Human space travel is advancing rapidly, and SpaceX stands at the forefront. This is partly due to the exciting technologies developed by the company and its free-spoken leader, Elon Musk. Now and again, tidbits of news pop up, often in the shape of tweets from Musk himself.
Recent examples include Starlink being introduced ahead of schedule in Ukraine and Musk expressing a will to keep the International Space Station in orbit if Russia were to drop out. Here's a roundup of some of the latest news that might be too small for their articles.
Starship redesign
SpaceX's big project right now is Starship. While NASA will carry out the first two Artemis missions using their own SLS spacecraft, Starship will have the honor of putting people on the moon for the first time in just shy of half a century. And Elon Musk hopes it'll put humans on Mars before the decade's end.
Since the last flight of the previous prototype, SpaceX has been working towards the craft's first orbital flight, which was initially supposed to take place last year. However, the need for refinements seems SpaceX'ssignificant, more significant than first expected.
First Starship orbital flight will be with Raptor 2 engines, as they are much more capable & reliable. 230 ton or ~500k lb thrust at sea level.
We’ll have 39 flightworthy engines built by next month, then another month to integrate, so hopefully May for orbital flight test.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 21, 2022
However, based on a recent tweet, SpaceX's craft will soon be ready for this exciting milestone. That is, of course, also dependent on the ship getting environmental approval from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Crew Dragon production has finished… for now.
SpaceX is wrapping up the production of Crew Dragon capsules. In a recent statement to Reuters, SpaceX President Gwyneth Shotwell states that the last pill is currently being assembled.
There's nothing preventing production from resuming in the future. Still, due to the reusable nature of the spacecraft, the idea is that the number of capsules already produced should satisfy the demand for the foreseeable future. Efforts will now shift to supporting, maintaining, and refurbishing existing examples he spacecraft.
Jakob Holgersson
