Where is the list for Orbital, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and others?
Where is the list for Orbital, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and others?
Where is the list for Orbital, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and others?
Where is the list for Orbital, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and others?
This thread is really meant to be a place to aggregate notices of upcoming talks, not a place to detail/praise the company vision.Sorry... :)
Senate Commerce Committee announces that tomorrow’s space hearing has been postponed until after the July 4 recess.
The Senate space subcmte has rescheduled its hearing on public-private partnerships for July 13. One change: Tim Hughes speaking for SpaceX.
The committee hearing was held- https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/7/reopening-the-american-frontier-promoting-partnerships-between-commercial-space-and-the-u-s-government-to-advance-exploration-and-settlement (https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/7/reopening-the-american-frontier-promoting-partnerships-between-commercial-space-and-the-u-s-government-to-advance-exploration-and-settlement), but there are no video or transcripts of the session. Does anyone have links to them?Here's the video (courtesy of u/SpaceKSCBlog on r/SpaceX):
The committee hearing was held- https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/7/reopening-the-american-frontier-promoting-partnerships-between-commercial-space-and-the-u-s-government-to-advance-exploration-and-settlement (https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/7/reopening-the-american-frontier-promoting-partnerships-between-commercial-space-and-the-u-s-government-to-advance-exploration-and-settlement), but there are no video or transcripts of the session. Does anyone have links to them?
Additionally, Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/07/spacex-urges-lawmakers-to-commercialize-deep-space-exploration/ (https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/07/spacex-urges-lawmakers-to-commercialize-deep-space-exploration/) put up an article on the hearing discussing Tim Hughes' prepared remarks.
Ars seemed to think that SpaceX was agitating for the establishment by NASA of a Super Heavy Lift equivalent of Commercial Crew program, in recognition of the Falcon Heavy, New Glenn and other commercial space developments of large lifters.
The committee hearing was held- https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/7/reopening-the-american-frontier-promoting-partnerships-between-commercial-space-and-the-u-s-government-to-advance-exploration-and-settlement (https://www.commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/7/reopening-the-american-frontier-promoting-partnerships-between-commercial-space-and-the-u-s-government-to-advance-exploration-and-settlement), but there are no video or transcripts of the session. Does anyone have links to them?
Where is the list for Orbital, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and others?
Perhaps I'm blind, but isn't this thread in the SpaceX general forum?
Where is the list for Orbital, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and others?
Perhaps I'm blind, but isn't this thread in the SpaceX general forum?
actually, I'm kind of with Jim on this.
It would be nice if we had both a monthly Launch List on the main page as well as a list of upcoming conferences and who would be at them. (This could also give some of us advance enough notification to arrange to attend these meetings as well).
Wed Jul 19, 2017 12:30p EDT Elon Musk ISS R&D Conference (http://www.issconference.org/) speech
Wed Jul 19, 2017 12:30p EDT Elon Musk ISS R&D Conference (http://www.issconference.org/) speech
Do we know if this will be webcast? I've seen recorded videos from the 2016 event, but I can't remember if it was livestreamed, etc.
I'll look into setting up a more general thread for upcoming events.So it was written, and so it was...
Twitter Question: Should we expect you at IAC 2017 in Adelaide then?
Elon Musk reply (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/888555494763241472): Yes, I postponed publishing in order to present the updated interplanetary rocket & spaceship design in Adelaide. Will be on the final day.
QuoteTwitter Question: Should we expect you at IAC 2017 in Adelaide then?
Elon Musk reply (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/888555494763241472): Yes, I postponed publishing in order to present the updated interplanetary rocket & spaceship design in Adelaide. Will be on the final day.
Charlotte L @charlottelowey 3h3 hours ago
Shotwell on @SpaceX work on nuclear propulsion: "We're actually trying to get hold of some nuclear material - it's hard, by the way"
This week at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Adelaide, Australia, SpaceX CEO and Lead Designer Elon Musk will provide an update to his 2016 presentation regarding the long-term technical challenges that need to be solved to support the creation of a permanent, self-sustaining human presence on Mars.
You can watch the talk live on this page on Thursday, September 28th at 9:30 p.m. PDT,
or Friday, September 29th at 2:00 p.m. ACST in Adelaide, Australia
QuoteThis week at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Adelaide, Australia, SpaceX CEO and Lead Designer Elon Musk will provide an update to his 2016 presentation regarding the long-term technical challenges that need to be solved to support the creation of a permanent, self-sustaining human presence on Mars.
http://www.spacex.com/marsQuote from: SpaceXYou can watch the talk live on this page on Thursday, September 28th at 9:30 p.m. PDT,
or Friday, September 29th at 2:00 p.m. ACST in Adelaide, Australia
I hadn't heard that we could watch.
When will the BFR reddit Ama be?https://twitter.com/RITSPEX/status/918313723567144961 (https://twitter.com/RITSPEX/status/918313723567144961)
This weekendhttps://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/918314470048382977 (https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/918314470048382977)
Wed Jul 19, 2017 12:30p EDT Elon Musk ISS R&D Conference (http://www.issconference.org/) speech
Do we know if this will be webcast? I've seen recorded videos from the 2016 event, but I can't remember if it was livestreamed, etc.
According to the frontpage at https://www.issconference.org/ the conf will be livestreamed starting tomorrow morning at 8am. And last year they streamed the whole event, including luncheons like Elon will do. So lets hope!
Does anyone know if ISPCS will be posting videos like they did for last year's conference? I don't see much coverage of the conference last week.
Suggest you ask about the effectiveness of the ERP software in doing cost recovery models for vehicles. (They got it from Tesla, and its allowed them to exceed federal standards/cost models.
NewSpace Europe conference is about to start in Luxembourg. This morning’s speakers include the president & CEO of SES and the president of SpaceX. http://newspace-europe.spacefrontier.org/2017/agenda/#9NWJi7zmpWUX3BmRq7
Abstract / Description:
SpaceX's reusable rocket program aims to reduce the cost of space travel by making rockets that can land, refuel and refly, instead of being thrown away after every flight. Autonomous precision landing of a rocket is a unique problem, which has been likened to balancing a rubber broomstick on your hand in a windstorm. Rockets do not have wings (unlike airplanes) and they cannot rely on a high ballistic coefficient to fly in a straight line (unlike missiles). In the past two years, SpaceX has successfully landed nineteen rockets, some of which were on dry land at Cape Canaveral, and some of which were on floating platforms in the ocean. This talk will discuss the challenges involved, how these challenges were overcome, and next steps towards rapid reusability.
Bio:
Lars Blackmore is responsible for Entry, Descent and Landing of SpaceX's Falcon 9 Reusable (F9R) rocket. His team developed the precision landing algorithms and operations required to bring F9R back to the launch site. Previously, Lars was with the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where he was co-inventor of the G-FOLD algorithm for precision landing on Mars, and was a member of the control team for the SMAP climate change observatory. Lars was named one of MIT Tech Review's "35 under 35" innovators and has a PhD in Guidance, Navigation and Control from the MIT Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics.
EE Distinguished Lecture: Lars Blackmore, SpaceX (https://ee.stanford.edu/event/department/ee-distinguished-lecture-lars-blackmore-spacex) Friday, January 12, 2018 - 3:30pm
EE Distinguished Lecture: Lars Blackmore, SpaceX (https://ee.stanford.edu/event/department/ee-distinguished-lecture-lars-blackmore-spacex) Friday, January 12, 2018 - 3:30pm
I will attend this talk today at Stanford and can post notes afterwords. If the opportunity arises, I'll ask one or two questions. Feel free to message me with suggested questions.
EE Distinguished Lecture: Lars Blackmore, SpaceX (https://ee.stanford.edu/event/department/ee-distinguished-lecture-lars-blackmore-spacex) Friday, January 12, 2018 - 3:30pm
I will attend this talk today at Stanford and can post notes afterwords. If the opportunity arises, I'll ask one or two questions. Feel free to message me with suggested questions.
Great! Yes please, post here all notes you can capture.
Please ask him about BFS precision landing in unknown weather conditions during Earth to Earth suborbital transport flights. Would it be easy or difficult for EDL team to prepare robust enough flight SW for all possible conditions and scenarios?
Thanks!
EE Distinguished Lecture: Lars Blackmore, SpaceX (https://ee.stanford.edu/event/department/ee-distinguished-lecture-lars-blackmore-spacex) Friday, January 12, 2018 - 3:30pm
I will attend this talk today at Stanford and can post notes afterwords. If the opportunity arises, I'll ask one or two questions. Feel free to message me with suggested questions.
Wednesday, January 17, 2018 - 10:00am
Subcommittee on Space Hearing - An Update on NASA Commercial Crew Systems Development (https://science.house.gov/legislation/hearings/subcommittee-space-hearing-update-nasa-commercial-crew-systems-development)
Hans Koenigsmann will be witness for SpaceX
N.B.: The term witness makes this sound like a trial...
kinda disappointing watching that. Id expect our elected representatives and their staff to be a little more educated and a little less reliant on sensational news
kinda disappointing watching that. Id expect our elected representatives and their staff to be a little more educated and a little less reliant on sensational news
This is NOT the Space Policy thread so let's not go there please. Thank you.
Unfortunately that video/presentation really said absolutely nothing new at all... I was hoping to hear some more about updated BFR timeline and testing and some proper Q&A but i guess not...I think saying Boca Chica would be "ready late this year/early next, year certainly for early vehicle" testing was specifically about BFS.
At this rate I think we'll find out some more new info perhaps during the FH demo at the earliest and usually the best way to find out interesting stuff is at the post-launch press conference Q&A after CRS missions... and we're all more or less assuming that Musk will be at the next IAC in September as well...
Unfortunately that video/presentation really said absolutely nothing new at all... I was hoping to hear some more about updated BFR timeline and testing and some proper Q&A but i guess not...
At this rate I think we'll find out some more new info perhaps during the FH demo at the earliest and usually the best way to find out interesting stuff is at the post-launch press conference Q&A after CRS missions... and we're all more or less assuming that Musk will be at the next IAC in September as well...
Just for the record, it’s “Gwynne”. My last name is spelled wrong more times than it is correctly, so I feel I had to sort that out...Unfortunately that video/presentation really said absolutely nothing new at all... I was hoping to hear some more about updated BFR timeline and testing and some proper Q&A but i guess not...
At this rate I think we'll find out some more new info perhaps during the FH demo at the earliest and usually the best way to find out interesting stuff is at the post-launch press conference Q&A after CRS missions... and we're all more or less assuming that Musk will be at the next IAC in September as well...
In general, Gwen doesn't talk much about future things that the company plans to do because she is the main one who deals with the customers. Which means her focus is more on getting their current contracts fulfilled and signing new deals. So, when you see a talk by Gwen, if you want to hear about things they already have on contract, there's a fair chance you'll get what you were looking for. If you want big picture plans of the future, look for Elon talking. This is also accentuated by the fact that, IMO, Elon seems much more willing to speak off the cuff, while Gwen tries much more to stay "on message". Again, that may also be a function of their various job responsibilities/roles.
Pretty solid lineup for the FAA's imminent Commercial Space Transportation Conference, Feb 7-8 :) Gestenmaier, Lightfoot, Pace, and Fred Kennedy of DARPA, as well as speakers/panelists from Sierra Nevada, Blue Origin, Vector, Virgin Orbit, SpaceX, Boeing, and a bunch more.
Fingers crossed that it doesn't just end up being a rehashing of things said at CSIS '18.
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/21st-annual-faa-commercial-space-transportation-conference-tickets-36660183596
[Feb 7] 4:30 – 5:15 PM Panel: Commercial Space as a Stimulus for Innovation & Inspiration toward the Moon, Mars & Beyond
Panelist: Caryn Schenewerk - SpaceX (Senior Counsel and Director of Spaceflight Policy)
[Feb 8] 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM Panel: Commercial Government Partnerships
Panelist: Josh Brost - SpaceX (Senior Director of Government Business Development)
Hans was giving a talk somewhere next week too, Smallsat Conference?
EE Distinguished Lecture: Lars Blackmore, SpaceX (https://ee.stanford.edu/event/department/ee-distinguished-lecture-lars-blackmore-spacex) Friday, January 12, 2018 - 3:30pm
I will attend this talk today at Stanford and can post notes afterwords. If the opportunity arises, I'll ask one or two questions. Feel free to message me with suggested questions.
Hi - The talk just got out. I'm sorry to disappoint, but they were very strict about no press, no recording, and Lars asked specifically about if anyone had attended from Reddit at the end. The obvious vibe was that this talk wasn't intended to be distributed publicly. I'll say that most of the content drew from his 2016 publication here: https://www.nae.edu/Publications/Bridge/164237/164334.aspx
The Q&A he deliberately avoided discussing any future specific plans, but it was very interesting and impressive nonetheless.
I have about 7-8 pages of notes from the talk. I'll clean them up a bit then post them in L2 soon.
Planned, but still surprising, in-person keynote at @SmallSatBiz conference: @spacex vp/ build & flight reliability, Hans Koenigsmann. Says co now has >$12B in backlog.
Hi Everyone! So yeah really excited about today incredibly proud of the SpaceX team, they've done an incredible job of creating the most advanced rocket in the world and biggest rocket in the world.
I'm still trying to absorb everything that happened because it seems surreal to me.
I had this image of just a giant explosion on the pad with you know a wheel bouncing down the road and like the Tesla logo landing somewhere with a thud. But fortunately that's not what happened, the mission seems tho have gone really as well as one could have hoped with the exception of the center core.
I was at the two side boosters, if you guys are here you sold them land that was epic, I think that's probably the most exciting thing I've ever seen literally ever. The center core obviously didn't land on the droneship, we're looking at the issue but we think it diddn't have enough TEA/TEB to relight all three engines.
The center one lit I believe, the outer two did not and that was not enough to slow the stage down. Apparently it hit the water at 300 miles an hour and took out two of the engines on the droneship. So if we got the footage like that sounds like some pretty fun footage, so if if the cameras didn't get blown up as well then we'll put that out for the blooper reel.
We weren't gonna reuse that Center core anyway or the two side boosters, we'll figure out some place to put them but as they're not block five or version five, we weren't planning on reusing any of the cores. The upper stage seems to have worked perfectly so far, the two burns were executed correctly, and now we'll see if the upper stage avionics survive quite an arduous trip through the Van Allen belts.
Normally the stage will pass quickly through the Van Allen belts but here it's essentially dwelling there for several hours, and then it's going to do a restart, deplete is propellant and go to trans-mars injection.
The propellant levels all look good after the second burn of the upper stage we were only 0.3 Sigma away from predictions, so it has plenty of propellant to complete the trans-mars injection, assuming that the fuel doesn't freeze or the oxygen doesn't boil off and the electronics don't get fried.
We'll find out in a few hours if that that burn is successful.
I went out to the landing zone and took a look at the side boosters, they look in really good condition so they're they're both refliable, although as I said they're combination of version 3 and version 4 so we're only gonna be reflying version 5 at this point. That launches shortly and that that'll be our mainstay, we will stick to version 5 for the falcon architecture we don't expect to have any version 6.
