Eric Berger
@SciGuySpace
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Senior Space Editor at Ars Technica. Likes rockets. Author of the best-selling book on the Falcon 9 and Dragon, REENTRY. https://t.co/5HYUhJzFHZ
Joined August 2008
I’m thrilled to announce the sequel to Liftoff, titled REENTRY, will be published on September 24. This book picks up the story where Liftoff left off, taking readers on a wild ride aboard the Falcon 9, Dragon, Heavy, and so much more. Publisher page:
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The James Webb Space Telescope is now fully deployed. This is a remarkable engineering achievement that 99 percent of the world will not appreciate. But those of us who know, know. And we are in awe.
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Global launch totals for 2022:. SpaceX: 54.China: 52.Russia: 19.US (w/o SpaceX): 15.Rocket Lab (US/NZ): 9.Europe: 4.India: 4.Iran: 1.Korea: 1.
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It appears that Chandrayaan 3 has safely touched down on the Moon!
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After today I just want to take a moment and say that I appreciate that NASA is run by adults; not just adults, but reasonable people who generally try to do the right thing, in a professional way, for the good of the country. So, thank you.
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Just so we're clear, SpaceX built a Mars rocket out of rolls of steel, in tents, in South Texas, in weeks. And the first time they flew it, it made a smooth launch, a controlled flight, and safely landed. This is truly remarkable.
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Is this real life? Because it feels like fucking science fiction.
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With this morning's Starlink mission SpaceX has launched a rocket, on average, every eight days in 2021. If you don't know much about rockets, know this: Such a cadence is jaw-dropping for an orbital rocket, especially a large one.
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So, you probably won't believe how desperate Starliner's flight to the space station got last summer .
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SpaceX’s three main competitors in Russia, Europe, and the United States have launched three rockets in 2023. SpaceX just launched three missions in three days.
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The damage in Boca Chica at the Starbase launch site looks pretty serious, but a former senior SpaceXer from there says he believes the pad can be repaired; and a (water-cooled?) flame diverter installed in 4 to 6 months. Just passing on what I was told.
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The remarkable story of how @elonmusk and his small team reached orbit in 2008 has gone largely untold—until now. I’m thrilled to say my book on the origins of SpaceX, Liftoff, will be published by William Morrow on March 2, 2021. Preorder now:
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Seriously, what the fuck is Russia doing shooting down its own satellite in low-Earth orbit; creating a cloud of 1,500 trackable pieces of debris, and knowingly threating its own asset—the International Space Station. What a catastrophe.
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The "but it exploded" take is fine. For the layperson who sees NASA at work, which can't afford to fail, this looks like failure. But for those who know a little bit more, and about iterative design, this was a tremendous success. SpaceX has 2-3 more rockets ready to go.
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Musk says he is increasingly confident about the possibility of full and rapid reuse of orbital rockets: "It’s only recently that I feel like full and rapid reusability can be accomplished. I wasn’t sure for a long time, but I am now.".
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This black and white Starship photo from Friday, which is evocative of both history and what is to come, sent a clear message to regulators: We are ready to usher in the future.
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The loss of Starship on ascent during the second flight in a row is clearly a serious setback for SpaceX.
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With Elon Musk focusing back on SpaceX, I spoke with him this afternoon about the path forward.
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"NASA is fucked." Quote from a senior space official. Kind of hard to disagree.
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After correctly predicting the non-viability of rocket reuse, ULA is now confidently forecasting that Starship is not a serious rocket.
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Wow. The Ariane 6 is proving to be a disaster for European space policy. Hard to say it is otherwise at this point.
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After learning to crawl, walk and run, the Falcon 9 is now sprinting. Today: . • 100th consecutive, successful launch of a Falcon 9 . • 16th launch of 2021, a cadence of one rocket every nine days. • 6th launch during the last 33 days, once every five days
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With that buoy view, it's clear that Starship nailed its targeted landing area. Hard to view Starship's fifth flight test as anything but a major success. Things probably accelerate from here.
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I think a lot about the fact that, in 52 years, we've not gone further.
You want to know what's nuts? The Wright Brothers' first flight was in 1903. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were on the moon by 1969. Only 66 years between them. Millions of people remembered the first and watched the second. I think about that a lot.
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SpaceX launched its 39th rocket of 2022 last night from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The company has now launched a Falcon 9 every 6.2 days this year, putting them on pace for a total of 55 to 60. I've heard the company's goal is 100 orbital flights next year.
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Three Russian cosmonauts just launched to the International Space Station on a Russian rocket, from Kazakhstan. The color scheme of their space attire as they came aboard the station is rather striking.
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The Falcon 9 rocket has now flown more consecutive successful missions, 111, than any orbital rocket in history.
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The Federal Avian Administration will need to conduct an anomaly investigation.
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This is hilarious. Amazon sent us a 13-page PDF to prove Elon Musk is as litigious as Jeff Bezos via @Verge.
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Starship burnt up. Super Heavy crashed. It’s easy to see failure. If you want, go ahead. But this is failing forward at its finest. One of SpaceX’s secret sauces is an acceptance of failure as a means to an end. We are much nearer that end, rapid and fully reusable launch, today.
