Starship Propellant Transfer Demonstration
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Starship Propellant Transfer Demonstration
The Starship Propellant Transfer Demo is expected to occur in 2026. A similar test occurred during Starship's third test flight, though the transfer during that test was between two tanks on the same vehicle. The ability to refuel a Starship in low orbit is critical for the Artemis program The Artemis program is a Exploration of the Moon, Moon exploration program led by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), formally established in 2017 via Space Policy Directive 1. The program's stated long-ter ..., as Starship HLS requires approximately ten tanker launches to reach the lunar surface. Mission profile The mission profile for the Starship Propellant Transfer Demo will begin with the first launch. This launch will deliver the upper stage into orbit around the earth, while the first stage returns to the launch site for a catch. The second launch will repeat this profile three to four weeks later, and dock with the first Starship. Once docke ...
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SpaceX Starship (spacecraft)
Starship is a spacecraft and Upper stage, second stage under development by American aerospace company SpaceX. Stacked atop its booster, SpaceX Super Heavy, Super Heavy, the pair compose SpaceX's Super heavy-lift launch vehicle, super heavy-lift space vehicle, also called SpaceX Starship, Starship. The spacecraft is designed to transport both crew and cargo to a variety of destinations, including Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars. It is designed to be Reusable spacecraft, reusable and capable of Propulsive landing, landing propulsively by firing its engines to perform a controlled descent into the arms of a tower on Earth or with landing legs on other planetary bodies. It is intended to enable long-duration Interplanetary spaceflight, interplanetary flights with a crew of up to 100 people. It is also claimed by SpaceX to be capable of enabling travel to anywhere on Earth in under an hour. Furthermore, it has been proposed to be used to Orbital propellant depot, refuel other Starship ...
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SpaceX
Space Exploration Technologies Corp., commonly referred to as SpaceX, is an America, American space technology company headquartered at the SpaceX Starbase, Starbase development site in Starbase, Texas. Since its founding in 2002, the company has made numerous advancements in rocket propulsion, reusable launch vehicles, human spaceflight and satellite constellation technology. , SpaceX is the world's dominant space launch provider, its launch cadence eclipsing all others, including private competitors and national programs like the Chinese space program. SpaceX, NASA, and the United States Armed Forces work closely together by means of Government contractor, governmental contracts. SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk in 2002 with a vision of decreasing the costs of space launches, paving the way to SpaceX ambition of colonizing Mars, a sustainable colony on Mars. In 2008, Falcon 1 successfully launched into orbit after three failed launch attempts. The company then pivoted towar ...
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SpaceX Super Heavy
Super Heavy is the Reusable launch vehicle, reusable first stage of the SpaceX Starship Super heavy-lift launch vehicle, super heavy-lift launch vehicle, which it composes in combination with the SpaceX Starship (spacecraft), Starship second stage. As a part of SpaceX Mars colonization program, SpaceX's Mars colonization program, the booster evolved into its current design over a decade. Production began in 2021, with the first flight being conducted on April 20, 2023, during the Starship flight test 1, first launch attempt of the Starship rocket. The booster is powered by 33 SpaceX Raptor, Raptor engines that use liquid oxygen and methane as propellants. It returns to its launch site after propelling the second stage toward orbit, VTVL, landing vertically by being caught by the launch tower. Design Super Heavy is tall, wide, and is composed of four general sections: the engines, the oxygen tank, the fuel tank, and the interstage. SpaceX Chief executive officer, CEO Elon Mu ...
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SpaceX Starbase
SpaceX Starbase—previously, SpaceX South Texas Launch Site and SpaceX private launch site—is an industrial complex and rocket launch facility that serves as the main testing and production location for SpaceX Starship, Starship launch vehicles, as well as the headquarters of the American space technology company SpaceX. Located in Starbase, Texas, United States, and adjacent to South Padre Island, Texas, Starbase has been under near-continuous development since the late 2010s, and comprises a spaceport near the Gulf of Mexico, a production facility, and a test site along Texas State Highway 4. When initially conceptualized in the early 2010s, its stated purpose was "to provide SpaceX an exclusive launch site that would allow the company to accommodate its launch manifest and meet tight launch windows." The launch site was originally intended to support launches of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles as well as "a variety of Reusable launch vehicle, reusable suborb ...