David Kerley form ABC News Elon spectacular what did you learn, what did Falcon Heavy teach you?
I guess it taught me that crazy things can come true, because I didn't really think this would work, and when I see the rocket liftoff, I
see like a thousand things that might not work and it's amazing when they they do. Seeing the two boosters land synchronized, really just like the simulation, it makes you think that it could be quite a scalable approach you know, with those just coming in, landing, taking off, landing, doing many flights per day.
It gives me a lot of faith for our next architecture the interplanetary spaceship. We have different names for it but BFR is code name. It gives me confidence that BFR is really quite workable.
I was actually looking at the side boosters - I'm like 'they're pretty big you know 16 stories tall, 60 foot leg span but we really need to be way bigger than that so I think it's given me a lot of confidence that we can make the BFR design work.
I think we can really do this a lot.
You know and keep advancing the technology to achieve full and rapid reusability which will have a profound effect on the future.
One of the interesting things about Falcon Heavy versus Falcon 9 is that Falcon heavy has the same level of expendability as Falcon nine, sixty million dollars falcon 9, Heavies 90, even though it's got three times as much capability, because in both cases the only thing that's expended is the upper stage.
We're going to start recovering the fairings, we're gonna recover boosters and so the cost difference between a Falcon Heavy and a Falcon 9 is minor.
Marcia Done, Associated Press What was going through your mind and how how amazed for you to see your Roadster up there with Starman, just cruising along with the blue planet and how long will we be getting live views do you think from the car?
Well I think it looks so ridiculous and impossible, you can tell it's real because it looks so fake.
Honestly we'd have way better CGI if it was fake.
You know the colors all look like kind of weird in space as there's no atmospheric occlusion, it's like everything was too crisp.
We didn't really test any of those materials for you know - space hardness or whatever, so it just has the same seats that anormal car has - it's a strictly a normal car in space - I kind of like the absurdity of that.
If you look closely on the dashboard there's a tiny roadster with a tiny spaceman, because hot wheels made a Hot Wheels roadster and a friend a friend of mine suggested "hey why not put that Hot Wheels roadster with a tiny spaceman on the you know the car - like that'd be cool surprise"
Silly fun things are important. Normally for a new rocket they've launched things like a block of concrete or something like that, I
mean that's so boring and I think the imagery of it is something that's gonna get people excited around the world.
It's still tripping me out, you know tripping balls here.
Brendan Burn (?)
Congratulations Elon on great launch today where do you see the Falcon Heavy fitting into this launch industry, is this something that is going to be for more national security or do you see this for interplanetary missions, what's the future of Falcon Heavy?
Falcon Heavy opens up a new class of payload. It can launch more than twice as much payload as any other rocket in the world, so it's kind of up to customers what they might want to launch. It can launch things direct to Pluto and beyond with no need for a gravity assist or anything. Launch giant satellites, it can do anything you want. You could send people back to the moon with a bunch of Falcon Heavy and an orbital refilling. Two or three falcon heavies would equal the payload of a Saturn Five.
But I wouldn't recommend doing that because I think that BFR architecture is the way to go, but I think it's gonna open up a sense of possibility, I think it's going to encourage other companies and countries to say 'hey if SpaceX which is a commercial company can do this with internal funds then then they could do it too.
So I think it's an encourage other countries and companies to raise their sights and say 'hey, we can do bigger and better', which is great. We want a new space race.
Races are exciting!
Darryl Mail (?) Fox
Can you talk us through your thought process as you were watching the launch, you said you were incredibly concerned about it and you just wanted it to clear the pad?
I think this is true of anyone who's involved closely in the design of something, you know all the ways it can fail and and there's a mental checklist scrolling through your mind of all the things that can break.
I mean. there's thousands of things that can go wrong and everything has to go right.
Once the rocket lifts off there's nothing, there's no opportunity to do a recall or upload a software fix or anything like that, it has to be a hundred percent - at least for the ascent phase. I've seen rockets blow up so many different ways, so you know it's a big relief when it it actually works.
I bet whoever launched something like a 747 or or dc-3 or something like that, I bet the chief engineer was like 'I can't believe that things like flying'.
Irene Klotz from Aviation Week
Congratulations. Can you talk to us a little bit about what needs to happen to certify Falcon Heavy for national security missions. Gow far along you are in the process and how many flights you might need to do and also if you're able to say anything about how much SpaceX's investment was to get to the rocket to this point thanks.
It depends on which national security mission that we need to get. How many flights depends on which mission but we have a number of commercial customers for Falcon Heavy and so I it's not gonna be in any way an impediment to acceptance of national security missions. We'll be doing several heavy missions flights per year so, say there's a big national security satellite that's due for launch in three or four years and we're probably have like a dozen or more launches done by then.
I don't think launch number will be an inhibitor for national security stuff. And yeah so I think we've got the STP mission that's coming up which is another test mission that will go on falcon heavy block 5 and then we'll be launching block 5 single stick in a couple months so I think it's hopefully smooth sailing for qualification for national security missions.
Falcon heavy costs
Our investment to date probably a lot more than I'd like to admit. We tried to cancel the Falcon Heavy program three times at SpaceX because it's like 'man this is way harder than we thought'. The initial idea was just I thought you know you stick on two first stages of side boosters how hard can it be? It's like way hard.
We have to redesign the center core completely. We redesigned the grid fins, because well it's a long story but you've got a nose cone on the end of at the end of the booster instead of a cylinder, you lose control authority because if you if you've got a cylinder you can kind of bounce the air off of the rocket and you get like a 30% more increased control authority than if you've got a cylindrical section instead of a Ogive section at the end of the booster so we have to redesign the grid fins. Redesigning the control system.
Vastly redesigned the thrust structure at the base to take way more load - that center boosters got to deal with over a million pounds of load coming in combined from the site boosters so it ends up being heavier so that the center core basically complete redesign, and even the side boosters has a pretty large number of parts that change. Then the launch site itself needs to change a lot.
I'm guessing our total investment is over half a billion. Probably more.
Dan Fergana from BuzzFeed news
Could you talk a little bit about the decision to have the two side boosters come down at the same time is that just the way it falls out from the physics or was that a actual decision you made?
We did offset them slightly but really they they pretty much just come down that way. We want them to offset slightly just so that the radars didn't interfere and we actually wanted no communication between the two stages, they're both going to a point in absolute space and we're just worried that the radar reflection of one would be seen by the radar receiver the other. But no, that's just kind of how it happened. It's actually meant to happen just like that.
Keith cowling at NASA watch first of all congratulations you've launched a rather unconventional payload into space, one that's generated a lot of buzz and there's a lot of people some of them citizen scientists some of them they're just newbies when it comes to tracking things and states are going to try and track the the Tesla and understand what's happening to it - you know like that movie dude where's my car - Other than the live web cam today what does SpaceX going to do to interact with this community of Tesla trackers once the car leaves orbit? Do you have a plan are you just gonna kind of wait and see what bubbles up in the internet and react to it?
We don't have a plan. No plan, the battery's gonna last about 12 hours from launch roughly and after that it's just gonna be out there in deep space for maybe millions and millions of years who knows. Maybe discovered by future alien race thinking what the heck what what were these guys doing did they worship this car? Why do they have a little car in the car? That'll really confuse the. I'm not sure what's gonna happen but I think you know it's kind of a fun thing and sure hope that next burn works by the way. We'll know in a few hours.
Chris Davenport from the Washington Post so now that you're focusing more on the BFR, I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the timeline. I know you said it's coming along faster, and then what that means for your plans for Mars and the moon
Well I don't want to get too off-topic but you know I think we might, if we get lucky, be able to do short hop flights with the spaceship part of BFR maybe next year.
Bill Harwood from CBS Two really quick ones you mentioned the the drone ship a couple of thrusters got hit, did the thing land on the ship or near?
Take the information that I have with a grain of salt, it may be incorrect. The information I received was that we hit the water at about 300 miles an hour and about a hundred metres away from the ship. Which was enough to take out two thrusters and shower the deck with shrapnel.
You mentioned the burn coming up can you give us any sense of how long a burn are we talking about and when you hope to have some confirmation and be able to tell us that it did or didn't work I don't have the number off hand, I was just looking at the profound residual Sigma which is like the key number. It's it's a decent decently long burn. Maybe a minute or so and yeah that'll be in few hours hopefully. I actually don't have the latest information because I've just been out at the landing zone and haven't been back to launch control since going to the landing zones. I don't have the latest information on the status of the upper stage.
Tom Costello for NBC News Congratulations again! I
want to follow up on Chris's question because Chris asked you what's your timeline potentially to go to the Moon or Mars and you said, did you say as soon as next year, can you quantify that but then I tie my real question I'm just doing Chris's work.
By hopper tests I mean kind-of-like the grasshopper program for falcon 9, where we just had the rocket take take off and land in Texas at our Texas test site so we'd either do that at our South Texas launch site, near Brownsville or or do ship-to-ship. We're not sure yet whether ship-to-ship or Brownsville, but most likely it's gonna happen in our Brownsville location because got a lot of land with nobody around and so if it blows up, it's cool.
By hopper test I mean it'll go up several miles then come down. The ship is capable of single stage to orbit if you fully load the tanks. So we'll do flights of increasing complexity. We really want to test the heatshield material so, like you know fly out turn around accelerate back real hard and come in hot to test the heat shield, because we want to have a highly reusable heat shield that's capable of absorbing heat from interplanetary entry velocities. So it's really tricky.
The potential to go to the moon or mars what's your timeline, any idea?
So a lot of uncertainties on this program but it is going to be our focus, now that we're almost done with with Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, we're gonna level off at block 5 or version 5, so there won't be anymore major versions of Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy. Dragon is also going to level off at dragon version 2. There might be point releases like 5.1 or Dragon 2.1 or something like that but most of our engineering resources will be dedicated to BFR and and so I think that that will make things go quite quickly.
The ship part is by far the hardest because that's going to come in from super-orbital velocities. Mars transfer velocities these are way harder than coming in from low-earth orbit. There's some of the heating things that scale to the eighth power. I diddn't think there's anything that scales to eight power but turns out on reentry certain elements of reentry heating scale to the 8th so just testing that ship out is the real tricky part.
The booster I think we understand reasonable boosters. Reusable spaceships that can land propulsively that's that's harder, so we're starting with the hard part first.
I think it's conceivable that we do our first full-up orbital test flight in 3-4 years including the booster. inaudible question on moon/mars
We'd go to low earth orbit first but it would be capable of going to the moon very shortly thereafter it's designed to do that.
Martin Avenue reddit's r/space
I'd like to congratulate it you as well as so many people have done just now. I'd like to know about Starman spacesuit is it a production model, is it instrumented and/or pressurized and what's holding his what's holding him up?
Well there's a mannequin inside, so it's just basically stuffed, but yeah that is the actual production design so the real one looks like just like that that in fact that's one of the qualification articles so that's that's real that's the real deal yeah.
I figure if you're gonna go on a dangerous trip you want to look good. It took us three years to design, it was real hard, it's easier making spacesuit that looks good or doesn't work or that works but doesn't look good it's really difficult to make a space suit that looks good and works. You have to make it a multi-part process and it was surprisingly difficult.
I take motion from Business Insider um thank you so much for doing this by the way and I
want to go back to VFR for a second since you were talking about that, and also Starman which is such an inspirational thing that's happening. Have you thought given any thought to what you might do with BFR in that way what is the what is the payload and any thoughts of that?
No, no ideas, sugestions are welcome!
I mean it's a beast so you know the BFR 9 meter diameter or 30 feet roughly. You can put a lot in 30 feet, hundred twenty meters long. Although you know I bet it doesn't look that big after a while.
timber notes from ports
Hi Elon thanks again for doing this. Two questions for you one just about faring recovery, just curious how the SpaceX is coming with that, and Jeff Bezos just responded to your tweet congratulating you on your launch today. You just mentioned a minute ago that we need a new space race I'm just curious if you see yourself in a race with blue origin.
What's the first part of the the question again?
Checking in on fairing recovery.
Fairing recovery
I'm pretty sure we'll have fairing recovery in the next six months.
It turns out that you pop the parachute on the fairing and you've got this giant awkward thing that tends to interfere with the air flow on the on the parachute and and mess it up.
Gets all twisty and and was low priority too. We have fairing version two which is the really important one that we want to recover, so even if we recovered fairing version one, we wouldn't be re-flying it in the future. Fairing two and recovery that's very important, and my guess is - next six months we figure out recovery.
We've got a special boat to catch the fairing, like a catcher's mitt. It's like a giant catchers mitt in boat form.
It's gonna run around and catch the fairing.
Kinda fun.
I think you might be able to do the same thing with dragon so if NASA wants us to, we could try to catch dragon.
Made for the fairing, but it would work for dragon too.
James Dean from Florida today Speaking of those dragons could you give us a status on Commercial Crew and and you know when we might realistically see that astronaut just get into low-earth orbit much less the Moon or Mars
We're making great progress on crew dragon or dragon version 2 - mission assurance is always number one priority but then the the priority used to be falcon 9 block five and then a month ago I said absolute priority is crew Dragon. We're pretty much done with falcon 9 block five, almost done with Falcon Heavy, a few tweaks that could occur with falcon heavy block five but they're minor. And so it's all hands on deck for crew dragon and we're aspiring to send crew to orbit at the end of this year.
I think the hardware will be ready.
Chris Gephardt How quickly can the pad be reconfigured between heavy and Falcon 9 since you need that pad for both?
It's no problem, it can go back and forth this is its designed that way.
And for the block five version of the Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy are the does the Falcon having need a dedicated core built for it?
It does. Tthe center core needs to be dedicated, the center core is a special build, the side boosters we can reuse existing Falcon 9s but we need to just replace the interstage with a with a nose cone and and use the upgraded titanium grid-fins, which are sweet.
Those worked out real well I'm really happy about those in fact I'm glad we got the side boosters back because they had the titanium grid-fins, and the center core diddn't. So if I have to pick, I would have picked the side boosters. I just picked the center core to explode. That would be like the least bad. The grid-fins are super expensive and and awesome but their production rate is slow. We want them back. The most important thing to recover where those gridfins.
Is there anything inside the spacesuit testing like its ability to function>
Nope, I know it definitely works so you can just like jump in a vacuum chamber with it and be fine.
Is there a section for 'current talks' ?
Transcript of the Post-Launch Press Conference:
https://gist.github.com/theinternetftw/a2ca9540e099621aef851c2ecbbd82fb
Is there a section for 'current talks' ?
And although this is a special case where there was a unfollowable maelstrom of activity on the SpaceX side of the site, a clearer place to look for stuff like this would also avoid the problem demonstrated below :)Transcript of the Post-Launch Press Conference:
https://gist.github.com/theinternetftw/a2ca9540e099621aef851c2ecbbd82fb
But retyping is an excellent way to remember.
Is there a section for 'current talks' ?
And although this is a special case where there was a unfollowable maelstrom of activity on the SpaceX side of the site, a clearer place to look for stuff like this would also avoid the problem demonstrated below :)Transcript of the Post-Launch Press Conference:
https://gist.github.com/theinternetftw/a2ca9540e099621aef851c2ecbbd82fb
Quite - I was moderately annoyed when I found that.
