rocket

The highest rocket in the world again crossed the skies after the disaster

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Starship needs to get out of the bump. After A long streak of explosionsSpacex looks for a clean flight that allane the way to the new rocket generation. Booster 16 and Ship 37 are already stacked on the launch platform for the tenth flight. This will be the Penultimate Mission of Current Design Before moving on to the third generation starship. Date and time of launch. If everything goes as planned, the takeoff will take place this Sunday, August 24, in an afternoon schedule that will allow observing the reentry of the ship over the Indian Ocean in broad daylight. The launch window for the Starship’s tenth flight It opens this Sunday at 18:30 CDT, local time of Starbase, Texas. In other cities: Madrid, Spain (CEST, UTC+2): Monday, August 25 at 01:30 Mexico City, Mexico (CST, UTC – 6): Sunday, August 24 at 5:30 p.m. Buenos Aires, Argentina (Art, UTC-3): Sunday, August 24 at 8:30 p.m. Bogotá, Colombia (COT, UTC-5): Sunday, August 24 at 6:30 p.m. Lima, Peru (Pet, UTC-5): Sunday, August 24 at 6:30 p.m. Santiago, Chile (CLT, UTC-4): Sunday, August 24 at 7:30 p.m. Caracas, Venezuela (Vet, UTC-4): Sunday, August 24 at 7:30 p.m. How to see the live flight. As usual, Spacex will broadcast the launch Through its website and of Your official account in X. The broadcast will begin approximately 30 minutes before takeoff. For the most enthusiastic, YouTube channels like Nasaspaceflight and Everyday Astronaut They will offer live coverage with their own cameras from the vicinity of Starbase. In Spanish, the coverage of Space border, Mission control, Manuel Mazzanti either Spacexstormamong others. A streak that must end. This tenth attempt comes after a few months complicated for Spacex. The company has lost Four consecutive shipsturning each launch into An invaluable data source to improve its design, but also in a reminder of the complexity involved in building the highest and most powerful rocket in the world. Flight 9, which took place on May 27, ended with the loss of both stages. Booster 14, In his second flightdisintegrated during an experimental landing maneuver, subject to an angle of attack that is too aggressive that its structure did not support. Shortly after, Ship 35 reached the scheduled speed to put out its engines, but suffered a leak in the pressurization system that prevented him from completing his goals and condemned it to turn without control. As if that were not enough, the ship that had to star in this tenth flight, the Ship 36, violently exploded at the test base on June 18 during a fuel load. The culprit, according to Spacex, was a secondary nitrogen tank with structural damage that were overlooked. With this history, the pressure on the new prototypes is maximum. A flight full of experiments. Far from being conservative, Spacex has designed an ambitious mission to continue taking the vehicle to the limit and demonstrating that previous failures are solved. The Super Heavy propeller will not be caught by the tower. Instead, it will go to the Gulf of Mexico for controlled amelution while performing complex tests. Booster 16 will repeat the controlled turn that was already tested on flight 9 to save fuel in the return maneuver, after the separation of stages. But this time, it will intentionally deactivate one of the three central landing engines to test whether a backup engine can take over. The test will end with the propeller making a stationary flight on the ocean using only two engines before falling into the water. The ship 37, meanwhile, has the mission of finally fulfilling the objectives that its predecessors did not achieve. He will try for the first time to open your load gate in space to display eight Starlink satellite models. He will tasta again the redempted of a Raptor engine to perform a controlled orbit outlet. And will fly without some thermal tiles to stress vulnerable areas. In addition, it will test new materials for thermal shield, such as metal tiles (one of them with active refrigeration), and a more aggressive reentry profile. The penultimate test before the redesign. This tenth flight is not one more. It is, together with the eleventh, the last opportunity for Spacex to collect data from the current rocket design before making the jump the Starship 3. This new version, which we have already seen components, promises a deep redesign with larger and more robust fins, and a greater structural capacity. A success on flight 10 would be a fundamental moral and technical impulse for the program, demonstrating that the rapid Iteration of Spacex works and that the path to a totally reusable launch system, although full of explosions, continues to advance. Whatever happens, the show is guaranteed. Image | Spacex In Xataka | Spacex has asked Mexico to stop invading its property and returns the starship pieces that fell into the country