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Blue Origin is attempting to drown NASA and its Moon program in lawyers and paperwork.
NASA "reluctantly agrees" to extend the stay on SpaceX's HLS contract by a week bc the 7GB+ of case-related docs in the Blue Origin suit keeps causing DOJ's Adobe software to crash and key NASA staff were busy at Space Symposium this week, causing delays to a filing deadline. lol
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It’s true. The whole story of Crew Dragon’s development, the competition with Starliner, and the closed door NASA meeting where SpaceX was almost boxed out of crew contracts is told in Reentry. The book comes out one month from today.
NASA just decided that SpaceX needs to rescue Boeing’s astronauts. Written before the Starliner debacle, Berger’s forthcoming book Reentry tells the backstory with plenty of foreshadowing, starting with Boeing’s attempt to be the sole crewed spacecraft provider:. “Boeing had a
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So Texas is going to have an orbital launch site *and* a major rocket engine factory in addition to the Starship build site. This was hard to imagine even a few years ago.
@Erdayastronaut We are breaking ground soon on a second Raptor factory at SpaceX Texas test site. This will focus on volume production of Raptor 2, while California factory will make Raptor Vacuum & new, experimental designs.
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Q. Do you think it's important to do end-to-end integrated avionics and software testing?.
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Don't let NASA fool you. "Percy" is no lovable, touchy feely explorer. It's actually a two-ton, nuclear powered, titanium robot that is going to spend a decade trampling over Mars, drilling into it mercilessly and stealing some rocks.
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NASA and SpaceX have now launched 10 humans, and landed six safely, in less than a year.
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This 1.8-billion pixel image of Mars, the highest resolution ever taken by Curiosity, is marvelous to behold.
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Four human launches by SpaceX within 16 months of beginning crew operations is damned impressive. It's not easy, but they made it look easy. Engineers, man.
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Hell of a year, NASA. Perseverance sticks the landing ✔️.Ingenuity soars again and again ✔️.ISS fully crewed for max science ✔️.Makes bold choice for lunar lander ✔️.Parker touches the Sun ✔️.IXPE, DART take flight ✔️.Webb is on its way ✔️. All of this amid a pandemic, too.
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I've spoken with half a dozen employees at SpaceX since the launch. If their reaction is anything to go by, the Starship test flight was a spectacular success. Of course there's a ton to learn, to fix, and to improve. It's all super hard work. But what's new? Progress is hard.
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To be clear we are *far* from anything being settled, but based on what I'm hearing it seems at least 50-50 that NASA's Space Launch System rocket will be canceled. Not Block 1B. Not Block 2. All of it. There are other ways to get Orion to the Moon.
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SpaceX has posted that iconic black-and-white Starship photo to its Flickr page. Maximum resolution is a glorious 5472 x 3076.
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So yeah, NASA, this is exactly how you amp up public interest in what you're doing. Publish ground tracks and expected viewing areas next time, please. The Coast Guard will handle boats.
@ulmwxr @carl_arredondo @SpaceX @NWSNewOrleans Please excuse the excitement and language. I was overwhelmed
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I spent last weekend in Boca Chica, Texas, visiting SpaceX's manufacturing facilities and speaking with Elon Musk. I have visited a lot of rocket factories, but I've never seen anything like this.
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Elon Musk has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, joining 132 other new members.
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This @WIRED cover from 14 years ago (!) would not be out of place today. Love that Falcon 1 in the foreground.
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If SpaceX launches Crew Dragon by June 4, consider its decade:. 2010: Falcon 9, Cargo Dragon debut.2012: Dragon docks with ISS.2015: Booster land landing.2016: Sea landing.2017: Booster reuse.2018: Falcon Heavy debut.2019: Starlink launch, Boca Chica expansion.2020: Crewed launch.
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Holy shit. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson says cost-plus contracts have been "a plague on us" in the past. Eager to move toward fixed-price procurement for all contracts. Wow.
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I've had several questions about why there are no photos of Inspiration4 after orbit. It's a private mission, and their choice. Families are in regular contact and all is well. There will be some events. The video will eventually show up on Netflix. But this is not NASA, folks.
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Not sure most people realize how damned impressive is that the Chinese space agency not only sent a probe to Mars, but landed and deployed a rover on the first attempt.
Zhurong update: New panorama from the rover close to a dune. Zhurong has covered 1064 metres as of August 30, continuing south of the landing platform [CNSA/PEC]
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Welcome to the Starship era, humanity. It began with a bang, as big things often do. The universe awaits.
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Just want to point out that it's wild the European Union just launched some of its most valuable satellites, two Galileo spacecraft, on a Falcon 9 rocket making its 22nd flight. Unimaginable even two or three years ago.
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Starship somehow completed a landing burn and splashed down into the Indian Ocean. Amazing.
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NASA and SpaceX have signed a space act agreement for a commercial mission to boost the Hubble Space Telescope. This will extend the lifetime of the telescope, and preclude emerging concerns about the need for costly end-of-life disposal.