But retyping is an excellent way to remember.
The process and challenge of launching satellites to orbit breaks down to three basic elements: availability, costs and reliability. While costs and reliability have long been the focal points of industry discussion, the rapidly increasing line of constellations, with thousands of satellites waiting to be launched, has shifted our attention to the problem of availability. In order to meet current demand, the world's leading launch services need to dramatically increase their speed of operations. Some say we need to start seeing weekly launches. How can this be achieved without rushing or risking failure? Is it even physically possible to launch weekly? Will it ever be? This year's launch leaders panel will take a break from costs and focus exclusively on the challenge of availability, and discuss the impact of reusable rockets and other technologies on turnaround times. Open to conference -level attendees.
This panel will explore ideas for creating synergies and establishing collaboration for SATCOM between the US military and industry in an era during which we are seeing increasing commercial space innovation while at the same time threats to space capabilities are growing in number and sophistication. Areas explored will include: Are there mission sets or capabilities for which the USG should establish a "Commercial First" approach? Are there mission sets that require military-designed and operated systems? What initiatives might be undertaken by the Commercial SATCOM industry to foster greater use by the military? Are there practical approaches by which the US Government can achieve globally available, seamless multi-band communications which deliver reasonably resilient, reliable capability for all US Government customers and are there steps the SATCOM industry can take to make such approaches viable?
These talks should hit on commoditization of space launch and the evolution of the defense market. Will be interesting to see if Bruno is still in total denial or if the panelists argue to 'not count your chickens before they hatch'.
These talks should hit on commoditization of space launch and the evolution of the defense market. Will be interesting to see if Bruno is still in total denial or if the panelists argue to 'not count your chickens before they hatch'.
Nahh.. I expect them to repeat what they always say at these panels and avoid each others strategy. SpaceX will beat down on reusability and FH, ULA on reliability and the upcoming revolution due to IVF, Blue will do its thing with small steps are fastest, Mitsubishi will be proud to be in the business and how great their new product is going to be and Arianespace will act as if they will have the best, cheapest and most successful launcher in the future as they claim to have had in the past. I dont expect any revelations or new developments/announcements. I am still hopeful for some nuggets that get dropped in at the side somehow for us fans.
These talks should hit on commoditization of space launch and the evolution of the defense market. Will be interesting to see if Bruno is still in total denial or if the panelists argue to 'not count your chickens before they hatch'.
Nahh.. I expect them to repeat what they always say at these panels and avoid each others strategy. SpaceX will beat down on reusability and FH, ULA on reliability and the upcoming revolution due to IVF, Blue will do its thing with small steps are fastest, Mitsubishi will be proud to be in the business and how great their new product is going to be and Arianespace will act as if they will have the best, cheapest and most successful launcher in the future as they claim to have had in the past. I dont expect any revelations or new developments/announcements. I am still hopeful for some nuggets that get dropped in at the side somehow for us fans.
I expect the reality to be somewhere in the middle of these polar opposites ;D Given the level of banter between Bruno and Musk, as well as Shotwell's near-equal frankness with respect to the status quo, I don't think she's going to simply sit quietly if provoked, and - realistically - I can't even fathom Israel, Bruno, and Smith ALL resisting the urge to make a smug or arrogant comment or two...
This year's launch leaders panel will take a break from costs and focus exclusively on the challenge of availability, and discuss the impact of reusable rockets and other technologies on turnaround times.
Every now and then we see some fireworks on these panels, such as the notorious (and delicious) CASBAA 2013 launch panel. I expect the executives on the Satellite 2018 panel will be a little more circumspect, but you never know.this is awesome..thanks for posting again 3:20 is worth the listen
I think the Araine guy at 15:30 is fascinating.The Ariane guys "smugness" was over top..curious how he views this interview now..
I think the Araine guy at 15:30 is fascinating.The Ariane guys "smugness" was over top..curious how he views this interview now..
lots of good sound bytes...rags in fuel lines etc
The guy from Ariane,
>
I think he might have meant nightmare.
Join SSPI for a live online interview with SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell, who will be inducted into the Space & Satellite Hall of Fame in March. In a conversation with SSPI's Robert Bell, Gwynne will talk about her early years, her first role in managing people and the leadership lessons she learned, how she hires and what she has learned about leading a team bringing major innovations to market.
Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO, SpaceX. As VP of business development, Gwynne led the effort to build the Falcon vehicle manifest to over 50 launches representing $5 billion in revenue including commercial resupply services for delivery of cargo and supplies to the International Space Station. She became President and Chief Operating Officer in 2008, and assumed responsibility for day-to-day operations and for managing the customer and strategic relationships that support company growth. Under her leadership, SpaceX's backlog has grown to more than $7 billion worth of launches while achieving a set of remarkable milestones.
Click here to register to listen to the interview live: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/1321935522443512577
Joy Dunn (SpaceX's director of new product introduction) is giving a talk at the 2018 LWT Summit (San Francisco, CA) on March 2nd. Hers will be around noon, PST. I think it's only around 10 minutes long at the most.
https://lesbianswhotech.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/5th-Annual-Lesbians-Who-Tech-Allies-San-Francisco-Agenda-2018-__-Public-Version.pdf
Ooooooooh, the rare super awesome MIT lineup with an actual webcast and the promise of an archived video after it ends! All credit to Reddit /u/CProphet for the find.He's the guy to watch.
Paul Wooster, SpaceX's Principal Mars Dev Engineer, will be giving a talk around 1:30pm EST. Livestream is at the link below.
http://legacyweb.media.mit.edu/events/medialabtalk/
Ooooooooh, the rare super awesome MIT lineup with an actual webcast and the promise of an archived video after it ends! All credit to Reddit /u/CProphet for the find.
Paul Wooster, SpaceX's Principal Mars Dev Engineer, will be giving a talk around 1:30pm EST. Livestream is at the link below.
http://legacyweb.media.mit.edu/events/medialabtalk/
I was pondering doing a transcript for the above - but there is basically no point.
There was no new info, and it repeats some outdated info - for example the slide from IAC with two raptors without any comment that this design has changed.
The IAC 2017 presentation has very slightly more content, but it was basically just re-reading out the speech given there, with some cuts, and no mention of P2P.
I was pondering doing a transcript for the above - but there is basically no point.
There was no new info, and it repeats some outdated info - for example the slide from IAC with two raptors without any comment that this design has changed.
The IAC 2017 presentation has very slightly more content, but it was basically just re-reading out the speech given there, with some cuts, and no mention of P2P.
That is my take on this as well. The BFS picture with 2 SL raptors stood out as evidence that he was litterally given Elon's IAC slides and told not to reveal anything new. I think we need to recruit people who will be there in person to hear discussion in the room, for instance there were no questions livestreamed here but probably off-line discussion did occur.
That is my take on this as well. The BFS picture with 2 SL raptors stood out as evidence that he was litterally given Elon's IAC slides and told not to reveal anything new. I think we need to recruit people who will be there in person to hear discussion in the room, for instance there were no questions livestreamed here but probably off-line discussion did occur.
Question: what orientation will the crews in BFR be in during Mars entry?https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/972548995737321473
Wooster: in an appropriate orientation.
#spaceexploration
My stream was having buffering issues, but apparently he started his talk by saying, "Anyone hoping for major news today, I can say that that is not what's going to be included here." Only mentionables are the confirmation that launch mount booster recovery is still the goal and that first operational cargo missions to Mars are NET "mid-2020s."
He's the guy to watch.
He joined SpaceX a long time ago, it was the first concrete evidence that SpaceX is actively working on a Mars program...
Back in the very early days of F9 IIRC.
Yeah, but I originally found him from looking at Mars transfer trajectory work. The fact they gave him a non-Mars title was cute, since they of course knew who they were hiring...He's the guy to watch.
He joined SpaceX a long time ago, it was the first concrete evidence that SpaceX is actively working on a Mars program...
Back in the very early days of F9 IIRC.
In addition, he took the title "Principal Mars Development Engineer" in November 2017 according to his LinkedIn. Before that he was a Systems Engineer and Spacecraft GNC Manager
At 6:26 the Falcon Heavy centre core crashes into the sea---the first time I've seen this. Is there a better video of the attempted centre core landing?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnMRXRlx8JM - a clip from the longer video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0FZIwabctw .
Anyone have a working link for SXSW? It went "This video is unavailable" while I was watching it...
Anyone have a working link for SXSW? It went "This video is unavailable" while I was watching it...
I watched the whole thing (the link I used is currently marked as unavailable), and the only spacex thing I heard that seemed worthy of being repeated was the goal of having some short hops of the new rocket in first half of 2019. [I enjoyed the discussion about pre-Tesla as well, as I had a very similar set of (frustrating) conversations with Tom, but that's not spacex-related in the least.]
Well I don't want to get too off-topic but you know I think we might, if we get lucky, be able to do short hop flights with the spaceship part of BFR maybe next year.
Anyone have a working link for SXSW? It went "This video is unavailable" while I was watching it...
...the goal of having some short hops of the new rocket in first half of 2019.
Even that's been said before.QuoteWell I don't want to get too off-topic but you know I think we might, if we get lucky, be able to do short hop flights with the spaceship part of BFR maybe next year.
(transcript of FH post-launch press conference upthread).
Time flies... Originally I thought they wanted end of 2018......the goal of having some short hops of the new rocket in first half of 2019.
Even that's been said before.QuoteWell I don't want to get too off-topic but you know I think we might, if we get lucky, be able to do short hop flights with the spaceship part of BFR maybe next year.
(transcript of FH post-launch press conference upthread).
Yeah, it was marginally more specific, and it seemed to move the goal posts *in* from "maybe next year" to "first half of next year" ~5:45 in the above video.
Shotwell will be on a panel at Satellite 2018, 4:15-5:15pm EST on March 12. Excitingly, on the same panel will be Stephane Israel of Arianespace, Bob Smith of Blue Origin, Tory Bruno of ULA, and Dr. Ko of Mitsubishi (H-II manufacturer). Should be an awesome time ;D
Launch Services Panel: Breaking Through the BottleneckQuoteThe process and challenge of launching satellites to orbit breaks down to three basic elements: availability, costs and reliability. While costs and reliability have long been the focal points of industry discussion, the rapidly increasing line of constellations, with thousands of satellites waiting to be launched, has shifted our attention to the problem of availability. In order to meet current demand, the world's leading launch services need to dramatically increase their speed of operations. Some say we need to start seeing weekly launches. How can this be achieved without rushing or risking failure? Is it even physically possible to launch weekly? Will it ever be? This year's launch leaders panel will take a break from costs and focus exclusively on the challenge of availability, and discuss the impact of reusable rockets and other technologies on turnaround times. Open to conference -level attendees.
Any NSF users attending SatShow 2018? Shotwell's panel begins in 10 minutes. I'd die for a periscope or transcript ;D
Shotwell will be on a panel at Satellite 2018, 4:15-5:15pm EST on March 12. Excitingly, on the same panel will be Stephane Israel of Arianespace, Bob Smith of Blue Origin, Tory Bruno of ULA, and Dr. Ko of Mitsubishi (H-II manufacturer). Should be an awesome time ;D
Launch Services Panel: Breaking Through the BottleneckQuoteThe process and challenge of launching satellites to orbit breaks down to three basic elements: availability, costs and reliability. While costs and reliability have long been the focal points of industry discussion, the rapidly increasing line of constellations, with thousands of satellites waiting to be launched, has shifted our attention to the problem of availability. In order to meet current demand, the world's leading launch services need to dramatically increase their speed of operations. Some say we need to start seeing weekly launches. How can this be achieved without rushing or risking failure? Is it even physically possible to launch weekly? Will it ever be? This year's launch leaders panel will take a break from costs and focus exclusively on the challenge of availability, and discuss the impact of reusable rockets and other technologies on turnaround times. Open to conference -level attendees.
Any NSF users attending SatShow 2018? Shotwell's panel begins in 10 minutes. I'd die for a periscope or transcript ;D
Is there a link for this? Where do we watch it?
Launcher panel @SATELLITEDC today: Thanks @torybruno for emphasizing how valuable the investment from suppliers is, when it comes to the development of next gen rockets. #SATShow @ulalaunch @blueorigin @SpaceX @Arianespace @ILSLaunch
It wasn't live-streamed, tho people like Jeff Foust live-tweeted what happened.
Will be “significant overlap” between Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy and BFR, given the effort required to develop Falcon vehicles and getting government certification for them. Source
Customers have accepted “flight-proven” first stages much faster than I expected. About half of our launches this year will be on reused first stages. Source
Block upgrades are behind us now, we can get cadence up; 9 flight-proven 1st stages launched so far, and 1/2 of this year's flights will use flight-proven stages. Customer acceptance happening faster than we thought. Source
BFR will probably be orbital in 2020, but you should start seeing hops in 2019. Source
We are going to fly Spaceflight Inc's smallsat group in a dedicated flight this summer. Source
SpaceX and ULA agree - Bruno: “Satellites are getting bigger and smaller.” Shotwell: “Disaggregated systems are very helpful to the launch industry.” Source
Market is not just demand, it's demand with money. A lot of smallsat guys dont have much money. That's why we ended Falcon 1. But with constellation replacement, small launchers may find a market. Source
After demonstrating reusable boosters, it’s now “soul-crushing” to even dispose of payload fairings now. Source
SpaceX needs a fully reusable rocket to get humans to other planets. Source
Hard to say how declining launch prices will affect emerging market for satellite servicing. Interest was driven in part by high launch prices. Source
Looks like it came from Twitter.
Another talk features Josh Brost of SpaceX, 10:45-11:45am EST March 14.
Adapting the Government-Commercial Satcom Relationship for the 21st CenturyQuoteThis panel will explore ideas for creating synergies and establishing collaboration for SATCOM between the US military and industry in an era during which we are seeing increasing commercial space innovation while at the same time threats to space capabilities are growing in number and sophistication. Areas explored will include: Are there mission sets or capabilities for which the USG should establish a "Commercial First" approach? Are there mission sets that require military-designed and operated systems? What initiatives might be undertaken by the Commercial SATCOM industry to foster greater use by the military? Are there practical approaches by which the US Government can achieve globally available, seamless multi-band communications which deliver reasonably resilient, reliable capability for all US Government customers and are there steps the SATCOM industry can take to make such approaches viable?
Innovative Partnerships: Commercial Perspectives - March 15, 10:50am EST
Moderator: Phil McAlister, Director, Commercial Space Flight Division, Human Exploration and Operations, NASA Headquarters
Panelists:
• Joshua Brost, Senior Director, Government Business Development, SpaceX
• Gregg Burgess, VP Technology and Engineering, Space Systems Group, Sierra Nevada Corporation
• John Reed, Chief Technologist Advanced Programs, United Launch Alliance
Ooooooooh, the rare super awesome MIT lineup with an actual webcast and the promise of an archived video after it ends! All credit to Reddit /u/CProphet for the find.