Russia wants to know how trips will affect us to Mars, so you will throw a thousand flies and 75 mice in a rocket

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He Baikonur Cosmodrome, in Kazakhstanhe has witnessed the launch of the Soyuz-2.1b rocket that has put the mission into orbit Bion-M No. 2. This Russian space agency project, Roscosmos, is a crucial step in the investigation of the effects of the microgravityand above all, the Cosmic radiationabout living organisms. But on board they are not human, but travel flies or mice, among other organisms. A varied crew on the ship. As if it were Noah’s ark, 75 mice are found in this ship, more than 1,000 fruit fliescellular crops, microorganisms and plant seeds. For a month, these ‘bionautas’ will orbit the earth in a polo pole trajectory, at an altitude that will expose them to the levels of cosmic radiation significantly higher than those experienced in the International Space Station. A “high -tech mice hotel”. The true protagonists of this mission are the 75 mice, who will travel in a specially designed passenger cabin: a “mini hotel”. Each unit is equipped with food, lighting, ventilation and waste systems to guarantee their well -being during the trip. In addition, chips have been implemented in some of the rodents to be able to monitor the constants in real time. Scientists have divided mice into three groups to compare the results. The first will remain on earth in normal conditions, which is what we call in science ‘control group’. The second will live in a land laboratory in flight equipment identical to those of the satellite. The third group, of course, will be the one who travels to space. In this way, the effects of the space flight of other variables can be isolated. Why are they chosen to mice. It has already become an iconic image to see how in biomedical research Mouse is used as the ideal test ‘subject’. And it is not a coincidence. The mouse has a genetic very similar to human, they have a short life cycle to see changes throughout several generations and are very economical to maintain and feed. On the other hand, for this specific investigation the mice They are very radiation sensitiveso they make it the ideal subjects to give us more information on the effect of this physical phenomenon. It has important implications for our health. The objective of this mission is clear: knowing how this radiation will affect astronauts traveling to the moon or Mars. Cosmic radiation In the long term you can damage cell DNAdrastically increasing the risks of long -term cancer, and what you want is to quantify the real damage and prove countermedons as armor for ships and drugs that avoid these undesirable effects. But it also has medical applications here on Earth. Its results can give us more weapons to fight aging, since the rapid loss of bone and muscle mass suffered by astronauts is a perfect model to study osteoporosis and sarcopenia to find new treatments. There are more research apart from mice. In collaboration with the Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry and Analytical Chemistry, the mission transports 16 test tubes with dust simulations and lunar rocks. The objective is to study how radiation and space emptiness affect these materials, information of great value for the future development of lunar bases. Other experiments on board will investigate the susceptibility of organisms to radiation, the development of new life support systems and possible medical benefits in the earth derived from spatial biological research. Continuing the legacy of the bion-m No. 1. This mission It was launched in 2013 And he also spent 30 days in the orbit. However, the new mission will orbitate a 97 degree inclination, which will increase exposure to cosmic radiation compared to its predecessor. It is not the first time that it is investigated in space. There are many precedents that exist of space missions that have aimed at investigation. For example, I know analyzed the potential risks of fertility in space in mice or even the Japanese wanted to see If you can procreate in space through mouse embryos. Images | Spacex Joshua J. Cotten In Xataka | Spacex is on its way to having more money than NASA. He has succeeded, in part, because he does not pay taxes

