Latest news with #Ship35
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Elon Musk Just Ghosted a Huge Company Meeting
Elon Musk is doing his very best to rehabilitate his damaged image. DOGE and all that government twaddle is behind him, he insists. He's going to be working closely at his businesses again, instead of chainsawing federal agencies and getting screamed at by Trump cabinet members. He's done with politics — or spending loads of money on it, anyway. There's robotaxis to roll out and Mars-settlement-shaped bridges to sell. But if this is his comeback tour, it's started in pretty much the worst way possible. On Tuesday, Musk was nowhere to be seen at a highly anticipated talk he was supposed to give about SpaceX's plans for colonizing the Red Planet, Gizmodo reports, leaving legions of his fans and spaceflight nerds — not to mention the thousands of SpaceX employees gathered at the company's Starbase headquarters in Texas for the occasion — hanging. No explanation was given (though he did fire off some tweets in the interim, albeit at nowhere near his typical spambot levels of frequency). But his truancy might have something to do with his Starship megarocket — an indispensable part of Musk's grand vision of "making life multiplanetary" and spreading his seed across the cosmos — exploding for the umpteenth time during its latest flight test that same day. Musk's pontification sesh was originally scheduled for 1 PM EST. Then it was pushed back to 1:10 PM, and then to 1:15, and finally, 9 PM, according to Gizmodo, with that last time block coming in after Starship's flight test, which was slated for 7:30 PM that evening. When Musk announced that his speech was postponed until after the Starship test, noted science communicator Scott Manley asked in the replies, perhaps presciently: "Is this going to have contingency elements that depend on the outcome of the flight?" Looks like the answer to that was, "no." To be fair to the centibillionaire multi-hyphenate, his plans quite literally blew up — or experienced a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" — in his face. It's understandable why he wouldn't want to wax about his future interplanetary dominion when his rocket that's supposed to make that happen lay in ruins. (Before the launch, Musk boasted that there's was an "80 percent chance" that his engineers had solved key issues related to the spacecraft's heat shield tiles.) In actuality, the Starship prototype, dubbed Ship 35, spun out of control and broke apart as it made a nasty, uncontrolled reentry into the Earth's atmosphere. Then, in an all too familiar final act, the Starship exploded somewhere over the Indian Ocean, putting it out of its misery. Around 40 minutes earlier, the Starship's Super Heavy booster also blew up before it could complete its landing burn. "Lot of good data to review," Musk wrote in a tweet made at the near-exact time he was supposed to be giving his talk after the several delays. A new date for the Mars talk hasn't been announced. More on Elon Musk: Elon Musk Just Got Some Horrible New Sales Data About Tesla Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Elon Boasts of Huge Starship Improvements Immediately Before It Blows Up Spectacularly
SpaceX experienced yet another failure during its ninth test launch of its Starship vehicle Tuesday evening. The rocket spun out of control as it tumbled through space, causing it to make an uncontrolled descent in the Indian Ocean that ended in an all-too-familiar blast. As is always the case after a failure, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk was optimistic. During an interview with Ars Technica's Eric Berger, published mere minutes before the launch of Tuesday's test flight, Musk was adamant that "we've got about an 80 percent chance of having solved" issues related to the design of the spacecraft's heat shield tiles and the cause of the "explosions in the last two flights in the upper stage engine bay." But given this week's disaster, Musk may have put the horse before the cart. The prototype, dubbed Ship 35, never even got close to a controlled reentry. Live footage shared by the space company showed the untiled side of the spacecraft heating up as it was enveloped with flaming plasma. However, the launch wasn't a complete failure. The two previous test flights, which saw each Starship break up over the Caribbean and appear as bright streaks in the evening sky, were plagued by propulsion system leaks, triggering early shutdown — which technically didn't happen during Tuesday's launch, with the failure coming later. In other words, the company's latest test flight was one step forward, and several steps back, yet again highlighting the risks of SpaceX's iterative design philosophy. Whether Musk's newfound motivation and decision to stop ignoring his businesses while chaotically slashing budgets in the White House will prove effective remains to be seen. "It's not like I left the companies," he told Berger. "It was just relative time allocation that probably was a little too high on the government side, and I've reduced that significantly in recent weeks." Meanwhile, Musk proclaimed that he was elated following Tuesday's failure, arguing that "Starship made it to the scheduled ship engine cutoff, so big improvement over last flight!" "Also, no significant loss of heat shield tiles during ascent," he added. Chances are we'll see more attempts in the coming months, if Musk is taken by his word. "Launch cadence for next 3 flights will be faster, at approximately 1 every 3 to 4 weeks," Musk wrote. Even with his renewed interest in his businesses, the pressure is seriously starting to grow for SpaceX. NASA is still hoping to tap the heavy launch platform for Artemis 3, its first crewed lunar landing attempt, which is tentatively scheduled for 2027. Given the latest setbacks, SpaceX has its work cut out for it. Beyond a safe landing, the company still has to figure out how to increase the launch cadence significantly, refuel in orbit, provide life support to crews, and much more. To Musk, it's all part of a much greater plan to send humans to Mars, a distant planet that's incredibly hostile to life. "We're building the equivalent of the Union Pacific Railroad and the train," he told Berger prior to Tuesday's failure. "So once you have the transportation system to Mars, then there's a vast set of opportunities that open up to do anything on the surface of Mars, which includes, you know, doing everything from building a semiconductor fab to a pizza joint, basically building a civilization." More on Starship: NASA Signs Contract for Elon Musk's Starship, Even Though It's Never Launched Without Exploding
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First Post
28-05-2025
- Science
- First Post
Musk's SpaceX launches 'super heavy' Starship Flight 9 in 9th test flight
SpaceX launched its Starship Super Heavy rocket from South Texas, marking another step toward future Moon and Mars missions. The mission, named Starship Flight 9, lifted off at 5:00 am IST and featured the Super Heavy booster on its second flight. read more SpaceX successfully launched its Starship Super Heavy rocket early Wednesday from its Starbase site in South Texas. The launch, which happened at 5:00 am IST, is a major step toward SpaceX's goal of building a reusable rocket system to carry people to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. The mission, called Starship Flight 9, used the Super Heavy booster for the second time, along with Ship 35. The booster first flew earlier this year during Flight 7. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD LAUNCH! Starship Flight 9 departs Starbase. REFLIGHT milestone for Booster 14. Ship 35 is riding atop. NSF Stream live on X and YT. — NSF - (@NASASpaceflight) May 27, 2025 This is a developing story.
