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SpaceX General Section / Re: SpaceX corporate fundraising rounds

« Last post by novo2044 on Today at 09:39 am »

spending over a trillion dollars to colonize Mars without any plausible profits would generate a swarm of lawsuits.  It would be framed as leadership (Musk) pursuing a personal goal to the detriment of the company and shareholders.

The company mission, as stated by the headline on the home page of their website, is:

MAKING LIFE MULTIPLANETARY
SpaceX was founded under the belief that a future where humanity is out exploring the stars is fundamentally more exciting than one where we are not.

Minority shareholders will basically get laughed out of court if they sue to stop company spending that legitimately advances that primary company goal.

Musk's personal compensation package could be something they could legitimately sue over, as at Tesla, but as far as I know he takes only a nominal $1 salary from SpaceX.

No.  That is not how mission statements work.  They can be changed at any time and furthermore do not somehow negate the obligations a publically traded company has to minority shareholders.  Going public implies a host of additional obligations because anyone with zero knowledge and minimal financial assets can buy shares.

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Space Science Coverage / Astronomy & Planetary Science Thread

« Last post by Star One on Today at 09:27 am »

This discussion belongs to the Impacts of Large Satellite Constellations on Astronomy thread.

And this is nothing serious, just boost your telescope to 1,200km or slightly above it and you avoid nearly all constellations. 1,200km is still LEO.

"Just boost me up already Scotty" Or, as the wise man said: "We need more wood! Timber!"

Spot on prediction (then again, it wasn't hard):

"Space-based astronomy is the future, ground-based is unnecessary anyway" was the motto by megaconstellation proponents right? I guess the new directive is to add "Deep-space-based ONLY", or just get done with it and take away all qualifiers: "Astronomy is unnecessary anyway".

Not "spot on" at all. 1,200km is not "Deep-space", as I said, it's literally LEO.

I'd have another easy one-liner solution too! And it also involving less boosting: instead of going up by 700 km or so, just de-boost your constellation 500 km down or so, and you avoid all sky nastiness with increased direct serviceability and virtually unlimited mission duration. Nothing serious.

Dream on, mega constellation is here to stay, they have already proven their value, and the value is far far higher than some space telescope that refuses to boost higher. In fact literally every country with space telescopes that is affected by this are also building their own mega constellation, nobody is going to make a big deal about this, rocks and glass houses and all that.

I love the way you immediately default to saying that space telescopes value is far lower than mega constellations. On what metric are you working that out?

Also it seems increasingly likely from studies that the vast number of satellites re-entering the atmosphere from these constellations and the pollutants that pumps into the atmosphere contributes to damaging the ozone layer amongst other damage.

https://theconversation.com/thousands-of-satellites-are-due-to-burn-up-in-the-atmosphere-every-year-damaging-the-ozone-layer-and-changing-the-climate-251845#:~:text=The%20re%2Dentry%20of%20satellites,'%20in%20this%20time%2Dlapse.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2024GL109280

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General Discussion / Re: 25 years spacefacts

« Last post by Black Arrow on Today at 09:03 am »

A truly wonderful online resource - here's to 25 more!

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ESA Launchers - Ariane/Vega / Re: Arianespace launch schedule

« Last post by GWR64 on Today at 07:57 am »

CSG-4 launch 2027
https://spacenews.com/european-officials-stress-space-autonomy-despite-lingering-dependencies/ [11/18/2025]

...
The launch contract originally intended for the third CSG satellite will now be used for the fourth satellite, he said, which is scheduled for launch in the first half of 2027.

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Russian Launchers - Soyuz, Progress and Uncrewed / Re: Major damage to PU-6 at Baikonur

« Last post by Satori on Today at 07:57 am »

I don't understand why they don't crew rate Vostochny, give up OneWeb Sats and get CSG Soyuz Pad and move everything to Vostochny.

In case of emergency during flight, partially launched Soyuz from Baikonur will fall in Altay mountains, near Chinese/Mongolese border, it was several times in history and rescue procedures are ready. In the same case on Vostochny, the ship will fall into ocean. Russian vessels, unlike American, can't land to water.

Yes, they can.

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Blue Origin / Re: Blue Origin New Glenn Thread 2: Updates and Discussion

« Last post by Rakietwawka2021 on Today at 07:36 am »

BE-7 nozzle diameter is 0.94 m.

What is the source of that shirt? I couldn‘t find any details from them.

There was tee at BO's shop with heights and diameters of all engines

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SpaceX Falcon Missions Section / Re: SpaceX F9 : Starlink group 15-11 : VSFB SLC-4E : 10 December 2025 (08:54 UTC)

« Last post by Steven Pietrobon on Today at 06:11 am »

PDF of online press kit.

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SpaceX Falcon Missions Section / Re: SpaceX F9 : NROL-77 : CCSFS SLC-40 : 9 December 2025 (19:16 UTC)

« Last post by Steven Pietrobon on Today at 06:10 am »

PDF of online SpaceX press kit.

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SpaceX Falcon Missions Section / Re: SpaceX F9 : Starlink group 11-15 : VSFB SLC-4E : 7 December 2025 (17:58 UTC)

« Last post by Steven Pietrobon on Today at 05:57 am »

PDF of updated online press kit, which now includes the first stage information.

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Missions To The Moon (HSF) / Re: Artemis II : Updates and Discussion Thread : NET February 5th NLT April 26th

« Last post by Vultur on Today at 05:52 am »

The earliest launch opportunity is now less than two months away - how realistic is an attempt that soon?