launch satellites to space without rocket

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Adak is a small island at the western end of Alaska. With a military past for its proximity to Russia, today it has less than 400 inhabitants. In this almost pospocalyptic scenario, A Californian startup called spinlaunch Plan to build a giant centrifugator for catapult satellites to space. The perfect place for a space catapult. Although the argument of a science fiction film seems like the company, the company has signed an alliance With The Aleut Corporation, owner of much of Adak Island, to build its orbital launch platform there. The choice of the island is not accidental. Its northern latitude and its location in the Pacific allow polar and high inclination launch trajectories without the need to fly over populated areas. Air and sea traffic are also minimal. Adak was an important air base of the United States until 1997, so it has an operating airport and a deep water port, which would greatly facilitate the logistics of building and operating the installation. In addition, the island has enormous wind, hydraulic and geothermal potential that would allow feeding the electric centrifuger with renewable sources. How the spinlaunch centrifuger works. The Californian startup He did a concept of concept in 2022. The system is essentially a kinetic accelerator sealed in vacuum. Inside, a carbon fiber arm rotates the projectile that the satellite contains at hypersonic speeds, reaching 7,500 km/h. At the precise moment, the projectile is released and triggered to heaven by a fireplace. Once it reaches an altitude of 60 km, where the atmosphere is very dim, a small engine turns on to give the final thrust that allows the orbital speed to reach. In one of its most spectacular tests, They placed a camera aboard To see it in the first person. The greatest technical challenge is the brutal acceleration that subjects the payload to forces of up to 10,000 g. Spinlaunch has collaborated with NASA to demonstrate that satellites specially designed for centrifuging can survive the extreme trip. But although Keep working In perfecting the system, it has had to diversify its business so as not to fail. Launches in rockets to finance the tyrachinas. After years of silence, Spinlaunch reappeared in April 2025 with a plan that left many of his perplexed followers: displaying his own constellation telecommunications satellites. The most surprising: the 280 satellites of the Meridian project would be put in orbit using traditional rockets. Although many thought it was a tacit form of leave the catapultthe project on Adak island shows that the intention is to move on. In the words of David Wrenn, CEO of Spinlaunch: “The launch market is relatively small compared to the economic potential of satellite communications, more focused on costs than benefits.” So, if Meridian is successful, the centrigurator in the most remote town in the United States could end up seeing the light in the most post -epocalyptic environment imaginable. Image | Paxson WoelberSpinlaunch In Xataka | What to use rockets when you can use kinetic energy: this is the spectacular Spinlaunch space release system

PLD Space has a detailed plan to become the European rocket factory. And the pieces have started fitting