Paul Wooster, SpaceX's Principal Mars Dev Engineer, will be giving a talk around 1:30pm EST. Livestream is at the link below.
http://legacyweb.media.mit.edu/events/medialabtalk/
Is it just me or is anyone else having severe problems trying to play/download this?Ooooooooh, the rare super awesome MIT lineup with an actual webcast and the promise of an archived video after it ends! All credit to Reddit /u/CProphet for the find.
Paul Wooster, SpaceX's Principal Mars Dev Engineer, will be giving a talk around 1:30pm EST. Livestream is at the link below.
http://legacyweb.media.mit.edu/events/medialabtalk/
Video is now up: https://www.media.mit.edu/videos/beyond-the-cradle-2018-03-10-a/
Hey in that intro reel, the center core of the Falcon Heavy has white grid fins while the boosters have black grid fins. Does that mean the center core had aluminum fins?Yes. This was discussed when photos of heavy first showed up.
Hey in that intro reel, the center core of the Falcon Heavy has white grid fins while the boosters have black grid fins. Does that mean the center core had aluminum fins?Yes. This was discussed when photos of heavy first showed up.
https://ted2018.ted.com/speakers#gwynne-shotwell
Gwynne Shotwell at TED
Are there any SpaceX related talks expected for the Space Symposium?
Are there any SpaceX related talks expected for the Space Symposium?
It's today. Anybody able and willing to post the highlights?https://ted2018.ted.com/speakers#gwynne-shotwell
Gwynne Shotwell at TED
Wednesday, April 11, 11:00AM - 12:45PM PDT
It's an odd mishmash of random "techy" people, only other person involved in aerospace is Rodin Lyasoff, CEO of Airbus' Silicon Valley startup.
It's today. Anybody able and willing to post the highlights?https://ted2018.ted.com/speakers#gwynne-shotwell
Gwynne Shotwell at TED
Wednesday, April 11, 11:00AM - 12:45PM PDT
It's an odd mishmash of random "techy" people, only other person involved in aerospace is Rodin Lyasoff, CEO of Airbus' Silicon Valley startup.
Posted in the reddit SpaceXloungehttps://twitter.com/TEDTalks/status/984151193474580480?s=20
https://twitter.com/TEDTalks/status/984154476226293760
Within a decade, @SpaceX plans to make rocket flights possible, so you'll be able to get from New York to Shanghai in an hour. Gwynne Shotwell #TED2018
A poster did not want to go into details but he said Gwynne Shotwell is BULLISH (in capital letters) on all aspects of BFR. One point above.
"We're standing on the shoulders of giants. We got to look at the rocket industry and developments to date and pick the best ideas, leverage them." — Gwynne Shotwell on what makes @SpaceX successful #TED2018
A key component of SpaceX's success, she said, has been the freedom that engineers there have to design rockets without having to build upon or integrate antiquated systems. As Shotwell described it, rocket scientists have created and constructed their enormous vehicles from a "clean sheet of paper."
Unlike rocket scientists at NASA and companies like Boeing, SpaceX's engineers didn't have any pre-designed technology that they "had to include" in their rockets, according to Shotwell, who is a mechanical engineer by training.
She went on to explain that SpaceX engineers got to look at the development of the rocket industry to date and pick only the "best ideas and leverage them," without having to design around "legacy components that maybe weren't the most reliable, or were particularly expensive."
>
The rockets would take off from launch pads on bodies of water outside of major cities, and Shotwell noted that the longest time spent traveling would be on the boat ride. SpaceX aims to introduce this service within a decade.
The moderator expressed skepticism on such an ambitious timeline. Shotwell did not waver in her response. “That’s my time, not Elon time.”
SpaceX's president revealed a key element that has made Elon Musk's rocket company so successful
http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-president-ted-2018-4QuoteA key component of SpaceX's success, she said, has been the freedom that engineers there have to design rockets without having to build upon or integrate antiquated systems. As Shotwell described it, rocket scientists have created and constructed their enormous vehicles from a "clean sheet of paper."
Unlike rocket scientists at NASA and companies like Boeing, SpaceX's engineers didn't have any pre-designed technology that they "had to include" in their rockets, according to Shotwell, who is a mechanical engineer by training.
She went on to explain that SpaceX engineers got to look at the development of the rocket industry to date and pick only the "best ideas and leverage them," without having to design around "legacy components that maybe weren't the most reliable, or were particularly expensive."
Winning at what exactly? I’m not implying their losing either, but what are they winning at?SpaceX's president revealed a key element that has made Elon Musk's rocket company so successful
http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-president-ted-2018-4QuoteA key component of SpaceX's success, she said, has been the freedom that engineers there have to design rockets without having to build upon or integrate antiquated systems. As Shotwell described it, rocket scientists have created and constructed their enormous vehicles from a "clean sheet of paper."
Unlike rocket scientists at NASA and companies like Boeing, SpaceX's engineers didn't have any pre-designed technology that they "had to include" in their rockets, according to Shotwell, who is a mechanical engineer by training.
She went on to explain that SpaceX engineers got to look at the development of the rocket industry to date and pick only the "best ideas and leverage them," without having to design around "legacy components that maybe weren't the most reliable, or were particularly expensive."
On its face, this is a throwaway comment. It seems it was intended to be a dig at Boeing. And it seems it's a dig because Boeing is winning.
There are no constraints within Boeing to build or design based on "this" or because supplier X has to be included for "that".SLS is absolutely required to use shuttle legacy bits and suppliers in its design and operation. That’s the whole point of the program.
Relative to her comment, there is rationale on learning from the past. What has worked, what hasn't and correcting that. This statement, on its face, implies they are better without having that. And that is false.It says the exact opposite of what you’re implying it says. It says specifically that they are free to look at what has been used in the past, take the best stuff that works well, and forge new ground elsewhere. How’s is that not exactly what you’d want them to be doing?
Winning at what exactly? I’m not implying their losing either, but what are they winning at?SpaceX's president revealed a key element that has made Elon Musk's rocket company so successful
http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-president-ted-2018-4QuoteA key component of SpaceX's success, she said, has been the freedom that engineers there have to design rockets without having to build upon or integrate antiquated systems. As Shotwell described it, rocket scientists have created and constructed their enormous vehicles from a "clean sheet of paper."
Unlike rocket scientists at NASA and companies like Boeing, SpaceX's engineers didn't have any pre-designed technology that they "had to include" in their rockets, according to Shotwell, who is a mechanical engineer by training.
She went on to explain that SpaceX engineers got to look at the development of the rocket industry to date and pick only the "best ideas and leverage them," without having to design around "legacy components that maybe weren't the most reliable, or were particularly expensive."
On its face, this is a throwaway comment. It seems it was intended to be a dig at Boeing. And it seems it's a dig because Boeing is winning.QuoteThere are no constraints within Boeing to build or design based on "this" or because supplier X has to be included for "that".SLS is absolutely required to use shuttle legacy bits and suppliers in its design and operation. That’s the whole point of the program.QuoteRelative to her comment, there is rationale on learning from the past. What has worked, what hasn't and correcting that. This statement, on its face, implies they are better without having that. And that is false.It says the exact opposite of what you’re implying it says. It says specifically that they are free to look at what has been used in the past, take the best stuff that works well, and forge new ground elsewhere. How’s is that not exactly what you’d want them to be doing?
2. SLS is not the definition of Boeing.
According to Fortune, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg was speaking on CNBC today when host Jim Cramer asked whether Boeing or SpaceX would "get a man on Mars first."
"Eventually we're going to go to Mars, and I firmly believe the first person that sets foot on Mars will get there on a Boeing rocket," Muilenburg said, according to Fortune.
1. CST-100 will be first to ISS
...I would not limit it to Boeing. It's a dig at all the US companies that failed to compete in the commercial launch business. SpaceX is clearly doing something differently. Please look at the attached chart and explain how Boeing is "winning." I have no animus toward Boeing but no one can afford to fly their rockets very often (Delta IV and soon SLS).
On its face, this is a throwaway comment. It seems it was intended to be a dig at Boeing. And it seems it's a dig because Boeing is winning.
There are no constraints within Boeing to build or design based on "this" or because supplier X has to be included for "that".
Relative to her comment, there is rationale on learning from the past. What has worked, what hasn't and correcting that. This statement, on its face, implies they are better without having that. And that is false.
Others already replied to 1 and 2. In the case of 1, I’ll also add that it would have been reasonable to assume Boeing would get there first at the beginning of the commercial crew program given their existing knowledge base and experience. That they are no further ahead than they are (and it is very debatable that they are in fact ahead), says something about SpaceX’s ability to develop a crewed vehicle.Winning at what exactly? I’m not implying their losing either, but what are they winning at?SpaceX's president revealed a key element that has made Elon Musk's rocket company so successful
http://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-president-ted-2018-4QuoteA key component of SpaceX's success, she said, has been the freedom that engineers there have to design rockets without having to build upon or integrate antiquated systems. As Shotwell described it, rocket scientists have created and constructed their enormous vehicles from a "clean sheet of paper."
Unlike rocket scientists at NASA and companies like Boeing, SpaceX's engineers didn't have any pre-designed technology that they "had to include" in their rockets, according to Shotwell, who is a mechanical engineer by training.
She went on to explain that SpaceX engineers got to look at the development of the rocket industry to date and pick only the "best ideas and leverage them," without having to design around "legacy components that maybe weren't the most reliable, or were particularly expensive."
On its face, this is a throwaway comment. It seems it was intended to be a dig at Boeing. And it seems it's a dig because Boeing is winning.QuoteThere are no constraints within Boeing to build or design based on "this" or because supplier X has to be included for "that".SLS is absolutely required to use shuttle legacy bits and suppliers in its design and operation. That’s the whole point of the program.QuoteRelative to her comment, there is rationale on learning from the past. What has worked, what hasn't and correcting that. This statement, on its face, implies they are better without having that. And that is false.It says the exact opposite of what you’re implying it says. It says specifically that they are free to look at what has been used in the past, take the best stuff that works well, and forge new ground elsewhere. How’s is that not exactly what you’d want them to be doing?
1. CST-100 will be first to ISS
2. SLS is not the definition of Boeing.
3. Ok, I'll give you that. But that said, am I to assume because she said it, that this is a new thought process unique to only SpaceX?
3. Ok, I'll give you that. But that said, am I to assume because she said it, that this is a new thought process unique to only SpaceX?
3. Ok, I'll give you that. But that said, am I to assume because she said it, that this is a new thought process unique to only SpaceX?
She didn't say it was unique to SpaceX, just part of what makes them successful at reaching their particular goals. Boeing and many other aerospace companies certainly subscribe to the theory of "heritage über alles" to a far greater extent than SpaceX does - which is fine for some goals. Less so for others.
Also, Shotwell talked about Earth P2P within that decade.
Wired.... (https://www.wired.com/story/spacexs-president-is-thinking-even-bigger-than-elon-musk/)Quote>
The rockets would take off from launch pads on bodies of water outside of major cities, and Shotwell noted that the longest time spent traveling would be on the boat ride. SpaceX aims to introduce this service within a decade.
The moderator expressed skepticism on such an ambitious timeline. Shotwell did not waver in her response. “That’s my time, not Elon time.”
At the 2018 TED Conference on Wednesday, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell seemed for the first time to express an even grander vision than Elon Musk's plan to colonize Mars.
Speaking to the crowd, Shotwell said she won't be content to land a SpaceX rocket on Mars, or even to reach more distant planets like Saturn or Pluto. Instead, she revealed that she ultimately hopes to meet up with whoever's out there in other solar systems.
"This is the first time I might out-vision Elon," she said of the SpaceX founder.
The first human travel to Mars previewed by Gwynne from @SpaceX at #TED2018
Different emphasis in this report on Gwynne's talk:QuoteAt the 2018 TED Conference on Wednesday, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell seemed for the first time to express an even grander vision than Elon Musk's plan to colonize Mars.
Speaking to the crowd, Shotwell said she won't be content to land a SpaceX rocket on Mars, or even to reach more distant planets like Saturn or Pluto. Instead, she revealed that she ultimately hopes to meet up with whoever's out there in other solar systems.
"This is the first time I might out-vision Elon," she said of the SpaceX founder.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/spacex-president-gwynne-shotwell-ted-mars-is-a-fixer-upper-2018-4 (http://uk.businessinsider.com/spacex-president-gwynne-shotwell-ted-mars-is-a-fixer-upper-2018-4)
A phone-shot video of part of the new Mars BFR animation:QuoteThe first human travel to Mars previewed by Gwynne from @SpaceX at #TED2018
https://twitter.com/parmeshs/status/984154967907844096
A phone-shot video of part of the new Mars BFR animation:QuoteThe first human travel to Mars previewed by Gwynne from @SpaceX at #TED2018
https://twitter.com/parmeshs/status/984154967907844096
Me want that video full and HD please. I hope Spacex release it.
The refueling is different than the previous one on ITS.
Yep. People on Reddit also claim the rocket is taller than the IAC 2017 design, I wouldn't be surprised since there were some comments by Elon pointing to that. We'll see when the official video is released.
Yep. People on Reddit also claim the rocket is taller than the IAC 2017 design, I wouldn't be surprised since there were some comments by Elon pointing to that. We'll see when the official video is released.
Looks like BFR is taller as much as 20% when comparing with water tower after this video was stablized and scaled correctly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qwsGG_omT0
Indeed. Gwynne is so awesome, and a refreshing change from Musk's leadership style. Musk is clearly an effective leader, but I could easily see being stifled if there wasn't also Gwynne there doing her own leading. They make an incredibly effective pair, and Musk lucked out incredibly by finding her.Different emphasis in this report on Gwynne's talk:QuoteAt the 2018 TED Conference on Wednesday, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell seemed for the first time to express an even grander vision than Elon Musk's plan to colonize Mars.
Speaking to the crowd, Shotwell said she won't be content to land a SpaceX rocket on Mars, or even to reach more distant planets like Saturn or Pluto. Instead, she revealed that she ultimately hopes to meet up with whoever's out there in other solar systems.
"This is the first time I might out-vision Elon," she said of the SpaceX founder.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/spacex-president-gwynne-shotwell-ted-mars-is-a-fixer-upper-2018-4 (http://uk.businessinsider.com/spacex-president-gwynne-shotwell-ted-mars-is-a-fixer-upper-2018-4)
Gwynne has in past talks mentioned her dreams of a future where travel to other solar systems is possible.
I think Elon agrees...Indeed. Gwynne is so awesome, and a refreshing change from Musk's leadership style. Musk is clearly an effective leader, but I could easily see being stifled if there wasn't also Gwynne there doing her own leading. They make an incredibly effective pair, and Musk lucked out incredibly by finding her.Different emphasis in this report on Gwynne's talk:QuoteAt the 2018 TED Conference on Wednesday, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell seemed for the first time to express an even grander vision than Elon Musk's plan to colonize Mars.
Speaking to the crowd, Shotwell said she won't be content to land a SpaceX rocket on Mars, or even to reach more distant planets like Saturn or Pluto. Instead, she revealed that she ultimately hopes to meet up with whoever's out there in other solar systems.
