starship in what, 2027? there's a very high chance that it's a 9-engine variant we're talking about) should easily be able to abort to a lower orbit with a smaller number just like STS did. Either case, even if somehow there was an overlooked unknown failure mode that took out the entire engine block with no chanche of recovery, that's a reason for which there should be a ton of uncrewed flights before Polaris III, both launching normal payload and with straight up the variant capable of transporting people but empty. F9 is at what, a success streak of 140 consecutive successes? Starship should aim at something like that before ever attempting a crewed flight

While that's true, that word be a catastrophic failure - you need a total failure in 2 of 3 sea level engines, which have already been fired at the beginning of the mission (thus if there was issues that could risk that, you would have had whole days or weeks to address it and find countermeasures), and much more if the vacuum engines can be used instead both in the 6-engine and 9-engine variant. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's a very, very low chance in a later starship flight when crew is already launching That said, this post made me think - it shouldn't be impossible to make a crash survivable, i think? The terminal velocity of 90 m/s seems beyond what could reasonably have survivors , but with 30+ meters of crumple zone available and a properly designed crew module, perhaps?

It's for the next phase of the mission, they will be filled with helium and Orion will take flight again towards Cape as an airship

Second blackout period begins now, all good for now

Oh damn I thought this was 12 hours from now, perfect!

Successful launch & landing, Hakuto-R and the Lunar Flashlight are now in LEO preparing for the lunar injection

Second of three consecutive RTLS!

Dennis Tito mentioned doing a psychological evaluation before being allowed to book a seat in a future Starship flight, so I assume that the DearMoon crew either already did it or will do it shortly

I would put Polaris III in 2026/7 personally, and Dearmoon at least a full year after Polaris III whenever it launches

Dynetics, partnering with NG this time, has a much more realistic chance than the "National Team" imo. They actually have a good lander design, and solved the issues they had during HLS phase B

New teaser - the Chemical Interorbital Shuttle/ Chemical Interim Shuttle / Expendable Second Stage / Chemical Propulsion Stage! (Yes, it had that many different names. Thanks NAR) inspired by this

To be completely honest, this is a fitting description of most threads on aerospace forums

Sounds like we finally know what the mysterious Starlink payload adapters on secret secondary payloads recently were for

They just replaced two raptors, so i don't think it's going to the rocket garden yet

Whoops!

Asteroid belt, did I write Kuiper belt in some spot and missed it?