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With Miura 1, PLD Space became the first private company in Europe to successfully launch a suborbital rocket. Since then, the Spanish company has stepped on the accelerator with a project in mind: launching Miura 5 in 2026. Today the first orbital rocket in Spain is not a project, but a tangible reality that is being assembled in Elche. PLD Space It has already manufactured All its components and prepares to start your engines for the first time. The Treprel-C roars in Teruel. A rocket is, in essence, an engine with a large fuel tank. Miura 5 will have five Treprel-C engines fed by turbobomba in its first stage, generating a combined thrust of 950 kN, 30 times more than Miura 1. The development of the most important component of the rocket advances to counterreloj. The company already tested in its test banks of Teruel’s airport combustion cameras, validating manufacturing technologies such as copper and nickel electrode. The turbobombs, the largest developed by a European startup, They were also tested with a complete ignition before its final integration into the engine. Elements such as gas generators and cryogenic valves were designed, manufactured and tested internally following the lessons learned during the development of MIURA 1. A process that has culminated with the start of the engine series manufacturing: there are already four engines of the Teprel-C family in production for the final qualification campaign. Aluminum plates have gained shape. Parallel to the development of engines, the construction of the rocket structure itself advances at a good pace. In a recent videoThe company details how its Elche factory has been working on the molding and the test of the metal structures (the fuel tanks) and of composite materials (the separation module between stages and the cofia that will protect the satellites of the customers). These components have already undergone all kinds: tests at room temperature, cryogenic, and with compression and flexion loads to ensure that the structure will support the brutal conditions of the launch. The idea is to refine the design with the results of the prototypes to maximize their performance. After validating the engineering models, PLD Space is now manufacturing the final qualification components, the step prior to the series production of Miura 5. The launch ramp is running. The company signed a development contract With the French Space Agency (CNES) to build its own launch complex in the European Space Port of Kouroou, in the French Guiana. The civil works will begin this summer in the same place where France launched its first rocket, the Elm-Diamant. The location is unbeatable: its proximity to Ecuador will allow optimizing the trajectories of Miura 5 and launching heavier loads with less fuel. But PLD Space does not conform and has also signed an agreement with Oman to build a Second launch base In the Etlaq Space Puerto. This movement will give direct access to the Mercado de Oriente. A plan to be the European rocket factory. At the same time that Miura 5 develops, PLD Space is raising an industrial complex to manufacture it in series. The company has designed a plan to climb its production to 32 units per year by 2030. This industrial effort is based on a supply chain of almost 400 partners, mostly Spanish and Europeans, which has invested 50 million euros Since the beginning of 2024. PLD Space has chained a series of crucial milestones that draw a very clear and ambitious roadmap, as European confidence demonstrates. Back of the European Space Agency. PLD Space is already officially one of the five companies preselected by ESA to guarantee sovereign access to space in Europe. The European Launcher Challenge has awarded contracts of up to 169 million euros to the five companies, among which are the French Maiaspace, the British Orbex and the Germans Isar Aerospace and Rocket Factory Augsburg. PLD Space has proposed to Miura 5 as its immediate operating pitcher already His future heavy and reusable rocket, the Miura Nextlike the next step. The ESA final decision will be taken in November 2025, but the pre -selection already positions the Spanish company as a key actor and an industrial leader in the European launch sector. Image | PLD Space In Xataka | 12 years after making fun of Spacex and his idea of landing rockets, Arianegroup is creating a European mini-falcon 9

Spacex plays background with the new version of the rocket

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The Starship 36 has flown through the air, in the worst sense. Spacex was preparing a second static ignition trial when a brutal explosion made all the windows in the metropolitan area of ​​Brownsville, Texas. What we know. On Thursday at 23:00, local time in Starbase, the ship that Spacex was preparing for Starship’s tenth flight exploded during the fuel load in a Massey’s test bench, which is how the test zone is known. It has not been to regret victims, since the area was clear for the test. But when the smoke column disappeared, Ship 36, which was going to fly at the end of the month, was no longer. It was seen and not seen. The NSF cameras They captured a sudden flash, followed by a large detonation and another giant just below. Since the ship exploded in the 10 minutes before the ignition test, Spacex had already loaded liquid oxygen and was starting to load liquid methane. The fuel deposits were approximately 10%, which hopefully reduced the scope of the damage. What we don’t know. Although the destruction of the ship is taken for granted, damage to the land infrastructure of Massey’s will not be clear until day. The worst news would be for the facilities to have been useless, which would considerably delay the starship 37 tests, which is already assembled and in the engine integration phase. He Spacex statement It only clarifies that the company is “actively working to ensure the test site” and that “there are no risks for residents of surrounding communities.” The program touches background. This is one of the most important setbacks for the Martian rocket of Spacex, which has touched the bottom after three consecutive launches of the Starship Block 2, the new version of the ship. Of the six second generation starship built: The first exploded during flight 7 for vibrations related to an unforeseen harmonic response in the lower zone of engines bay The second exploded during flight 8 for an unforeseen mixture of propellant during the ascent phase, which caused the explosion of an engine The third exploded during flight 9 for a leak that made him lose control of attitude during the suborbital trajectory, disintegrating himself in the reentry The fourth has exploited on land during the propellant load prior to a static ignition test in the test bench There are two Starship Block 2 to validate before Spacex passes to the third generation starship. The company has not yet been able to prove the satellite deployment due to explosions or, on flight 9, a failure in the door of the load bay. It also has delay with a series of demonstrations related to the thermal shield of the ship, which prevents the complete reuse of the rocket. Image | D Wise, NSF

If you have heard a roar at Teruel airport it is because PLD Space has just tested the new Miura 5 rocket engine