"This is the first time I might out-vision Elon," she said of the SpaceX founder.
http://uk.businessinsider.com/spacex-president-gwynne-shotwell-ted-mars-is-a-fixer-upper-2018-4 (http://uk.businessinsider.com/spacex-president-gwynne-shotwell-ted-mars-is-a-fixer-upper-2018-4)
Gwynne has in past talks mentioned her dreams of a future where travel to other solar systems is possible.
Has the BFR/BFS been stretched in height? The video Gwynne showed at Ted Talks looks taller than the one in the E2E video
Maybe a little 😉
Perhaps in reaction to the renewed interest in the Moon? E.g., to avoid having to stage from HEO (which is problematic due to radiation exposure), and instead do a lunar landing and return directly after (single?) refueling in LEO?
Bigger fuel tanks?
To avoid staging in HEO you could use the performance needed to get from LEO to HEO to increase the mass of the ship by increasing the size of the fuel tanks. Then refuel in LEO for further destinations. This may enable an Earth -> LEO (refuel) Moon -> Earth architecture. You don't have to launch the BFS with fuel tanks full to start with.
As mentioned above the other thought is the thrust of the raptors may have increased which would also mean a stretch would be beneficial.
Are there any SpaceX related talks expected for the Space Symposium?
Tim Hughes, SVP of Global Business & Government Affairs, will be speaking on April 18.
https://www.spacesymposium.org/speakers/tim-hughes
I saw a couple of SpaceX interviews linked from Reddit threads over the last couple days:
Hans Koenigsmann at NEAF on April 22:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va-rXO7kI-8&t=4h3m0s
[...]
Hans Koenigsmann at NEAF on April 22:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va-rXO7kI-8&t=4h3m0s
edit: Hans starts at 4h3m mark.
At 4:19:59 the video briefly shows the side booster being integrated. Is that footage available anywhere else?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Va-rXO7kI-8&t=4h19m59s
Is it just me or has SpaceX (mostly Gwyenne but sometimes others) been participating in more talks lately than in the past?Thought the very same thing. It seems there is a coordinated PR campaign going on.
On that note, is there any word on if Elon (or perhaps someone else) will be at the IAC this year? When did we learn that Elon was going to be at the last one- i think it was around June ish that we found out?
I wonder about the possibility of SpaceX holding off on IAC this year and doing a presentation of BFR(S) in the new LA factory when that's built sometime next year - kind of like how they originally showcased Dragon 2... tho this being on a much larger scale...
Tom Mueller at the International Space Development Conference:
http://isdc2018.nss.org/speakers/
http://isdc2018.nss.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ISDC-2018-Thursday-SCHEDULE-4-19-18.pdf
SpaceX CTO of Propulsion Development Tom Mueller is joining the luminaries speaking at http://isdc2018.nss.org/ ! Mueller led the development of the famed Merlin engine and the new Raptor engine powering the new fully reusable Big Falcon Rocket. #SpaceX #ElonMusk #FalconHeavy #BFR
Josh Brost, SpaceX Senior Director, Government Business Development (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-brost-3156a23) on May 8, 2018 at The Humans to Mars Summit (https://h2m.exploremars.org/).
Josh Brost, SpaceX Senior Director, Government Business Development (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-brost-3156a23) on May 8, 2018 at The Humans to Mars Summit (https://h2m.exploremars.org/).
That's today. Anybody there to keep us informed?
Will we be able to rewind the live streams or catch them after the fact on Youtube the same day? Or do we have to be watching at exactly the right time?
Yea, looks like he was replaced. I didn't think there would be anything new anyhow.
::) ::) ::) sigh... Josh Brost is definitely not on the 2-5pm Exploration Architectures panel today, no warning or comment from the moderator.
::) ::) ::) sigh... Josh Brost is definitely not on the 2-5pm Exploration Architectures panel today, no warning or comment from the moderator.
Joshua Brost you say?
Twitter... (http://"https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/994240069744676864?s=19")
Jeff Foust ✓ @jeff_foust (Space News)
Brost: as early as the first half of next year well start doing vertical takeoff and landing tests of our first BFR upper stage. #HumansToMars
Yes it was very good to hear those points reiterated to provide more confidence.
It occurs to me though that if someone like Buzz wants an office for Moon/Mars exploration to better integrate the Blue/SpaceX plans into NASA plans, they could start with these conferences. There is a clear distinction between SpaceX plans and NASA plans. Near the end of the afternoon session someone mentioned Josh was originally supposed to be on the panel and that he would have provided some contrast (not the right word but close).
I'd like to see the essence of what Buzz asked come about. Find a way to coalesce the ideas that Blue and SpaceX have with NASA without any interference, stumbling blocks or slowdowns.
I am hopeful that something comes of the idea of Exploration Zones to ease pressure from planetary protection.
Buzz is hilarious to me. He always stands by the microphone at these conferences waiting to speak (and is often the last question). I think a lot in the space community find it super annoying, but I just love his ramblings for the spectacle of it.
I hope I'm like him as an old man.
SpaceX Founding Employee Tom Mueller to Speak at International Space Development Conference
Mueller will be providing the Thursday, May 24th Plenary Address at the ISDC in Los Angeles, CA. If you attend, you have a chance to hear the latest information on SpaceX's Mars plans.:D
Reminder: Still on track for next Thursday.Tom Mueller at the International Space Development Conference:
http://isdc2018.nss.org/speakers/
http://isdc2018.nss.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ISDC-2018-Thursday-SCHEDULE-4-19-18.pdf
Just confirmed again: https://twitter.com/ISDC/status/989990916990668800QuoteSpaceX CTO of Propulsion Development Tom Mueller is joining the luminaries speaking at http://isdc2018.nss.org/ ! Mueller led the development of the famed Merlin engine and the new Raptor engine powering the new fully reusable Big Falcon Rocket. #SpaceX #ElonMusk #FalconHeavy #BFR
ALL DAY TOMORROW ON @CNBC: @MorganLBrennan has an exclusive look at @SpaceX, including a sitdown with President & COO Gwynne Shotwell. Starting 810amET on @SquawkCNBC
Tweet from Jodi Gralnick (https://twitter.com/jodigralnick/status/998692403241402368)QuoteALL DAY TOMORROW ON @CNBC: @MorganLBrennan has an exclusive look at @SpaceX, including a sitdown with President & COO Gwynne Shotwell. Starting 810amET on @SquawkCNBC
ALL DAY TOMORROW ON @CNBC: @MorganLBrennan has an exclusive look at @SpaceX, including a sitdown with President & COO Gwynne Shotwell. Starting 810amET on @SquawkCNBChttps://twitter.com/jodigralnick/status/998692403241402368
Tweet from Jodi Gralnick (https://twitter.com/jodigralnick/status/998692403241402368)QuoteALL DAY TOMORROW ON @CNBC: @MorganLBrennan has an exclusive look at @SpaceX, including a sitdown with President & COO Gwynne Shotwell. Starting 810amET on @SquawkCNBC
Too early. Has not spoken yet 8:30AM California time = 11:30AM Eastern time
Paul Wooster, Principal Mars Development Engineer, @SpaceX Will Address Mars Society Convention On SpaceX's Plans For Mars on August 25th
Could be BFR update?QuotePaul Wooster, Principal Mars Development Engineer, @SpaceX Will Address Mars Society Convention On SpaceX's Plans For Mars on August 25th
https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/92y2sn/paul_wooster_principal_mars_development_engineer/
Edit to add: according to draft convention schedule (http://www.marssociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Schedule_21st_Mars_Society_Convention.pdf) talk is at 9:30am.
A walk-on presentation was given by Paul Wooster of SpaceX which highlighted the recent successful test of the Falcon Heavy launch vehicle with its potentially very large payload capacity (100 metric tons). Using the Falcon Heavy and development of an even larger Big Falcon Rocket (BFR) launcher are the basis of their ambitious plans for the future exploration and colonization of Mars, potentially launching missions to Mars within the early 2020s. SpaceX’s current landing site candidates for Mars were shown, having been chosen to provide access to near-surface ice, few landing site hazards (such as large rocks), and enough space for potentially growing a sizeable outpost. The ice sites are in high mid-latitudes and the search for lower latitude candidates, which are preferred, continues. Previously, MEPAG had been told that SpaceX could transport for-fee payloads to the Mars surface. In response to questions, Paul iterated that there is likely to be capacity for secondary payloads on either the Falcon Heavy or BFR launchers, although details remain to be negotiated once the launcher capabilities are firmly established.
Is Musk not at IAC2018 this year?
The Air Force Air, Space & Cyber Conference next month has a spot carved out for "SpaceX Remarks" 17-Sep-2018.
https://www.afa.org/events/Conference/Agenda1 (https://www.afa.org/events/Conference/Agenda1)
Bezoz is a keynote speaker.
SpaceX President to Speak at AFA's Air, Space & Cyber Conference (https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/spacex-president-to-speak-at-afas-air-space--cyber-conference-300697733.html)
ARLINGTON, Va., Aug. 15, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Air Force Association (AFA) announced today that Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO of SpaceX, will provide a keynote address during AFA's 2018 Air, Space & Cyber Conference held September 17-19, 2018 in National Harbor, Md.
Shotwell joined SpaceX in 2002 as Vice President of Business Development and built the Falcon vehicle family manifest to more than 70 launches, representing more than $10 billion in business.
"Our Air Force needs to work closer with industry than ever to fulfill our space mission," said AFA President Gen Larry O. Spencer, USAF (Ret). "AFA's Air, Space & Cyber Conference is the perfect venue to facilitate strengthening that great partnership."
As the world's leading launch services provider, Shotwell will discuss partnering with the Air Force in space from the SpaceX perspective.
SpaceX achieved the first re-flight of an orbital class rocket in 2017, and the company now regularly launches flight-proven rockets. In 2018, SpaceX began launching Falcon Heavy, the world's most powerful operational rocket by a factor of two.
More than 9,000 attendees registered for the 2017 Air, Space & Cyber Conference, a 24 percent increase from the previous year. This year, the event will feature exhibits from 137 companies and organizations, displaying their latest technological advancements throughout the 100,000 square foot exposition hall.
Over 100 distinguished speakers will participate on more than 35 panels and sessions, including major addresses by Secretary of the Air Force Heather Wilson, Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein, and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Kaleth Wright.
Learn more and register for the 2018 Air, Space & Cyber Conference at www.afa.org/airspacecyber.
The Air Force Association is a non-profit, independent, professional military and aerospace education association. Our mission is to promote a dominant United States Air Force and a strong national defense, and to honor Airmen and our Air Force Heritage.
Paul Wooster, Principal Mars Development Engineer, SpaceX Will Address Mars Society Convention On SpaceX's Plans For Mars on August 25th, 9:30 AM
https://forums.teslarati.com/threads/paul-wooster-principal-mars-development-engineer-spacex-will-address-mars-society-convention.13005/
http://www.marssociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Schedule_21st_Mars_Society_Convention.pdf?mc_cid=7697afa7af&mc_eid=a2614453fb
Paul Wooster, Principal Mars Development Engineer, SpaceX Will Address Mars Society Convention On SpaceX's Plans For Mars on August 25th, 9:30 AMVideo-link?
https://forums.teslarati.com/threads/paul-wooster-principal-mars-development-engineer-spacex-will-address-mars-society-convention.13005/
http://www.marssociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Schedule_21st_Mars_Society_Convention.pdf?mc_cid=7697afa7af&mc_eid=a2614453fb
Paul Wooster, Principal Mars Development Engineer, SpaceX Will Address Mars Society Convention On SpaceX's Plans For Mars on August 25th, 9:30 AMVideo-link?
https://forums.teslarati.com/threads/paul-wooster-principal-mars-development-engineer-spacex-will-address-mars-society-convention.13005/
http://www.marssociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Schedule_21st_Mars_Society_Convention.pdf?mc_cid=7697afa7af&mc_eid=a2614453fb
Not a bad place. I've asked a few questions about TESS and Kilopower and am trying to think of some for Paul, but I think there's going to be some competition for that. It's the 30 minutes that a lot of people are here for.Paul Wooster, Principal Mars Development Engineer, SpaceX Will Address Mars Society Convention On SpaceX's Plans For Mars on August 25th, 9:30 AMVideo-link?
https://forums.teslarati.com/threads/paul-wooster-principal-mars-development-engineer-spacex-will-address-mars-society-convention.13005/
http://www.marssociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Schedule_21st_Mars_Society_Convention.pdf?mc_cid=7697afa7af&mc_eid=a2614453fb
Just go to www.marssociety.org (http://www.marssociety.org) home page. They have the streaming feed there.
Paul Wooster, Principal Mars Development Engineer, SpaceX Will Address Mars Society Convention On SpaceX's Plans For Mars on August 25th, 9:30 AM
Gwynne Shotwell in Madrid:"next week" - on a post on Thursday 30th.
https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/9bnya4/questions_for_gwynne_shotwell/
Is Elon supposed to be interviewed by Joe Rogan tonight?Yes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycPr5-27vSI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycPr5-27vSI)
So far all I've seen mentioned is that he drink whiskey and smoked a joint and people are freaking out about that. Joe Rogan annoys me and since you seem to have suffered through it can you report on anything else?...
This is so so so bad, I strongly recommend not watching this and just reading whatever articles come out of it tomorrow. Elon's Elon but the interviewer basically could not be any more useless.
It was a talk show, not an interview with a space journalist. It really wasn't SpaceX related, so not much reason to discuss it here. (I didn't think it was that bad, but I also didn't expect it to be the BFR update or anything like that.)
It was a talk show, not an interview with a space journalist. It really wasn't SpaceX related, so not much reason to discuss it here. (I didn't think it was that bad, but I also didn't expect it to be the BFR update or anything like that.)
Space got 16 mentions, rocket 7 mentions, and Mars 2 mentions. Doesn't appear to be anything new about SpaceX or BFR, so probably not even worth a splinter thread.
https://fluiddata.com/episode/view/139281611?term=rocket
https://fluiddata.com/episode/view/139281611?term=mars
https://fluiddata.com/episode/view/139281611?term=space
Shotwell: decline in GEO business is not a “crushing blow” for us. Seeing strong growth in DOD business, but also later with commercial crew: “7 billion potential payloads” #WSBW
Shotwell: Falcon 9 first stages come back in much better shape than anticipated. Have refurbishment time down to four weeks; goal is still a one-day turnaround next year. #WSBW
02:10
Before SpaceX even made orbit, customers were brought to the factory, and were excited to be a part of something different.
03:09
Q: "What's been the biggest challenge being in the industry that's so male-dominated?"
A: "I've been really lucky to work for companies where there wasn't an obvious bias. For sure at SpaceX. The only thing that matters at SpaceX is how good your work is. Sex, who you're sleeping with, whether you go church or not, what color is your skin, that doesn't matter."
04:30
Was in slippers and a robe in her hotel room for the launch, could rely on all 7,000 employees.
06:50
BFR will allow incredible flexibility. Could be used to retrieve a satellite in it's payload bay. BFR will allow people to work and live in space, and deploy technology that could not be previously. Will have an 8.5m diameter payload bay, which is "Big... big."
07:08
Will be an announcement soon on SpaceX tourism.
08:15
Q: "How will the recent discovery of liquid water on Mars change SpaceX's colonization strategy?