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Here's my overview of today's scrub, the road ahead for the SLS rocket, and the smallest element in the universe.
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There would be no Starship without the Falcon 9. It proved SpaceX could build world-class rockets. It served as a laboratory to push performance and study reuse. Now, as the world runs to catch up to the Falcon 9, SpaceX can afford to look to the future.
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NASA has uploaded high resolution photos of Orion, the Moon, and our home world taken earlier on Monday. They're gorgeous.
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Falcon 9 rocket first stage self-quarantined itself in the ocean.
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Hearing that the Starship pad survived and that, on top of the first stage performance, is a huge win for SpaceX and NASA.
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Exactly two weeks from now humans will launch from Florida again for the first time in nearly nine years. Two. Weeks.
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OFFICIAL: SpaceX has its launch license for the Starship Integrated Flight Test.
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Hoping a space economist can explain whether 25 flights of booster closes the business case for rocket reuse.
Falcon 9 completes the first 25th launch and landing of a booster and delivers 21 @Starlink satellites to the constellation from Florida
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Once SpaceX achieves reuse of the booster stage, which is inevitable, the world's largest rocket will be mostly reusable. Upper stage reuse will take some time, but since SpaceX can build ships at a high rate, it doesn't matter in the near term.
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Some perspective on Crew Dragon's rapid rise: It has now flown 22 astronauts into orbit. China, widely regarded as having the second-most capable space program in the world, has launched 20 astronauts since 2003.
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Hurricane Beryl knocked out power and internet to large chunks of Houston. Nasty storm. Xfinity internet out, T-Mobile down to text and voice. So I ran to Best Buy last night and picked up a Starlink dish. Lots of trees so had to get creative. Amazing results.
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2021 orbital launches by U.S. companies:. SpaceX: 10.Rocket Lab: 2.Northrop Grumman: 1.Virgin Orbit: 1.
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SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk, along with his first employees Tom Mueller and Chris Thompson, almost exactly 18 years ago to this day. Quite an ascent.
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For most space science missions, the majority of "risk" is retired after the launch. With the James Webb Space Telescope, only about 10 percent of the mission risk has now been retired.
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Heads up lunar conspiracy nuts! NASA flight director Judd Frieling says Orion will be flying past the Moon again on Dec. 5, and this time there will be sunlight on the Earth-facing side. Cameras on Orion will capture imagery of the Apollo landing sites.
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That's it, folks. No private company had ever put humans into space before today. Never. And you witnessed it. What a bright future is ahead of us if we do not lack the courage and grace to go forward into it.
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The FAA says SpaceX has asked for permission to launch Starship at least nine times. This year.
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If you care about science at NASA, this is royally sucks.
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Mars is still long freaking way away. So very far. But the first step is low-cost, frequent access to space for tons of stuff. This is the first step toward that first step. And it's a big one.
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Still processing what this all means.
The final phase of Super Heavy's landing burn used the three center Raptor engines to precisely steer into catch position
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SpaceX has launched three crews of astronauts into orbit in less than 11 months. Two more missions may follow in the next next six months. A remarkable cadence for a new spacecraft.
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WE'RE GETTING OLD ALERT: Wil Wheaton is now older than Patrick Stewart was when Star Trek: The Next Generation made its debut.
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Here's my deep dive into why Starliner is seven years late.
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Multiple sources say SpaceX is likely to receive a Starship/Super Heavy launch license from the FAA today.
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Per @BryceSpaceTech, SpaceX doubled the world in terms of upmass to orbit during the 2Q of 2022.
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The launch of Starship was fucking phenomenal to behold. 🚀.
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After today's mission SpaceX is averaging one launch every 6.94 days this year.
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I just want to give ispace founder Takeshi Hakamada a hug right now. They lost communications with Hakuto-R just before it was scheduled to touch down. "We have to assume that we did not complete the landing on the lunar surface."
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Boeing confirms that the X-37 space plane returned to Earth today after 908 days in space. An impressive flight, to be sure.
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SpaceX expended another rocket today. No payload launched. Can't see video to verify ship is even there. Really feels like this program is going backwards and veering out of control.
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SpaceX completed a spin prime test already this morning with the Super Heavy booster. Now they're chilling engines again for what may be a static fire test of as many as seven Raptor rocket engines.
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Thanks @NASA! Saved SpaceX in 2008, created the commercial crew program in 2010, and fully supported the development of Crew Dragon. Today's mission does not happen without the government's vision of being one of many customers of spaceflight.
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This single Falcon 9 rocket first stage has now launched ~550 satellites, 1 Cargo Dragon, and 1 Crew Dragon into orbit. It has flown, on average, every two months since its first launch. Reuse achievement unlocked.
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Just a wild year in space. Webb actually worked. NASA smashed into an asteroid. We returned to the freaking Moon. OneWeb launched on a Falcon. BE-4s are 4 real. Starliner soared. SpaceX launched five dozen times. Ingenuity flew on and on and on. Can’t wait to be dazzled in 2023!.
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A booster on the mount, and a rocket at the pad. It is almost time for someone to hold Starship's beer.
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SpaceX just successfully landed its 100th consecutive booster.
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