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A thermal chamber pointing to the test table of PLD Space At Teruel Airport, he has witnessed the first tests of the Treprel-C engine, the heart of the Spanish rocket Miura 5. Wake up, Miura, wakes up. PLD Space engineers have moved the first engines of the new Treprel-C family to the test zone for a series of integrated hardware trials. With these tests, the preparations for the flight rating campaign finalize, with which they will valid the design and tolerance of the motor to integrate it into the rest of the rocket. As Pld Space has advanced In his X profilethe new manufacturing technologies of combustion cameras that they have tried have “very good look”. A jump to the big leagues. The launch of Miura 1 served to validate all kinds of processes and technologies Internally developed, but the Miura 5 engine is much more complex. We talk about a two -stage orbital pitcher, designed to Place satellites of up to a ton In equatorial orbit. With a height of 35.7 meters, Miura 5 needs five teprel-C engines to rise. The engine is a direct evolution of the technologies validated by Miura 1 with an important qualitative leap: it is a turbobombic fueled engine in which the reliability apart from performance prevails. Treprel-C. The new Treprel engine (acronym for “Spanish technology for reusable spatial propulsion for pitchers”) generates 190 kn of thrust at sea level: 950 kN in total for the first stage of the Miura 5. The second stage of the rocket carries an optimized version for the vacuum. These engines, with a height comparable to that of a person, presume to have the combustion chamber of liquid propellant developed by a commercial company with private capital in Europe. They feed on RP-1 bioquerosen and liquid oxygen. Manufactured in Elche. The new PLD Space plant in Elche, 12,500 square meters, is designed to produce up to six MIURA 5 and 60 Treprel-C motors per year, which gives an idea of ​​the project ambition. The company’s facilities at Teruel airport have become, since Miura 1, in the epicenter of static tests. At the end of 2024, PLD Space lifted a 20-meter test tower for cryogenic and pressure test tower, and has built a test bench capable of trying three treprel-C simultaneously. The debut of Miura 5 is scheduled for early 2026. Images | PLD Space In Xataka | The “first private rocket in Europe” has been vacant and someone is getting hollow: Miura 5 of Pld Space

No one understands why the former Google CEO has bought a rocket company. He says it: Datacenters in space

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If the New Space is full of something, it is from Billonario Technological CEOS, but what Eric Schmidt Shopping Relativity Space He caught the sector by surprise. He has offered an explanation. Context. Whatever it was Google CEO for a decade He surprised the space sector two months ago acquiring a majority participation in the Relativity Space rocket company. The Californian startup has never reached orbit, but made a test launch of a 3D printed rocket, Terran 1, and It is developing a partially reusable commercial rocketTerran R. After the acquisition of the company, Eric Schmidt assumed the role of CEO, a position he did not occupy since he left the Mountain View giant in 2011. Data centers in space. Eric Schmidt is obsessed with the amount of energy and computing capacity that will need to move artificial intelligence. It was the journalist Eric Berger, from Ars Technicawho joined the points. The idea of ​​displaying data centers in space, feeding them with solar energy and keeping them cold without using water “probably explain why Schmidt bought relativity space,” Berger commented on X. The next day, Eric Schmidt responded with a monosyllable: “Yeah.” The unprecedented scale of AI. In an appearance before the Energy and Commerce Committee of the United States Congress, Schmidt put some figures on the table: “10 gigaw data centers are being raised, when an average nuclear power plant in the United States generates 1 Gigavatio. One of the estimates that I think is most likely that data centers will require 29 additional energy gigawatts by 2027, and 67 more gigawatts for 2030. These things are industrial to a scale that I have never seen in my life.” The money is in the datacenters. Since no country is prepared for such an energy escalation, Schmidt has in mind to get the databases from the Earth. Although incredibly ambitious and challenging, the hypothetical space data centers could make sense if energy is a bottleneck on earth. With reusable rockets to launch satellite constellations, photovoltaic solar energy always available for part of the constellation and dissipation of heat in the emptiness of the space, they could even be profitable or safer than the Earth Data Centers. But everything is about to demonstrate, from cheap throws to heat dissipation. What state is Relatity Space. The reality is that far from competitors such as Spacex, although it is a much younger company. He had bet in full for 3D printed rockets, but removed Terran 1 after his debut flight, in which he could not reach orbit. Terran R is designed to be a direct competitor of Falcon 9, with the capacity to launch 33.5 tons to the low terrestrial orbit in disposable mode and 23.5 tons with a first reusable stage. Although its development has been erratic, capital injection and leadership of Schmidt, whose fortune is estimated at 20,000 million dollars, could revitalize the project and bring it closer to a first launch planned by the end of 2026. Image | Relativity Space, Leweb In Xataka | The space race is becoming a multi-million dollar competition: the last to enter is Google’s ex-cement

