Questions tagged [spacex]
Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, is a private space exploration company. It was the world's first privately held company to successfully launch a cargo mission into space , cargo to the ISS (International Space Station), land and reuse a booster, and a crewed mission into orbit. See the wiki for related tags.
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Why does the Falcon 9 consume hydraulic fluid?
According to many news articles, the crash of the Falcon 9 during landing on 1/10/2015 was due to running out of hydraulic fluid for the steerable hypersonic grid fins. This was seemingly confirmed ...
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Why not land SpaceX's Starship like a plane?
I get the reasoning behind designing Starship to land upright. It doesn't require landing gear and the turnaround is expected to be much faster. But I'm beginning to question that logic.
I think the ...
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Why did SpaceX attempt to land the booster on a barge instead of somewhere on land?
I understand the benefits of reusability for the rocket booster. But I don't understand why they're landing it on a barge. I've read tons of articles about this but not one has even hinted at an ...
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What holds SpaceX’s rocket in place in this launch?
On a recent launch video, the gantry is at an angle and only loose tethers are attached as the rocket is prepared for launch. What is keeping it upright and in place at this point?
The engines haven'...
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Why is there any launch window at all for the Falcon Heavy test flight?
Why is the window only ~3 hours long, why not 2? why not 5? why not "until it launches"? I'm guessing range safety, they could only get a TFR that long?
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Will the Falcon Heavy be far enough in 12 seconds to not cause damage?
Elon Musk has stated that he will consider it a success if the Falcon Heavy gets far enough away from the launch pad to not cause damage if it blows up. The Falcon Heavy underwent a 12 second static ...
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Is it possible to track an object as small as the Tesla Roadster around the Solar System
I have heard that we will soon lose track of the Tesla Roadster launched with the Falcon Heavy test launch. Yet, we know where Voyager is out beyond the Solar System and we followed other satellites ...
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Why does the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket do a 180 flip for reentry?
I am very new to the rockets and this can be a very dumb question,
just that I am not sure if my understanding here is right?
All of the rockets engines are at bottom which help it take off and ...
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Why is SpaceX not also working on a smaller version of Starship?
SpaceX is planning to retire Falcon 9, which would leave it with only Starship. While a Starship launch is expected to be cheaper than a Falcon 9 one, a downscaled Starship launch would be cheaper ...
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Isn't Starship way too big?
The Shuttle was designed with a huge payload of 20 tons. This was supposed to not be a problem since:
the reusability would drive down costs until satellite operators dropped expensive space hardware ...
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Could a Falcon Heavy test flight be responsible for these observations?
We observed a bright, slow moving (in our view for several minutes) large object that eventually left large bright contrails. This was over Northern New Mexico at around 7:29 PM MST. The object was ...
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Why won't they recover the Falcon 9 from CRS-14?
According to the upcoming livestream of SpaceX CRS-14 (resupply of ISS):
SpaceX will not attempt to recover Falcon 9’s first stage after launch.
Why not? Wasn't that the whole point of (among ...
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What is a thrust puck on Starship?
Elon Musk recently mentioned a Thrust Puck on Twitter, "We’re stripping SN2 to bare minimum to test the thrust puck to dome weld under pressure, first with water, then at cryo."
He also mentioned ...
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What started the explosion on the crashed Jason-3 stage landing on the barge?
If you watch the truly awesome video of the Jason-3 first stage landing on the ASDS Barge Just Read The Instructions, it is pretty clear that for one thing, they landed it. Then the leg gave out, ...
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Why do Crew Dragon astronauts need to climb up one level using the stairs before ingress?
While watching the launch of SpaceX Crew Dragon, I noticed that, once the astronauts came out of the elevator in the fixed service structure, they had to 'climb up' one level using the stairs, before ...
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