Lifeboat Foundation

The static fire test comes less than two weeks after the last Starship mission, which saw the rocket reach orbital velocity for the first time before breaking up upon reentry to Earth’s atmosphere.

Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX’s chief operating officer, said last week that the next launch attempt could take place in the “beginning part of May”, though no payload will be onboard.

The fourth major flight test of the fully stacked Starship rocket system will instead aim to resolve the issues that arose during the last mission.

Nvidia’s headquarters is now one of the most sought-after places to work. Spanning more than 1 million square feet combined, Nvidia’s space-ship-like buildings were designed with help from custom software powered by the AI chips that have made the company successful. WSJ gets a look inside. Photo: Nvidia.

An international team of researchers from Queen Mary University of London, the University of Oxford, Lancaster University, and the University of Waterloo have developed a new single-molecule transistor that uses quantum interference to control the flow of electrons. The transistor, which is described in a paper published in the Nature Nanotechnology (“Quantum interference enhances the performance of single-molecule transistors”), opens new possibilities for using quantum effects in electronic devices.

Transistor are the basic building blocks of modern electronics. They are used to amplify and switch electrical signals, and they are essential for everything from smartphones to spaceships. However, the traditional method of making transistors, which involves etching silicon into tiny channels, is reaching its limits.

As transistors get smaller, they become increasingly inefficient and susceptible to errors, as electrons can leak through the device even when it is supposed to be switched off, by a process known as quantum tunnelling. Researchers are exploring new types of switching mechanisms that can be used with different materials to remove this effect.

Odysseus, which was built by Houston-based company Intuitive Machines, powered down one week after landing as lunar night began for 14 days. Flight controllers ordered the spacecraft to snooze for three weeks, while the moon’s south pole faced away from the sun, but they hoped Odie would reawaken once sunlight hit its solar panels again.

“Intuitive Machines started listening for Odie’s wake-up signal on March 20, when we projected enough sunlight would potentially charge the lander’s power system and turn on its radio,” representatives of the company wrote on X, formerly called Twitter.

The company has faced two main issues related to communications and the spacecraft rotation rate — and it’s largely solved both those problems.

And the g-forces???

Rockets being passé, China is working on using an electromagnetic railgun to launch crewed spacecraft the size of a Boeing 737, weighing 50 tonnes, into orbit. This remarkably ambitious project is even more ambitious than it seems at first glance.

Call it a railgun, a catapult, or a mass driver, the idea of replacing rockets with an electromagnetic accelerator is a very attractive option. Instead of lifting off on chemical rockets that have to carry fuel and fuel to lift the fuel and fuel to lift the fuel and the additional fuel, it makes more sense to keep as much of the launching system on the ground while leaving the vehicle as light as possible.

Continue reading “China is building a railgun that can hurl crewed spacecraft into orbit” »

SpaceX is currently listing starting aerospace engineer positions at $95,000 to $115,000 a year. NASA offers along a range that starts at $54,557.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=BTMo7d4MkXE

SpaceX’s Starship, despite facing challenges and setbacks, is on the verge of its fourth flight with upgraded engines and is poised to revolutionize space travel with its unprecedented lift capacity.

Questions to inspire discussion.

Continue reading “SpaceX President’s Exciting Update on Next Starship Launch!” »

Chinese scientists are working on a giant electromagnetic launch track to launch a massive 50-ton spaceplane — longer than a Boeing 737 — into orbit.

As the South China Morning Post reports, the “giant rail gun” system is designed to accelerate a hypersonic aircraft to speeds of up to Mach 1.6. Once it reaches the end of the track, its engine then accelerates it to the edge of space at seven times the speed of sound.

If actually built, it could greatly cut down on the amount of fuel such a craft would need to get to space, allowing it to carry bigger payloads — and save a considerable amount of money as well.