Lifeboat Foundation

The race to space exploration has been heating up, with Elon Musk’s SpaceX making significant strides in the sector. The private company is valued at approximately $150 billion after a recent share sale by investors. Musk is speculated to own roughly 44% of the company.

The company reached an agreement with both new and existing investors to offer up to $750 million in stock from insiders at a price of $81 per share last month, valuing it at approximately $140 billion, according to a document sent by SpaceX Chief Financial Officer Bret Johnsen.

The latest share price reflects a rise of approximately 5% compared to its previous secondary sale at $77 per share. But Musk does not “anticipate needing to raise funding in the near future” and is expected to opt for secondary sales to bolster and incentivize employee and insider ownership in the company.

Following the Flight Readiness Review (FRR), NASA and SpaceX gave the go for Crew 7. The launch is scheduled for August 25th at 3:49 a.m. ET (07:49 UTC).

This mission will bring three astronauts and one cosmonaut to the International Space Station for a stay of around six months to perform experiments and conduct maintenance aboard the orbiting outpost.

After the FRR was complete, a full launch day rehearsal was carried out in which the crew was fully suited and driven to Launch Complex 39A, where they boarded Crew Dragon Endurance. The crew and mission control simulated a full countdown in order to familiarize themselves one last time before launch day.

After Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft crashed, all eyes are on Chandrayaan-3 as India attempts to become the first nation to land on the moon’s south pole.

The robotic Luna-25 spacecraft appeared to have “ceased its existence” after a failed orbital adjustment, the space agency Roscosmos said.

A US Coast Guard notice gives the first possible date window for the next SpaceX Starship orbital launch attempt.

Page 4 out of 88 pages has a coast guard notice to mariners that starting August 31, 2023 there could be dangerous rocket operations.

SpaceX recently installed the new hot staging ring atop Booster 9 that will attempt this new stage separation method.

The hot staging ring has gone through its own test campaign, including being connected to the “can crusher,” which simulates stresses on the rocket during liftoff and, having passed that test, was then installed.

Hot staging is when the 2nd stage, in this case, Starship, ignites its engines while still connected to then pull away from Booster 9, which will also still be firing some of its own engines but with those throttled down. The hot staging method isn’t a new idea, as it has been used by Russian rockets for years now and also by older American rockets such as the Titan II.

A great video if you have 8 min to spare.

Continue reading “How Jetoptera’s Bladeless Propulsion System Works” »

While the current Oppenheimer blockbuster film focused on the destructive power of nuclear weapons, more peaceful uses of atomic propulsion for space exploration are now gaining once again momentum. ROB COPPINGER reports.

Nuclear fission and fusion power propulsion are under investigation in Europe and the US with an in-space engine demonstration planned by 2027 — with the news last month that Lockheed Martin had been selected to develop a nuclear thermal propulsion system for DARPA’s DRACO programme (see below).

Continue reading “Atomic rockets are back” »

WASHINGTON — Russia’s first lunar mission in nearly half a century suffered an “emergency situation” during an attempted maneuver Aug. 19, putting plans for a landing into question.

In a brief statement posted to its channel on the social media service Telegram, the Russian space agency Roscosmos said that the Luna-25 spacecraft was commanded to perform a maneuver at 7:10 a.m. Eastern to place the spacecraft into a “pre-landing” orbit around the moon.

However, during the planned maneuver “an emergency situation occurred on board the automatic station, which did not allow the maneuver to be performed with the specified parameters,” according to a translation of the statement. “The management team is currently analyzing the situation.”