1978: EOS-25 Part 1: Pioneer Venus It's been a year since the TOPS-1 failure: the explosion of engine-3 on the space tug carrying it to orbit was the first important setback of the IPP program, and one that could have ended in tragedy had it happened on one of Eagle's flights instead. Indeed, the fact that it didn't injure any astronauts is likely the main reason for which the space tug program is still ongoing; the last space tug still in orbit, an unmanned stage used for Pioneer Mars, was just cleared for flight again after remaining stationed at the orbiting depot since Skylab B's deorbiting. Soon after, in the weeks following the Cosmic Ray Lab mission, it was joined in orbit by the new crewed tug, the "Aries". It's clear to everyone, however, that after the incident a more realistic view of the space program is necessary to avoid something worse to happen; gone are the estimates for 60+ EOS yearly launches and the rapid refurbishment of the two stages to achieve it, aiming instead in the future to have a more attainable cadence of 2 launches per month, peaking during years of the CIS lunar program. NASA has started preliminary studies to indentify the best course of action, taking into consideration every option: additional orbiters, alternative space tugs and propulsion stages, even possible Shuttle replacements. We'll see how those go in the future. This brings us to today's mission: despite the setbacks and difficulties met in the last years, the EOS program has reached its 25th mission, as can be seen in the graphic below (the missions of the same year are first ordered by vehicle, and then usually chronologically, so what happened before and what later can be a bit confusing) The EOS-25 launch has been assigned to Tenacity; it is orbiting Earth in a nearly circular 360 km x 365 km orbit, carrying both Pioneer Venus and the "Wolf" asteroid belt probe. The first to go will be Pioneer Venus, a fully reusable dual space tug launch that will take place from the OPD; but first, the "Aries" manned tug has to detach from its port on Odyssey to take the probe out of the EOS's payload bay and attach it to itself. The protocol following the TOPS-1 accident is to limit the crewed portion of every space tug flight to the minimum; while arm manuevers to take the probe out need to have astronauts present, the Aries crew will then transfer to Tenacity to reach a record-breaking 10 people crew on the orbiter during the transfer to Odyssey. Commencing final approach: Pioneer Venus probe extraction Aaand transfer to Aries' payload port With the crew returning back to Odyssey safely on the orbiter, the launch out of LEO can begin; the two tugs will now meet up at the OPD, dock together and move to the target orbit for the trans-venus injection The Pioneer Venus mission is the first mission to have happened IRL that I recreate in this thread; while in real life it launched on an Atlas Centaur (3 years before the first Shuttle flew) alongside its Pioneer Venus Multiprobe sister probe and was proposed to be reused for a Pioneer Mars mission, in this timeline the two evens are reversed and it's Pioneer Mars that was repurposed for venus with the removal of its penetrator subsatellite. It will study Venus' surface for the years to come, orbiting around it at varying altitudes depending on which mission objective is being pursued at the time. And now, it's time to go! Stage separation confirmed Good burn - the Pioneer Venus Orbiter will now separate from the uncrewed Aries, while it returns back to LEO to be refueled by subsequent tankers at the propellant depot The transit to Venus lasts nearly 7 months; at the end of it, the Star-24 motor on it ignites to enter into orbit around Venus, where it will remain for as long as its propellant supply lasts Part 2, the "Wolf" probe But before Pioneer Venus has completed its transit time, another mission is about to begin: the Solar-Electric Asteroid Belt Survey. Paraphrasing the NTRS report, the spacecraft, described in various NTRS reports (19700014165 for example), represents the first mission opportunity fully devoted to obtaining data on the space environment beyond the orbit of Mars through the asteroid belt. In 1972 and 1973, Pioneers F and G, respectively, have been launched with the primary intent of investigating the environments of Jupiter, followed by the Thermoelectric Outer Planets Spacecraft in 1978. However, only a small portion of the payload is applied to the determination of the asteroid belt region space environment (cometary and asterodal). The primary objective of the solar electric propulsion asteroid belt is to obtain meaningful scientific and engineering data on the space environment in the region of the asteroid belt; more specifically, it will spend more than three years between 2 and 3.5 AU studying the asteroid belt and its components. The mission itself has been named "Wolf", instead of the nearly impronunciable acronym in the report, after the astronomer Max Wolf, who during the first part of the 20th century identified and catalogued 248 different asteroids by himself right until his death, many of which will be studied by the spacecraft itself during its quadriennial mission inside the asteroid belt. The mission itself happens more than a month after the position we see in the header: two EOS tankers launch, refuel the space tugs, visit the station and return to Earth in the meanwhile and Tenacity itself, after transfering the spacecraft to the payload port of the unmanned tug, has returned long ago. But now, after checking out the probe one last time to make sure it didn't get damaged in the meanwhile, it's time to launch it on a direct injection towards the asteroid belt! Shortly after separation, the Aries completes a boostback burn to decrease its orbit and put it back on a trajectory that intercepts Odyssey's. The unmanned tug, on the other hand, will be expended; launches to the asteroid belt or beyond need too much DeltaV for most probes, and there's just not enough fuel to also return to LEO from something beyond TMI on top of that After completing another orbit and returning to perigee, the unmanned space tug ignites in its final burn, forever Shortly after separation, it's time for the ROSAs (roll-out solar arrays) to unfurl and start powering the onboard instruments... ...and for the ion thrusters to begin the climb towards the intended orbit It's going to be a long journey; as the first planetary probe to use ion thrusters, and the first probe in general to use it as its main form of propulsion, many issues are going to come up along the way that will need fixing. But for all the new data it will give, and for all the future uses its ion thruster technology will have, it will be worth it Next up: the CIS and the space platforms

Nice recap of yesterday's static fire, with different angles and a timelapse of the prop loading

Static fire!