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Low Earth Orbit
A low Earth orbit (LEO) is an geocentric orbit, orbit around Earth with a orbital period, period of 128 minutes or less (making at least 11.25 orbits per day) and an orbital eccentricity, eccentricity less than 0.25. Most of the artificial objects in outer space are in LEO, peaking in number at an altitude around , while the farthest in LEO, before medium Earth orbit (MEO), have an altitude of 2,000 km, about one-third of the Earth radius, radius of Earth and near the beginning of the Van Allen radiation belt#Inner belt, inner Van Allen radiation belt. The term ''LEO region'' is used for the area of space below an altitude of (about one-third of Earth's radius). Objects in orbits that pass through this zone, even if they have an apogee further out or are sub-orbital spaceflight, sub-orbital, are carefully tracked since they present a collision risk to the many LEO satellites. No human spaceflights other than the lunar missions of the Apollo program (1968-1972) have gone beyond L ...
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SpaceX Starship Flight Tests
Since April 2023, the SpaceX Starship has been launched times, with successes and failures. The American company has developed Starship with the intention of lowering launch costs using economies of scale. It aims to achieve this by reusing both rocket stages, increasing payload mass to orbit, increasing launch frequency, creating a mass-manufacturing pipeline and adapting it to a wide range of space missions. Starship is the latest project in SpaceX's reusable launch system development program and plan to colonize Mars, and also one of two landing systems selected by NASA for the Artemis program's crewed Lunar missions. SpaceX calls the entire launch vehicle "Starship", which consists of the Super Heavy first stage (booster) and the ambiguously-named Starship second stage (ship). There are three versions of Starship: Block 1, (also known as Starship 1, Version 1, or V1) which is retired, Block 2, which first flew in Starship flight test 7, and Block 3, which is sti ...
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Starship Flight Test 10
Starship Flight Test 10 will be the tenth flight test of a SpaceX Starship Starship is a two-stage fully reusable launch vehicle, reusable super heavy-lift launch vehicle under development by American aerospace company SpaceX. On 20 April 2023, with the Starship flight test 1, first Integrated Flight Test, Starship b ... launch vehicle. Ship 37 and Booster 16 will fly on this test flight. As of mid-June 2025, the flight profile is unknown. Because of incidents during Flight 9, it is likely Flight 10's ship will land in the Indian Ocean. The launch was initially expected no earlier than (NET) June 29, 2025, but due to the explosion of Ship 36 the current launch timeline is unknown. Background Vehicle testing ahead of launch Ship 36 Ship 36 was assembled in Mega Bay 2 throughout February and March 2025. It was rolled out to the Massey's test site for cryogenic testing on April 26. It conducted a full cryogenic test on April 27. It was rolled back to Mega Bay 2 for ...
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The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of the longest-running newspapers in the United States, the ''Times'' serves as one of the country's Newspaper of record, newspapers of record. , ''The New York Times'' had 9.13 million total and 8.83 million online subscribers, both by significant margins the List of newspapers in the United States, highest numbers for any newspaper in the United States; the total also included 296,330 print subscribers, making the ''Times'' the second-largest newspaper by print circulation in the United States, following ''The Wall Street Journal'', also based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' is published by the New York Times Company; since 1896, the company has been chaired by the Ochs-Sulzberger family, whose current chairman and the paper's publ ...
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Artemis Program
The Artemis program is a Exploration of the Moon, Moon exploration program led by the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), formally established in 2017 via Space Policy Directive 1. The program's stated long-term goal is to establish a Moonbase, permanent base on the Moon to facilitate Human mission to Mars, human missions to Mars. It is intended to reestablish a human presence on the Moon for the first time since the Apollo 17 mission in 1972 and continue the direct exploration of Mars begun with data from the Mariner 9 probe in the same year. Two principal elements of the Artemis program are derived from the now-cancelled Constellation program: the Orion (spacecraft), Orion spacecraft (with the European Service Module, ESM instead of a US-built service module) and the Space Launch System's Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster#Five-segment booster, solid rocket boosters (originally developed for the Ares V). Other elements of the program, such as ...
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