The most risky and decisive in the vertiginous history of the rocket

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All ready for the ninth Starship test flight, the most important mission so far after the final explosives of the previous releases. With Elon Musk back in Starbase, Spacex seeks to complete pending objectives and, as if that were not enough, try for the first time the reuse of one of the rocket stages, the super heavy propeller. Date and time of launch. Following the pattern of the previous flights, the ninth launch of Starship is scheduled to take off in the afternoon, so that the reentry of the ship on the Indian ocean occurs in the sunlight. The launch window opens on Tuesday, May 27 at 6:30 p.m., local time of the newly incorporated city of Starbase, Texas. In other cities: Madrid, Spain (CEST, UTC+2): Wednesday, May 28 at 01:30 Mexico City, Mexico (CST, UTC-5): Tuesday, May 27 at 6:30 p.m. Buenos Aires, Argentina (Art, UTC-3): Tuesday, May 27 at 8:30 p.m. Bogotá, Colombia (COT, UTC-5): Tuesday, May 27 at 6:30 p.m. Lima, Peru (Pet, UTC-5): Tuesday, May 27 at 6:30 p.m. Santiago, Chile (CLT, UTC-4): Tuesday, May 27 at 7:30 p.m. Caracas, Venezuela (Vet, UTC-4): Tuesday, May 27 at 7:30 p.m. How to see it live. Spacex will broadcast the flight Through its website and His official X profile. The retransmission will begin 30 minutes before takeoff. On this occasion, too They will broadcast live A talk by Elon Musk about the future of the company and its path to the conquest of Mars, which will take place about six and a half hours before the launch. For the most enthusiastic, YouTube channels like Nasaspaceflight, Lab Padre and Everyday Astronaut They usually offer retransmissions with their own cameras from the immediate vicinity of the launch platform. In Spanish, the coverage of Space border, Mission control, Manuel Mazzanti either Spacexstormamong others. All eyes put on the ship. This ninth attempt comes after the investigations of flights 7 and 8, which ended in the loss of the upper stage of the rocket. Spacex has clarified that the causes were different. The seventh flight succumbed to unexpected vibrations that caused a liquid oxygen leak. The eighth, with the vibrations already mitigated, failed for a hardware problem in one of the central raptor engines of the ship, which caused a mixture of propellents and a violent explosion. With the lessons learned, all looks are put on this ninth flight. Double Tirabuzón of the Super Heavy. One of the great milestones of this mission is that the propeller, whose serial number is Booster 14, will be the first to be reused after a successful take -off and landing in the seventh mission. Although 29 of its 33 Raptor engines have already flown, Spacex has carried out exhaustive inspections and replaced single -use components. This time, Booster 14 will not try to be caught by the tower. Instead, he will perform a series of risky experiments during his descent on the Gulf of Mexico: Post-separation controlled turn: several hot separation adapter vents will be blocked so that the thrust of Starship engines make it spin in a known direction, saving propellant. Greater angle of attack: it will try to fly with a more aggressive angle during the descent to increase atmospheric resistance and reduce speed, needing less propenting for landing. Motor tests in spareness: one of the three central engines will be deactivated intentionally during the final phase of the landing ignition to test the capacity of a backup engine. Then, it will go to only two central engines before hard ametering in the Gulf. Many experiments to do. The Starship ship (the number S35) also has a full agenda because it must complete the objectives that Spacex could not demonstrate in the two previous flights: First load deployment: It will display in its suborbital trajectory eight Starlink satellite simulators, similar in size to the next generation of the Spacex constellation. Motor reached in space: he will try again to reade of a Raptor engine in a vacuum to get out of his trajectory. Recentrada experiments: Spacex has eliminated a significant number of thermal tiles of the ship’s shield to test vulnerable areas. It will also test new metal tiles (one with active cooling) and functional capture accessories for future landings in the second tower. In addition, the borders of the tiles have softened to avoid hot points. To top it off, the reentry profile will be more aggressive to deliberately stressed the rear ailerons. The objective is a controlled ameter in the Indian Ocean, where there will already be dawn. Why this flight is so crucial. Starship’s ninth flight is not just one more test. It is an attempt of Spacex to demonstrate the rapid reuse of the super heavy, validate solutions to previous failures in the Starship and, above all, to collect critical data in extreme conditions to approach the objective of a totally reusable launch system. The success in these experiments could accelerate the program, which already has permission to make 25 annual flights. For now, this is the third flight of 2025. Whatever happens, the emotion is guaranteed. Image | Spacex In Xataka | Spacex has been scratching his head for 11 weeks to relaunch Starship. Now he finally has green light to fly again

