Space exploration and rockets general thread

[Legend]

【Important Notice】
It is unfortunate to be announcing that 'dearMoon', the first private circum-lunar flight project, will be cancelled. We thank everyone who has supported us and apologize to those who have looked forward to this project.

【重要なお知らせ】… pic.twitter.com/gR0KPM8lTP

— dearMoon (@dearmoonproject) June 1, 2024

x.com

no!!!!!!!

Really sucks. Hopefully Tim Dodd can go up on a different flight.

dearMoon?????2018????????2023???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????…

— ???? (@yousuck2020) June 1, 2024

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/06/heres-why-a-japanese-billionaire-just-canceled-his-lunar-flight-on-starship/


https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXMasterrace/comments/1d5oayh/dearmoon_you_gave_us_hope_and_then_you_took_it/

I cry

[Legend]

NASA's commercial spacesuit program just hit a major snag | Ars Technica

Collin's to drop out of spacesuit contract. Crazy. So glad that Axiom seems to be the real deal. They're probably way behind schedule too but at least there is hope with them.

SpaceX seems likely to pick up a new contract. A few billion for something they were already making for themselves? Good deal for everyone.

[/size]

And falcon heavy in 10 minutes.

[Legend]

Deorbit vehicle for the ISS.

Sure looks like they could also use this to replace Orion for Moon missions. Launch it into orbit, launch a crew dragon up to transfer people in (can't launch humans on this since it'd be too heavy for aborts), and transfer to the Moon.

Of course by the time this is built, Starship should have already replaced Orion  

[Legend]

Works pretty good for a “partially assembled” engine :) pic.twitter.com/UkHkGyoOY7

— Gwynne Shotwell (@Gwynne_Shotwell) August 8, 2024

Nice dig at the CEO of ULA who weirdly claimed that the new Raptor 3 didn't actually look like that.

[Legend]

So I think they'll now be grounded by the FAA.

Oh! Wait a minute, they're not SpaceX, they'll be fine ????pic.twitter.com/2VqQ0efDQO

— Space Sudoer (@spacesudoer) October 4, 2024

[the-pi-guy]

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/elon-musk-recommends-that-the-international-space-station-be-deorbited-asap/

It is time to begin preparations for deorbiting the @Space_Station.

It has served its purpose. There is very little incremental utility.

Let’s go to Mars.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 20, 2025

[Legend]

https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/02/elon-musk-recommends-that-the-international-space-station-be-deorbited-asap/

It is time to begin preparations for deorbiting the @Space_Station.

It has served its purpose. There is very little incremental utility.

Let’s go to Mars.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 20, 2025

It sure would be a massive change of pace, but a change of ~5 years doesn't really stop the already existing plans to replace it. The ISS is old and astronauts spend so much time on maintenance instead of science.

Axiom is building their own space station but their plan is to start as extra modules on the ISS and then split off later. However as luck would have it, back in December they modified these plans and essentially made the ISS optional. They are planning to start launching in 2027 so I assume they were worried that with delays they'd hit the ISS end of life in 2030.



Meanwhile Vast is working on two of their own space stations. The small one is set to launch next year and the big one starts launching in 2028.
 
 
Then there are additional space stations in the works that are more paper designs at the moment. Blue Origin, Lockheed, etc. were all contracted by NASA to make ISS replacements but they seem to have just ignored those contracts outside of their initial grand announcements.


The elephant in the room is of course starship. It on its own is already a massive volume and just one of them is comparable to the ISS. 10 years from now we should have a ton more people working in LEO.


But there has been a US heartbeat in space continuously for over 20 years. I'd hate for that to be reset, even if progress wise it's a pointless stat.

[Legend]

Deorbiting the ISS would be a terrible, irreversible mistake for humanity.

We should decommission it ASAP, then boost it up into MEO so it orbits forever as a monument of the Space Exploration Age. pic.twitter.com/nMFxVlFjGn

— Christian Keil (@pronounced_kyle) February 20, 2025

Now this is what I've been hoping for. Second best would be to use starship to bring it back module by module.