A: "There has to be water on Mars for our system to work, because it's a LOX/Methane system. Knowledge of liquid water on the surface definitely makes things more exciting, though.
09:30
Q: "What will SpaceX's relationship with the ESA look like?"
A: "We won't be going to Mars on our own, will be doing it on collaboration with NASA and the ESA. There's so many elements of the trip that we're not thinking about, that we're hoping other organizations pitch in. Living on the surface of Mars will be like extreme camping, for a hundred years."
11:30
A lot of Falcon 1 was made by other people, notably the structure/airframe. SpaceX wanted to own the engines, operations, and software. Electronics were 50/50.
Europe has quite good composite technology compared to the US, could be collaboration there.
14:15
We broke our HR team growing the company so fast. Will try not to do that again.
"I try to meet with every employee once a year/year and a half."
14:50
Q: "After Mars colonization, does SpaceX see itself being in charge of the politics/government?"
A: "We'll have to figure out what the right way to start a settlement on Mars is. I don't think we should be in charge of the government there."
16:20
Asteroid mining is an important business, but only to use as a capability to go further. Don't know if it'll ever be cost effective.
17:10
Tourism is inevitable, need to make sure we don't do it too soon. Bring up test pilots first, and families after.
18:35
Q: "How have you managed to keep a startup mentality in a company that's grown so big, especially in an industry that's generally moved in a bureaucratic way?"
A: "We're not as startup-y as we want to still be. Have had bureaucracy creep in, have tried to beat it back by engaging with employees. My suggestion box is really important. Employees know that if something's in their way, some dumb rule, that they're supposed to raise their hand and tell us. We do try to maintain that culture. The key is to continue to have really insanely ambitious goals. Every new project is a startup, even if the company isn't. Doing that next big thing is really hard, and it keeps people motivated."
20:00
Q: "How have US regulations limited the amount you can collaborate with other countries?"
A: "The State Department makes our lives very difficult from that perspective. There is almost no collaboration we can do, unless it's under the auspices of government-to-government agreements. Even hard to hire international employees. The US does not have a corner on the market of great engineers. We want to be able to hire talent wherever it sits."
23:00
Software team is relatively small, ~100 people.
Vast majority of the employees at SpaceX are technical. Tiny communications team, medium-ish sized finance team.
26:00
Putting people in space is incredibly important to humanity. Since the advent of SpaceX, everyone in the space industry is happy (except other launch providers). Everybody has dropped their price.
28:30
Q: "What is your relationship managing a company with Elon?" (Might have butchered this question, but I think that's what he meant.)
A: "Elon is my boss. He's the chairman of the board, primary shareholder. Just to be clear, I run the company the way he wants me to. We do divide our time. He focuses on technology and innovation, and I focus on day-to-day operations. I love working for Elon. I've worked for him for 16 years. He's funny, really smart, very straightforward. The media casts him in two ways: One that he's this god that no one gets near, which is also foolish, because he can be very down-to-earth. Or that he's this evil person, which is also ridiculous. He just wants to do great things for people. He started SpaceX because he wanted to go to Mars, and he didn't see that any other organization was going to go do it. He's an extraordinary man. I would not want to be him, by the way. Anything you do. Anything! Shows up in the media, it's ridiculous. You can't live your life that way."
32:30
Question from r/SpaceX!
Q: "How will ITAR work with BFR Earth-to-Earth? (He uses landing at Shanghai as an example)"
A: "We'll land on our own platform that's out at sea. Largely because cities probably won't want something hovering over their billion dollar buildings. It's also very loud. (Notably sonic booms.) Will land in international waters."
Q: He also asks how women at SpaceX balance work and family, maternity leave, etc. "Rocketry is known as a man's field."
A: "I didn't know rockets were a man's business. That's new to me. [Laughter and applause]
"Sorry, that was bad phrasing. My bad!"
"It's okay! We have extraordinary women at SpaceX. We do give them maternity leave. We give baby bonding leave to fathers as leave. What we try to do is just be fair. Women get more time off, of course. In fact, our retention rate for women is higher than our retention rate for men. So we've clearly created an environment in which women are comfortable. 22% of our new interns are female.
35:00
Q: "You've said that travel to mars will be available within the next decade. Will people with absurd ambitions to work on Mars be able to in that time? (She's an architecture student, so she uses that as her example)"
A: "Yes." [Laughter] "Something terrible will have to happen in SpaceX for us to not be on our way to Mars and back in 10 years."
36:30
Q: "What characteristics do you look for when hiring a new engineer?"
A: "People who can work on a ship, and are very good working large mechanical structures as well as electronics. Will need a lot of builders, and very creative people."
Q: "What to people need to do to prepare for a future trip to mars?" (In terms of health, skills, etc)
A: "Mechanical people, people good with electronics, people who know how to make methane from Martian regolith, that would be great."
Q: "What about soft skills?"
A: "Soft skills are great, especially during the journey. It'll be like you're in a large aircraft for 3-6 months. We need to make sure that we know how to do that and we aren't putting everyone to sleep, so you'll be interacting. I think it will be fantastic. There will be windows. Lots of windows." [Laughter]
39:00
Q: Something about suborbital flight, I can't hear him too clearly. When will suborbital business be happening?
A: "Blue is working on it, along with Virgin. They're just trying to make the system safe and reliable. Blue has a little bit more technology to go. Virgin I think is just trying to do it safely. Because they go right to tourists. They're not taking astronauts/test pilots. They're going right to regular population. Although, sort of "regular", you need $200,000 to spend on the five minutes of suborbital flight. They say that they're going to do it this year, I think that it's a year, maybe two, away."
Q: Something something "SpaceX" I think he was talking about BFR for suborbital flight.
A: "Oh, you mean that? Well, I need that new rocket. I think we're going to fly that new rocket in 2021... and we never make our deadlines. [Laughter] It will be the first half of next decade.
Q: "Are there any links between SpaceX and Elon's other companies?" (Not verbatim, but something along those lines)
A: "There are some synergies between them. We use Tesla batteries in our technology. We gave Tesla our enterprise information system. I think the first cars on Mars will be Teslas. I also think that we're be boring tunnels on Mars to live in. — Talking to the architecture student from earlier — "One of your mediums of expertise has to be rock." [Laughter]
Q: Last question, can't make out what she asks unfortunately.
A: Talks about her technical background, and her love for people. Thinks her people skills have been a greater characteristic than her technical background.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWPaopcU_hE
Transcript (https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/9eysmj/september_10th_gwynne_shotwell_qa_session_45min/e5t88c9) from reddit thanks to Jack Lishman (https://www.reddit.com/user/jclishman):
The Air Force Air, Space & Cyber Conference next month has a spot carved out for "SpaceX Remarks" 17-Sep-2018.
https://www.afa.org/events/Conference/Agenda1 (https://www.afa.org/events/Conference/Agenda1)
Bezoz is a keynote speaker.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell: ‘We would launch a weapon to defend the U.S.’
by Sandra Erwin — September 17, 2018
During an appearance on Monday at the Air Force Association’s annual symposium, Shotwell was thrown a question she said she had never heard before: “Would SpaceX launch military weapons?”
I hate headlines that are written just based on a response to a leading question like that.Same. I would’ve expected that from a different publication. In any case, I’m happy with her response to the question.
AIAA Space 2018, Commercial Crew — The Newest Ride to LEO
Tuesday, Sept 18th 1400–1530 EDT
MODERATOR: Kathy Lueders, Program Manager, Commercial Crew Program, NASA
PANELISTS:
John Mulholland, Vice President and Program Manager, Commercial Crew Programs, Space Exploration, The Boeing Company
Benjamin Reed, Director, Commercial Crew Mission Management, SpaceX
Dont seem to be livestreamed, but will be uploaded later.
As you probably all know, tomorrow Hans Koenigsmann is going to speak during IAC.
However, today there was a meeting with Hans at the University of Bremen booth, where he was speaking about starting a career in the space sector. It was announced on the @IAC2018 Twitter account just 2,5h before the meeting, so there weren't actually many people attending. I know the quality of the sound is not that great, but it was in the Exhibition Hall, where many people where passing by and talking, so it's the best we could get.
Press Conference for #dearMoon with @yousuck2020 @fccjapan on October 9th 11:30am - 12:30pm in Tokyo. Live Stream information to follow. http://www.fccj.or.jp/events-calendar/press-events/icalrepeat.detail/2018/10/09/5084/30/press-conference-yusaku-maezawa-dearmoon-host-curator-entrepreneur-and-ceo-of-zozo.html?filter_reset=1 …
As you probably all know, tomorrow Hans Koenigsmann is going to speak during IAC.
However, today there was a meeting with Hans at the University of Bremen booth, where he was speaking about starting a career in the space sector. It was announced on the @IAC2018 Twitter account just 2,5h before the meeting, so there weren't actually many people attending. I know the quality of the sound is not that great, but it was in the Exhibition Hall, where many people where passing by and talking, so it's the best we could get.
Yes, it has been removed on an IAC organizers request (I guess they noticed it because it was embedded on our website that we were accredited through). I received a message to remove it because it's unsolicited and unauthorized and because the frame was not intended for publication. I had not realized earlier that these should not be published, as there had been no clear rules posted anywhere.Shame on them for not being clearer but once you knew, you did what they wanted. ... Full marks and thank you for doing the right thing.
4:45PM Check-Inhttps://www.rawlsisa.org/spacex
5:00PM SpaceX Presentation
5:45PM Questions and Answers
Gwynne’s chat with Matt Desch: https://youtube.com/watch?v=KjpAep8BWMw
Gwynne’s chat with Matt Desch: https://youtube.com/watch?v=KjpAep8BWMw
Dang it, it's been deleted. Anyone got another source for the video?
Hofeller: SpaceX is interested in doing dedicated rideshare missions like SSO-A on a regular basis. Would be great to do them one or two times a year. #smallsat2019
Hofeller says SpaceX will be rolling out a “more formalized” smallsat launch plan in the near future. #smallsat2019
Dava Newman welcomes Gwynne Shotwell to MIT. Gwynne is giving a talk here in 10-250
Gwynne gave an inspiring talk about SpaceX. Nice discussion of Starship point-to-point. I also appreciated her straightforward acknowledgement of past failures among the successes, a refreshing break from corporate-speak.
Great to see @GwynneShotwell at MIT today! She says 18 months until Starship flies and <5 years until @SpaceX puts cargo on Mars.
Not upcoming, but Paul Wooster gave two talks at the 2019 Humans to Mars Summit a few weeks ago. https://h2m.exploremars.org/
Human Exploration Extensibility from Moon to Mars. Fairly standard overview of SpaceX vehicles, but with more of a lunar emphasis than I've seen before. Paul starts at 00:23:00.
Living off the Land: In-Situ Resource Utilization. Paul starts at 7:35:45 in the long stream. Not sure if anything there is new information, but I learned some things.
https://livestream.com/viewnow/HumanstoMars2019/videos/191286998
(Just the ISRU session) https://livestream.com/viewnow/HumanstoMars2019/videos/191337604
-Bob
Not upcoming, but Paul Wooster gave two talks at the 2019 Humans to Mars Summit a few weeks ago. https://h2m.exploremars.org/
Stark contrast between NASA SLS architecture and plans for moon and Mars vs. SpaceX to say the least. Seeing so many SLS rockets on that master slide made me cringe; if SLS flies that many times, that's going to a large portion of the entire NASA budget. It amazes me that those two presenters could keep a straight face and discuss two approaches that are diametrically opposed. One obviates the other to such an extent that you're comparing different generations of technology, separated by 50 years. Apollo (not even Shuttle because SLS is a throw-away step backward) vs. New Space.
Humans are the best autonomous systems we have.
Unless you make human support systems cheaper. Moore’s Law has nearly flatlined.Humans are the best autonomous systems we have.
OK, maybe the best. But humans will be way too expensive as autonomous systems get better.
Not upcoming, but Paul Wooster gave two talks at the 2019 Humans to Mars Summit a few weeks ago. https://h2m.exploremars.org/
Thanks for posting. Here are corresponding YouTube links for Paul's talks:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAmARauyhBQ?t=1379
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAmARauyhBQ?t=27346
4. The current exercise regimen used on ISS has entirely stopped bone loss due to zero-g, so bone loss is no longer an issue in terms of flight to Mars, thanks to ISS.
4. The current exercise regimen used on ISS has entirely stopped bone loss due to zero-g, so bone loss is no longer an issue in terms of flight to Mars, thanks to ISS.
That sounds like a major surprise to me. My impression has always been they can avoid muscle loss, but not loss of bone density and structure. Does osteoporosis medication play a major role there?
Su27k's assertion is a common misinterpretation of the data that has caused much confusion. Repeating what I learnt in a NASA talk at IAC 2017:Su27k didn't make any assertions. He summarized statements from Dr. Garrett Erin Reisman, a former astronaut currently working for SpaceX.
SpaceX’s Koenigsmann: We have Falcon Heavy as the product for cargo services in support of NASA’s Artemis program. Falcon 9 will soon be able to provide crew transportation, too. Then we’ll phase in new vehicles like Starship.
SpaceX’s Koenigsmann on Starship: “We clearly want to innovate, and it's hard to innovate in this industry. I'm not sure what it is, but there's a certain amount of resistance for continuous innovation.” Can use F9 and Dragon to test Starship technology, and vice versa.
#SpaceX's Koenigsmann on Starship: "It's hard to innovate in this industry. There's a certain amount of resistance to continuous innovation." Says in order to do it properly, you have to have a solid fleet flying while developing new hardware on the side.
Hansen really justifies reuse and high tempo, with crew flying once a month, in order to reach high reliability. How to get to that tempo he punted being heads down on getting crew dragon past the first couple human flights. But that's in stark contrast to the others, at 1-2 per year. All agreed ISS is needed to incubate commercial/tourist human flight.
Does anyone know what time Elon Musk will start his presentation on Saturday?It was just posted in another thread it will be at 7PM central.
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1178058268331012096 (https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1178058268331012096)Don't know if I can trust "Ed the Sock," he seems to be a sock puppet. :-) ;D :P
Our first guest speaker is Gwynne Shotwell, COO of @SpaceX #visioneering
The slides for Paul Wooster’s talk are now available:Nice high resolution images!
https://h2m.exploremars.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/0515_0850_Pwooster.pdf
According to @SpaceNews_Inc, Gwynne Shotwell of SpaceX will be on a panel today (Wed 10/16) at the annual meeting of The Association of the United States Army in Washington DC. ausameetings.org/2019annualmeet…
(*Uncertain at this time if there will be coverage. Will update as necessary.)
SpaceX sees U.S. Army as possible customer for Starlink and Starship
by Sandra Erwin — October 16, 2019
From Paul Wooster's Mars Society presentation:
Video of Wooster's Mars Society presentation. Q&A.
https://twitter.com/bluemoondance74/status/1184504734448795648QuoteAccording to @SpaceNews_Inc, Gwynne Shotwell of SpaceX will be on a panel today (Wed 10/16) at the annual meeting of The Association of the United States Army in Washington DC. ausameetings.org/2019annualmeet…
(*Uncertain at this time if there will be coverage. Will update as necessary.)
https://ausameetings.org/2019annualmeeting/events/list/?tribe_paged=1&tribe_event_display=past
A few points from Paul’s talk that struck me (in order they occurred; by no means a comprehensive list):
Building right now the capability to manufacture large quantities of the heat shield tiles material
Raptor tests have been up to 105% power
Mk 1 prototype is for testing landing sequence
Mentioned static fires for Mk 1
Acceleration for entry from LEO is 2 to 3g. Entry on return from Mars is limited to 5g, even with the fast transit times SpaceX are aiming for.