NASA will cancel the SLS rocket and look for a cheaper alternative to colonize the moon and Mars

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It was seen comingbut the impact is not less. The Trump administration has presented its budget proposal for fiscal year 2026. And in regards to NASA, it is a true earthquake. Goodbye to SLS. The huge and very expensive lunar rocket SLS of the NASA, whose development has led the Boeing spatial division for 14 years, will be removed after the Artemis III mission, scheduled for 2027. There will be no block 1B version, and therefore the ML-2 mobile launch tower (whose budget had been sentenced) will be presumably without using. Justification is economical. The own Budget document Openly criticizes the SLS, noting that it has a cost of 4,000 million dollars per launch and has exceeded its budget by 140%. Demolish figures that not only They have sentenced the heir to the legacy Apollo and space transforders, but to all NASA’s lunar architecture. Goodbye to Orion and Lunar Gateway. Designed to launch aboard the SLS, the Lockheed Martin’s space capsule now has the same expiration date: it will be removed after taking astronauts to the lunar orbit in the Artemis II and Artemis III missions. NASA will choose a more modern and affordable architecture for Artemis IV onwards. But the cuts do not stop here. The Lunar Gateway Space Station, a key international project in the now truncated plans of the Artemis program, is also canceled. This leaves NASA’s international partners in a very delicate position that participated in the station: the European Space Agency (ESA), Japan (Jaxa), Canada (CSA) and United Arab Emirates. ESA, which supplies the European Ship Module Orion and develops The I-Hab and Esprit modules of Lunar Gatewaysee how your investment and astronaut places (including a seat to travel for the first time to the lunar surface) are in the air. As Daniel Marín points out in Eurekathe “ugly” to the partners is considerable. Especially to Europe. The bet: commercial ships and Mars. According to a NASA statement, the objective of these cuts is “to accelerate human exploration to the moon and Mars with a tax portfolio.” In other words, the blank checks for usual partners of the space agency are over. The White House wants to “return to the moon before China and put an American on Mars.” The budget allocates more than 7,000 million dollars to lunar exploration, but focused on “next generation commercial systems, more profitable” to replace the SLS/ORion architecture. Starship/HLS of Spacex and New Glenn/Blue Moon of Blue Origin have, as is logical, many ballots. The budget also introduces an investment of 1,000 million dollars to start a program focused on Mars. Although the details are scarce, it is taken for granted that will also pivot the SLS to the Spacex Starship, following Elon Musk’s vision. However, it is a very long -term bet, with little chances of seeing fruits before the current presidential mandate ends. Less science, less flights to ISS. The budget is especially devastating for NASA’s Space Science Division, which suffers a cut of 2,265 million dollars. The Mars Sample Return mission is explicitly canceled to recover the Martian soil samples from Rover Perseverance, arguing that the same objective will be achieved with future manned missions. Emblematic projects such as the new Nancy Grace Roman (which is almost finished), the historic Hubble space telescope and even, According to Eric Berger of Ars TechnicaNASA’s participation in the Rosalind Franklin European mission. The International Space Station, although it will remain operational until 2030, is not fought. NASA will reduce the size of the American crew and on-board research (-508 million budget), decreasing “significantly” loading and crew flights, gradually leaving the low terrestrial orbit in the hands of commercial stations (and China). A cycle change. While the proposal has yet to go through Congress, the Republican majority makes it difficult to take great modifications, although programs such as SLS/ORION have important support within the giant lobby as Boeing. The big question is whether this bet will work to win the space race against China. The abrupt cancellation of the SLS could leave a vacuum that China would take the opportunity to establish a sustained lunar presence before commercial alternatives are ready. And it is that getting to the Moon is not easy for private companies, as the failed launches of the NASA Clps program have demonstrated. Needless to say how risky it is to bet on an accelerated arrival to Mars. Image | POT In Xataka | China is getting closer to overcoming NASA in its Martian mission. And just invited other countries to join

