At first glance the test seemed pretty successful but it didn't quite go exactly to plan. The camerawork here was enough to make you want to bang your head against the wall but aside from that you may have noticed that I said three main parachutes and clearly the Starliner Descended under only two main parachutes. This was in fact an anomaly and was not supposed to happen.
The Bigelow Aerospace B330 is an inflatable habitat that Bigelow wants to send to outer space to make it easier to build structures as fast as possible.
SpaceX is in a little bit of a lull right now and it's actually it's not really a bad thing for SpaceX. They're actually in the unusual situation where they are ready before their customers are actually ready with their payloads. Still on track for 2019 we've got a couple of communication satellites that are still going to launch, we've got another resupply mission to the International Space Station that's scheduled for December, we've got a whole bunch of Starship and Super Heavy developments that are happening as well as potential Starship flights as early as next month and then we also have the In-Flight abort test and DM-2 missions for Crew Dragon that they're still trying to fit in for this year.
The big headline for the past couple of weeks has been the SpaceX Starhopper, because it finally completed it's big hop! If you're just coming up to speed, the Starhopper is the first step in the development of SpaceX's much larger Starship and Super Heavy rockets. You may have previously heard this referred to as the BFR or the Big Falcon Rocket. Prior to the most recent flight, the FAA had granted SpaceX the ability to complete unlimited flights tests to an altitude up to 25m and they have utilized that flight permit to perform 3 flight tests so far. Two of them were pretty small, just a couple of centimeters off the ground and one was a little bit larger at 59 ft or 18m. For the past couple of weeks, we've been waiting for SpaceX to complete the much larger 200m test, although the waiting dragged on while SpaceX and the FAA tried to come to an agreement on what the safety parameters would be so that the FAA could issue SpaceX a safety approval.
SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk has said that he wants to Nuke Mars but why?! Does he seriously want to Nuke Mars? Let's talk more about his ambitious plans for the future of our neighboring red planet.
SpaceX is almost ready to send it's Starhopper prototype rocket to it's highest altitude yet at 200m. This will prepare SpaceX for future Starship flights which is their much larger prototype development vehicle that is going to take people to the Moon and Mars.
The SpaceX Naval Fleet has grown by one and has a shiny new boat to help with payload fairing reusability. Learn about the newest member of the SpaceX Fleet here!