Cargo missions to Mars in 2022 ‘still on the table’.
Possibility of some ablative component to the heat shield for high velocity (e.g. Mars return) re-entries. Given frequency of such missions not such a need for super high reuse.
#SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell is in the house at #IAC2019 for an "Industry Story Telling" panel.
We'll livestream on Instagram:
Scheduled for 10:20 AM EDT
instagram.com/superclusterhq/
Gwynne Shotwell talk on youtube
.@SpaceX President/ COO Gwynne Shotwell speaking to Baron Funds CEO/ CIO Ron Baron at the annual Baron Investment Conference at the @MetOpera
Conf details: baronfunds.com/baron-conferen…
(Be sure to see full thread below)
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell was more candid in her comments today about competitors than I've ever heard before, laying out at investor conference what @elonmusk's company thinks of Blue Origin, OneWeb, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
SpaceX president knocks Bezos’ Blue Origin: ‘They have a billion dollars of free money every year’
PUBLISHED 9 MIN AGO
Michael Sheetz @THESHEETZTWEETZ
KEY POINTS
SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell spoke candidly at an investor conference in New York City on Friday.
“They have a billion dollars of free money every year from him,” Shotwell said of SpaceX’s competitor Blue Origin and its founder Jeff Bezos.
Shotwell also claimed SpaceX’s internet network Starlink is far ahead of Softbank-banked OneWeb, saying “we have far more capacity per satellite than our competitors.”
These are clearly not off-the-cuff remarks, I do wonder why now?I see 2 reasons:
I see 2 reasons:
1. Up until now Shotwell has made many conservative statements about Starlink being experimental and having to see how it works out. With 1 full load deployed on orbit for months, and them being about to start launching production satellites monthly or more starting within weeks, they are now past the crucial decision point. They have finished the initial studies and can now make definitive statements. (Not that they aren't still developing, and making improvements as they go.)
2. The audience appears to have been investors. To proceed with the pace of launches they have planned, it wouldn't be strange if they will look for some investment to keep things moving smoothly.
As I’ve said many times now, it is in SpaceX’s interest to crush any and all competition, whether it be in the smallsat market, heavy launch market or orbital constellation market.You have that backwards. Musk has made it clear on multiple occasions if someone stepped forward to compete with them. His goals are not about making a profit, but colonizing Mars and expanding humans into the solar system. That cannot sustainably be driven and supported by a single company.
You have that backwards. Musk has made it clear on multiple occasions if someone stepped forward to compete with them. His goals are not about making a profit, but colonizing Mars and expanding humans into the solar system. That cannot sustainably be driven and supported by a single company.
You have that backwards. Musk has made it clear on multiple occasions if someone stepped forward to compete with them. His goals are not about making a profit, but colonizing Mars and expanding humans into the solar system. That cannot sustainably be driven and supported by a single company.
I like Elon Musk and his companies as much as the next superfan. But I think we can be honest and recognize that Elon does want to make lots and lots of profits. Don't always buy into the PR on altruism. Profits and access to massive amounts of fresh capital are the only way to fulfill his goals. He has Tesla and SpaceX give him very large stock option packages every few years (approx 5% of the company each time). Elon definitely is in this for the money also.
In fact, the entire reason they started Starlink is because in 2012 Elon and his board of directors recognized that their customers (commercial Satellite operators) have much higher profit margins and way more revenue than the rocket launch companies.
Elon has no problem wiping out multiple other satellite operators, even though they are also his customers. Frankly, if Starlink becomes fully operational, it could make even the satellites in geosynchronous orbit far less profitable by stealing some of their customers. Broadband LEO constellations can do many of the same things (only faster) that those slow high orbit sats are doing right now.
As I’ve said many times now, it is in SpaceX’s interest to crush any and all competition, whether it be in the smallsat market, heavy launch market or orbital constellation market.You have that backwards. Musk has made it clear on multiple occasions if someone stepped forward to compete with them. His goals are not about making a profit, but colonizing Mars and expanding humans into the solar system. That cannot sustainably be driven and supported by a single company.
Crushing the competition is just a side effect of the fact that no one else is moving forward fast enough compared to them. One Web's constellation is too small and expensive for its size. SpaceX is dropping costs for big rockets so low that they can beat out much smaller rockets on a per launch price. Others will have to innovate faster to keep up or they need to get out of the way so that others who can keep up can fill the gap.
Shotwell has stated (https://spacenews.com/spacex-plans-to-start-offering-starlink-broadband-services-in-2020/) about Stalink: “If we do well and make money, there will be competitors.” She knows they won't crush all competition, but the other competitors are going to have to do better than what is currently being shown to truly compete.
SpaceX wants to colonize Mars. That will cost billions - probably trillions, in fact. To do that, launch revenues aren’t enough. That’s why they started Starlink. But to get to the point where Starlink can generate the tens of billions per year that it promises, it needs a lot of upfront investment. So SpaceX needs to get through the next 2-3 years by whatever means necessary. And if that means killing the competition to do so, that’s exactly what they will do.
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/31/spacex-valuation-33point3-billion-after-starlink-satellites-fundraising.html
While SpaceX’s annual launch revenue is estimated at about $2 billion, Musk sees that topping out at $3 billion in the coming years. But Starlink he said could bring in revenue of “more like $30 billion a year.”
“Total internet connectivity revenue in the world is about $1 trillion and we think maybe we can access about 3%” with Starlink, Musk said.
It's interesting that they are estimating based on existing Internet customers and not mentioning service to new markets such as the currently underserved and not served peoples of the world.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is the "surprise guest" for #AFSpacePitchDay in San Francisco, speaking at 11:30 a.m. PT (19:30 UTC). More to come!
Photo via @amanda_m_macias
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk speaking at #AFSpacePitchDay in San Fancisco
Livestream via @maxhaot:
And that's a wrap. Pretty anodyne stuff but some good customer relationship management for SpaceX
A single Starship will expend about $900,00 worth of fuel and oxygen for pressurization to send “at least 100 tons, probably 150 tons to orbit,” Musk said. SpaceX’s cost to operate Starship will be around $2 million per flight, which is “much less than even a tiny rocket,” he added.
Couple of Starship snippets:QuoteA single Starship will expend about $900,00 worth of fuel and oxygen for pressurization to send “at least 100 tons, probably 150 tons to orbit,” Musk said. SpaceX’s cost to operate Starship will be around $2 million per flight, which is “much less than even a tiny rocket,” he added.
https://spacenews.com/elon-musk-space-pitch-day/
Couple of Starship snippets:QuoteA single Starship will expend about $900,00 worth of fuel and oxygen for pressurization to send “at least 100 tons, probably 150 tons to orbit,” Musk said. SpaceX’s cost to operate Starship will be around $2 million per flight, which is “much less than even a tiny rocket,” he added.
https://spacenews.com/elon-musk-space-pitch-day/
What's that number? $900 (most probably not), $90K or $900K (missing a zero)?
Google English:
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://www.handelsblatt.com/technik/forschung-innovation/spacex-chefingenieur-im-interview-die-lage-deutschlands-ist-eine-herausforderung-fuer-raketenstarts/25190580.html&prev=search
Google English:
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=https://www.handelsblatt.com/technik/forschung-innovation/spacex-chefingenieur-im-interview-die-lage-deutschlands-ist-eine-herausforderung-fuer-raketenstarts/25190580.html&prev=search
Video of Elon’s chat. Not sure how much us missing from start and sound quality is poor at times but does include Elon’s remarks on Starship (which are about 15 mins in).
youtube.com/watch?v=77bJEJawMAQ
Video of Elon’s chat. Not sure how much us missing from start and sound quality is poor at times but does include Elon’s remarks on Starship (which are about 15 mins in).
youtube.com/watch?v=77bJEJawMAQ
Heres the complete chat:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS3nIyetS4I
Elon Musk to Keynote Air Force Association's Air Warfare Symposium
Press Release From: Air Force Association
Posted: Monday, January 6, 2020
Elon Musk, SpaceX’s Chief Engineer, will participate in a fireside chat with Gen. John W. “Jay” Raymond, Chief of Space Operations, during the Air Force Association’s 2020 Air Warfare Symposium, Feb. 26 – 28.
“We are honored to welcome Mr. Musk, a brilliant entrepreneur and engineer to speak at one of the premier Air Force leadership events for defense and aerospace professionals around the world,” said AFA President Lt. Gen. Bruce “Orville” Wright, USAF (Ret).
This year’s symposium theme, “Multi-Domain Operations: Vision to Reality” will be held at the Rosen Shingle Creek Hotel in Orlando. Distinguished speakers will present more than 12 panels and sessions, including major addresses by Secretary of the Air Force Barbara Barrett, Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein, and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Kaleth Wright.
Learn more and register for the 2020 Air Warfare Symposium.
// end //
Don't know who this guy is, but he is the best Elon interviewer ever. Asks good questions, waits patiently until Elon formulates his answer and spits it out, listens and understands answers, and bases next question on that understanding.
Nearly 3 hour interview with Hans Koenigsmann in GermanReddit user Ti-Z has translated the main points of the interview here (https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/epzayc/german_raumzeit_podcast_with_hans_koenigsmann/feobsfz/). There are some interesting notes, but most of it is known.
https://raumzeit-podcast.de/2020/01/17/rz083-spacex/
Not sure if anybody would be interested in a translation or if Raumzeit would approve this..
Nearly 3 hour interview with Hans Koenigsmann in GermanReddit user Ti-Z has translated the main points of the interview here (https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/epzayc/german_raumzeit_podcast_with_hans_koenigsmann/feobsfz/). There are some interesting notes, but most of it is known.
https://raumzeit-podcast.de/2020/01/17/rz083-spacex/
Not sure if anybody would be interested in a translation or if Raumzeit would approve this..
Nearly 3 hour interview with Hans Koenigsmann in GermanReddit user Ti-Z has translated the main points of the interview here (https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/epzayc/german_raumzeit_podcast_with_hans_koenigsmann/feobsfz/). There are some interesting notes, but most of it is known.
https://raumzeit-podcast.de/2020/01/17/rz083-spacex/
Not sure if anybody would be interested in a translation or if Raumzeit would approve this..
While most might be known, I found it really informative to have it all talked about in one sitting. Plus some of the interesting notes were *very* interesting.
Would it be bad form to copy that summery here for prosperity's sake?
And context. Who was he addressing?
I asked to poster to add credit and context, which he’s now done.And context. Who was he addressing?
Must have been a general event. At 5:01 he mentions a previous presentation from Colonel Henderson which is probably Scott Henderson (https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-henderson-0625b831/), previously SpaceX's director of Mission Assurance and Integration and now Orbital Launch Director at Blue Origin.
Time frame must have been between 01/20 (after the IFA) and before 01/26 (before Starlink 3 slipped to 1/29).
I asked to poster to add credit and context, which he’s now done.
at 7:15: Price of F9 recoverable: 30 Million (I think he means cost, as price is what the customer pays and cost is what SpaceX spends on it)
Was watching this at 1:40 eastern time on February 2nd, it went private one third of the way through. Oh well.Yeah, it just stopped in the middle of the presentation while I was watching it. I guess that's what happened to me, too.
at 7:15: Price of F9 recoverable: 30 Million (I think he means cost, as price is what the customer pays and cost is what SpaceX spends on it)
At 23:50 he mentions a $28 million cost. As you say, he seems to be mixing up price and cost a lot. If that's the price, then wow...
Was watching this at 1:40 eastern time on February 2nd, it went private one third of the way through. Oh well.Yeah, it just stopped in the middle of the presentation while I was watching it. I guess that's what happened to me, too.
The whole recorded bit of the presentation was only twenty something minutes (28, by memory), and it did stop abruptly, even before it was made private (I watched it before one o'clock).
Was watching this at 1:40 eastern time on February 2nd, it went private one third of the way through. Oh well.Yeah, it just stopped in the middle of the presentation while I was watching it. I guess that's what happened to me, too.
Join me live from 10-11am CST for the Brownsville 2030 Space City panel discussion with @STARSocietyRGV and @SpaceX
https://twitter.com/waynehale/status/1233047419870380033
SpaceX @elonmusk onstage at #AWS2020 for fireside chat with @SMC_CC Gets rousing ovation
Musk: the creation of the Space Force is cool. It makes sense there’s a branch for every domain
Musk: we can make Starfleet real but we have to make radical innovations. We won’t get there with expendable rockets
Musk: US has to create breakthrough innovation , incremental is not good enough #AWS2020
Musk: US has to innovate or it will be second in space. How ? Reusability is extremely fundamental for assured access to space
Musk: vehicle we’re working on #starship is the holy grail which is full reusability #AWS2020
Musk: it would be good to have other companies develop competing reusable vehicles like Starship . He mentions the F-35. Would be nice to have competition ... hmmmm
Musk: failure has to be an option . What you want is to reward success but there should be minor consequences for trying and not suceeding. And major consequences for not trying #AWS2020
Musk: volume production and volume launch of a reusable system is super super hard. Not reusable like the Space Shuttle. Has to be agile like an aircraft. Shuttle too expensive #AWS2020
Musk: building a city in Mars will require fully reusable vehicles to lift 5 million tons of cargo #AWS2020
Musk: Starlink satellites are being produced faster than we can launch them. We need Starship for launch costs to come down #AWS2020
Musk: in the next five years one of the most transformative technologies will be AI . I tell young people to study computer science and physics #AWS2020
Musk at #AWS2020 on an incentive structure for amping innovation: innovation is awarded [rewarded?] and lack of innovation is punished. "If someone is completely failing to innovate... then they should either not be promoted or exited. And let me tell you, you’ll get innovation real fast."
Musk: Designing a rocket is "a piece of cake." The hard part is producing it and launching frequently.
Rapid reuse is essential. Not like the Shuttle, whose turnaround was slow and incomplete.
Musk: Starlink production is going well, "we made many iterations on Starlink prototypes... Now the sats are being launched [produced?] at a rate faster than we can launch them" and the cost has gone down, and will keep coming down as we design improvement.
Musk says SpaceX will need to use Starship to launch the full Starlink constellation rapidly.
On satellite design, Musk says it's important to blend design with the manufacturing process. "We brought up the Starlink production line before we had the design finalized."