The Steel Tank of the huge Cz-9 rocket has just manufactured

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Spacex continues years away from any competitor, including the Chinese government. Like the rest of the world, China has been late for reusable rockets and the Starlink satellite constellation, which has an undeniable strategic value. But with Starship, the giant rocket that Spacex is developing in Texas, China is determined to cut distances. The Chinese starship. While Spacex continues to put the highest and most powerful pitcher in the world (not without some difficulty), China has stepped on the accelerator in the development of its own reusable superpesado rocket: the long march 9 (CZ-9) of 114 meters high. The renders are over. This time, the Chinese Academy of Release Vehicle Technology (CALT) has presented two real -scale prototypes of stainless steel tanks of the CZ-9. Its dimensions are not trivial: they measure 5 and 10.6 meters in diameter (Starship has a width of 9 meters). While the 10.6 meter tank fits perfectly with the CZ-9, the purpose of the 5-meter prototype is … less evident. Perhaps CALT is exploring a stainless steel version of the CZ-10, the rocket with which China wants to send astronauts to the moon, or simply using this diameter as a test bench to validate rapid manufacturing technologies (it took only 60 days to design and manufacture the tanks). The SpaceX recipe. While Spacex has the manufacture of stainless steel dominated, for China the production of tanks of this size steel is an advance, since the rockets usually be made of aluminum and carbon fiber. Calt has encountered the challenges of the material: it is more difficult to mechanize than aluminum, and more prone to buckling and deformation in the welds. Overcoming these obstacles has required, according to the state company, “several key technical advances” in assembly, welding and forming. But there are two good reasons why Spacex chose steel: its price (it is cheap and can be manufactured on a large scale) and its resistance (Starship has demonstrated a great capacity to resist the atmospheric braking), a crucial feature for a rocket that aspires to be total and quickly reusable. From partial to totally reusable. China’s plan is first develop a partially reusable version of the CZ-9, scheduled for 2030, and then evolve towards total reuse with version CZ-9BR at some point between 2033 and 2035. Another similarity with Spacex is the number of engines and the chosen fuel: 30 YF-215 methane with 200 tons of thrust each in its first stage, for a total load capacity of 150 tons to the low orbit. So that. The potential uses of CZ-9 They are so varied As in the case of Starship: establish a manned lunar base, display central gigantic solar energy in spaceto launch space telescopes and, yes, manned missions to Mars. Image | CALT In Xataka | Elon Musk’s warning to the US government is true: China is getting closer to having its own starship

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