Musk: When you have assured low cost access to space other technologies will be enabled. Many things are possible once the transport problem is solved . Establishing a self sustaining base on Mars opens opportunities #AWS2020
Musk: the future of air warfare is in autonomous drone warfare. But we still want to retain authority with a person in the loop. The fighter jet era has passed #AWS2020
Musk: how do we protect our IP at Tesla? We don’t . We have open source patents . IP protection is done by innovating rapidly and staying ahead of competitors #AWS2020
Musk: China has a lot of smart hard working people. They’re going to do a lot of interesting things. China’s economy is going to be at least twice or three times the size of the US economy #AWS2020
Musk: in order for US to be militarily competitive with China we need radical innovation. At SpaceX we have an incentive structure so big mistakes don’t come with a big penalty but not trying is worse #AWS20
Musk: final message to #AWS20 ‘we have to make starfleet happen’ while we’re still alive. Try to make it happen ASAP
the future of air warfare is in autonomous drone warfare. But we still want to retain authority with a person in the loop. The fighter jet era has passedThat can't have made the fighter cabal happy. Elon is treading on some Air Force toes there.
That can't have made the fighter cabal happy. Elon is treading on some Air Force toes there.
I’m excited to announce I’ll be hosting a panel about whether humans should explore the moon or Mars next at @sxsw this year (assuming it’s not canceled) Check out our awesome panel featuring @SpaceX’s Hans Koeningsmann, @TheSpaceGal and @AmyShiraTeitel!
2020 EVENT UPDATE
City of Austin Cancels SXSW March Events
The City of Austin has cancelled the March dates for SXSW and SXSW EDU. SXSW will faithfully follow the City’s directions.
We are devastated to share this news with you. “The show must go on” is in our DNA, and this is the first time in 34 years that the March event will not take place. We are now working through the ramifications of this unprecedented situation.
As recently as Wednesday, Austin Public Health stated that “there’s no evidence that closing SXSW or any other gatherings will make the community safer.” However, this situation evolved rapidly, and we honor and respect the City of Austin’s decision. We are committed to do our part to help protect our staff, attendees, and fellow Austinites.
We are exploring options to reschedule the event and are working to provide a virtual SXSW online experience as soon as possible for 2020 participants, starting with SXSW EDU. For our registrants, clients, and participants we will be in touch as soon as possible and will publish an FAQ.
We understand the gravity of the situation for all the creatives who utilize SXSW to accelerate their careers; for the global businesses; and for Austin and the hundreds of small businesses – venues, theatres, vendors, production companies, service industry staff, and other partners that rely so heavily on the increased business that SXSW attracts.
We will continue to work hard to bring you the unique events you love. Though it’s true that our March 2020 event will no longer take place in the way that we intended, we continue to strive toward our purpose – helping creative people achieve their goals.
Hofeller also mentions the development of Starship, noting that SpaceX will talk more about that rocket "later today" (i.e., Musk's keynote)
A half hour after the ten-minute warning, we get the five-minute warning for Musk’s talk. #SATSHOW
Elon is delayed - talk now expected to start at half past (so about 16 minutes)
Edit to add:
https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1237113117328527363QuoteA half hour after the ten-minute warning, we get the five-minute warning for Musk’s talk. #SATSHOW
We’re excited to announce that @ElonMusk is doing an AMA this Friday at 1pm PT / 4pm ET with Hack Club students! 🚀🛰☀️🚘🧠🕳
Follow us at @hackclub we'll post a link to the livestream 20 min before the AMA starts so you can tune in!
Here is the AMA: https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/gxb7j1/we_are_the_spacex_software_team_ask_us_anything/
Post your questions there, they will be answered tomorrow!
We are the SpaceX software team, ask us anything!
Hi r/spacex
We're a few of the SpaceX team members who helped develop and deploy software that flew Dragon and powered the touchscreen displays on our human spaceflight demonstration mission (aka Crew Demo-2). Now that Bob and Doug are on board the International Space Station and Dragon is in a quiescent state, we are here to answer any questions you might have about Dragon, software and working at SpaceX.
**We are**:
* Jeff Dexter - I run Flight Software and Cybersecurity at SpaceX
* Josh Sulkin - I am the software design lead for Crew Dragon
* Wendy Shimata - I manage the Dragon software team and worked fault tolerance and safety on Dragon
* John Dietrick - I lead the software development effort for Demo-2
* Sofian Hnaide - I worked on the Crew Displays software for Demo-2
* Matt Monson - I used to work on Dragon, and now lead Starlink software
We'll be here answering your questions on Saturday, June 6 from 12:00 to 1:30pm PT.
The event has started, many questions already answered!
What is the single craziest/most impossible thing management (aka Elon) has asked you to do?
spacexfsw Official SpaceX
27 minutes ago
I recall for F9-14 I was in Elon's cube telling him the news that there was no way we could get all of the new S1 landing code done in time for the upcoming launch in 2 weeks. After some thought, he looked over to Lars Blackmore who was there with us and asked if we implement the code, what was our probability of landing. Lars said around 90%. Paraphrasing, Elon looked at us and basically said "can you give me 50%". I said in 2 weeks we can definitely write enough of the logic to get to a 50% probability of landing! We didn't land F9-14 (you can see it on our blooper reel) but we learned a LOT from it, and it was instrumental in eventually landing F9-21. A critical part of our success is our willingness to fail in ways that won't compromise the mission, as long as we are constantly learning from our failures. - Jeff
Congrats for the huge achievement, and thanks for doing this AMA!
1. What is the most used programming language for developing the F9 and Dragon software? Is it C or C++?
2. What programming paradigm are you using to develop the software for F9 and Dragon? Procedural, Object Oriented, Functional, a combination?
3. Are you using any open source software (I am mostly referring to libraries)? If the answer is "yes", which one is used the most (or the most important/relevant)? If the answer is "no", do you at least use the standard library provided by the language (e.g. C++ STL), or is everything implemented in-house?
4. How do you perform error detection and correction during flight?
5. Is the software composed of small (sometimes independent) modules, or is everything integrated in one big module? For example, how tight is the integration of the Crew Dragon GNC module with the module that handles the Crew Dragon environment (pressure, oxygen level, temperature etc.)?
6. If you were to delete the entire codebase, how much time do you estimate it would take to reimplement everything from scratch (having the current team and the accumulated know-how)? 1 year? 5 years? 10 years? Do you think the result would be better than the current implementation? What would you do different from what is currently done?
7. Maybe a bit related to #6: how often do you completely reimplement a module in order to make it better (faster/cleaner/safer etc.), instead of refactoring existing code?
Congratulations on the successful launch of an amazing spacecraft! Here are my Questions 1. Please give a very high level overview of the control program of Falcon9 and Dragon. What kind of communication links used in between Dragon and Falcon9?
1. Does the control software running on Falcon9 is a custom build made for mission (LEO Satellite launch, ISS resupply etc)? Or it's the same base software with different set of parameters/goals/scripts?
2. How does AFTS software work?
3. Please name a few open source software used for Falcon/Dragon other than Linux kernel and Chromium
4. Do software engineering teams of Falcon/Dragon play any role on the actual launch day?
Thanks a lot guys. Keep up the amazing work. All the best!
How do you address technical debt within your organization? Does the constant pressure to deliver that Elon companies are famous for prevent you from going back and revisiting past designs?
Do you track performance of your code? I'd imagine it's a critical design parameter for an embedded software system with critical timing constrains like yours, so I'm wondering how your approach compares to something like the videogame industry, where such a practice is common but likely not as rigorous as what would be required for spaceflight.
What level of rigor is being put into starlink security? How can we, as normal citizens, become comfortable with the idea of a private company flying thousands of internet satellites in a way that's safe enough for them to not be remote controlled by a bad actor? This has potential multi-generation impacts if your team gets this wrong, so it would be awesome if you could speak publicly about the strategy.
Hi! Congratulations on the picture-perfect launch of Bob and Doug!
1. It's known that Crew Dragon displays are running Chromium and JS. Are you using a reactive library, and if so, is that developed in-house or is it an existing library/framework?
2. Was the docking simulator developed by the Crew Displays software team itself, or was it a separate project?
3. In some shots of mission control, I noticed UI very similar to the displays in Crew Dragon. Can the exact same crew display software be served from a server on the ground, feeding off of live telemetry from Dragon while in flight? If so, can/will this software be used to monitor Cargo Dragon as well on future flights?
4. Is there any chance of getting high-resolution screenshots of the crew displays? It's hands-down the prettiest UI I've ever seen in aerospace.
5. One regarding Starlink: how did creating the Crew Display software affect the development of the Starlink interface for SpaceX operations (map views, data visualizations, etc.)?
Thanks for the AMA!
SpaceX is known for its hardware-in-the-loop testing:
* What fraction (roughly) of SWE person-hours go into developing these systems?
* What does the development cycle for flight simulators look like (for the Falcon systems, say)? How frequently are they updated based on telemetry? What's the hardest part of the launch cycle to model?
* With a few hundred starlink satellites in orbit, are there parts of individual or constellation operation that you've come to realize are not well covered in testing?
* How far down into physics do the starlink tests go? E.g. if you're trying to estimate latencies for inter-satellite or satellite-ground communication, can you treat the radio channels as a black box, or do you try to model the phased array operation as well?
I'm also curious about computing hardware - SpaceX is famous for building components in-house. With Starlink eyeing tens of thousands of satellites in earth orbit, are there any areas where custom ASICs would be cheaper than COTS solutions? Are there instances of components that are "over-engineered" to the Starlink ~< 10 year lifespan (perhaps for radiation tolerance) that could be rebuilt for a significant cost savings?
Finally, any insights you have on system design (hardware + software from physics level up) for packet delivery with minimal latency would be fascinating.
Thanks very much in advance!
Could you talk about how Crew Dragon touch screens used Chromium and what challenges that created? What fault-tolerant measures were taken (when such a large underlying codebase powers it) and what efforts went into rad hardening? Was this a good choice in hindsight, and will the same web-based approach go into Starship in the future? What was the user experience (UX) process like with design and user testing?
(I'm a frontend web developer/UX designer/graphics programmer/3D artist/graphic designer straddling the design and engineering disciplines, and it's been my dream to work for SpaceX when I graduate this August. Crew Dragon's user interface has been right down my alley, although current SpaceX job listings are mostly for embedded systems. How can I find the right graphical software project to apply to? I have some contacts at SpaceX, are there any fitting teams or projects I could ask them to send my resume to in particular? Graphical simulations for Starship? Something customer-facing with Starlink?)
Hey SpaceXers, thanks for taking the time to do this.
1. I'm in high school, what can I do if I want to get a software job at SpaceX sometime in the future?
2. I live nowhere near Hawthorne. Does SpaceX have jobs based on the East Coast, and if not will SpaceX consider doing so in the future?
3. (for Jeff Dexter) Can you go into some detail into contingency plans during flight? (eg engine failure during ascent, something going wrong during landing, etc.)
4. (for Josh Sulkin) Did the software design team take feedback from Bob and Doug during training?
5. (for Wendy Shimata) How do you calculate LOM (loss of mission) and LOCV (loss of crew/vehicle) numbers for Dragon?
6. (for John Dietrick) Does SpaceX use AI in any of its software?
7. (for Sofian Hnaide) What type of display technology does Dragon use? (eg LCD, IPS, OLED, etc.)
8. (for Matt Monson) When do you expect laser links to be a thing on Starlink satellites?
9. Please make an official SpaceX Kerbal Space Program mod (not a question, but it would be really cool if you actually do this)
Again, thanks for your time!
1. How do you test your code before "deploying" it to flight hardware?
2. Do you use Rust for any systems or have thought about it?
3. How important is latency for various software components in Dragon? Does every action have to be instantaneous or there is some wiggle room?
4. What's the amount of telemetry (in GBs) you usually get from Falcon / Dragon / Starlink? Do you run some machine learning / data analysis tools on it?
Hi, thank you so much for organizing this cool AMA and congrats on DM-2!
I have a couple of questions:
1. Are you using Tesla hardware/touchscreens on the Crew Dragon?
2. There were rumors about Crew Dragon UI running in Chromium (wrapped in Qt), is that true? If so, why did you go with web tech instead of straight up native/Qt UI?
3. What kind of CPUs does Crew Dragon run in comparison to regular desktop CPUs? I know that there are multiple CPUs for redundancy but how would one of those units compare to, let's say, a desktop i9 9900k?
4. And most importnatly, do you play KSP?
5. Did you ever consider adding some games to Dragon?
Thank you again and can't wait to see the first operational Crew Dragon mission soon.
EDIT: added 5.
* What are your tech stacks? Are they mostly open source or in-house frameworks?
* What's your front-end tech stack for the display?
* What is your Linux distro?
* How do you test your software?
* How do you make the video streams pretty much real-time without lag?
* Do you use any Machine Learning techniques?
* Is the rocket landing automated (without human control)?
* What is your software release cycle look like?
* I am sure there are tons of redundancy strategies you guys implemented. Care to share some?
@Matt Monson
1. How different is the development experience and the rate of change on production software between the rarely flown Dragon and NASA scrutinized (assuming Dragon V2, less true if V1) and the bi-monthly launched and purely internal starlink batches.
2. How often do you remotely upgrade already flying sats software?
3. Are starlink sats programmed to de-orbit themselves in case they aren't able to communicate back for a given amount of time? (antenna damage on an otherwise healthy sat)
Fantastic work guys! Really love what you've done. A couple of questions:
1. How was the UI designed? Did you follow any specific design principles? How did you take into account the specific conditions of space flight (vibration, helmet limiting visibility,...)
2. Can you give more details on the specific visualisation and interface components? Any cool ideas that got dropped?
3. How did you test the UI and specifically touch interaction with gloves?
Jeff: what does cybersecurity look like for you guys? I imagine you are constantly under attack from state nations/APTs etc to steal confidential IP. Do you have to follow any regulations relating to ITAR in this regard or is that more high level and what you deem proportionate?
In theory, how hard would it be to hack a rocket? I would love for you guys to put up a bounty system similar to Tesla’s and (virtualised) rocket systems.
1. As far as we know now, your rockets runs on Linux - but which “mainstream” distribution is closest to your kernel?
2. Are there any fancy changes you did, about which you can tell us more?
3. What CPU architecture are you using? ARM, MIPS or something else?
What is the single craziest/most impossible thing management (aka Elon) has asked you to do?
How are Doug and Bob to work with? Did they ever make any particular suggestion which spiralled into a major change in Crew Dragon over time?
What are the strangest bugs that you ran into while developing and testing the software for Crew Dragon?
In your opinion, what is the coolest thing Dragon can do with the software inside of it?
First of all, Congratulations!
1. Where can I find the code/pseudocode for the G-FOLD algorithm (Falcon-9's landing algorithm)? I tried going through Lars Blackmore's original paper but as a Computer Science major student, some terminologies just went over my head.
2. I know SpaceX mostly uses standard off-the-shelf CPUs for its flight systems with modified Linux distro. Is the redundant computing managed by the Linux kernel itself or by the C++ application running in the Linux environment? If possible, can you explain the practices involved in implementing hardware-level Lockstep computing?
Congratulations once again and thank you for making Space Exploration cool again!!
First and foremost, congratulations on a successful mission. Despite the troubled times, we were honored to witness such a great achievement.
I have to say that Falcon 9 has one pretty interface, and as UI engineer myself self I have many questions about it, allow me to minify them as much as possible.
In previous AMA, there was mention of Javascript and LESS as some of the tools used by your team, and I am very interested in the application of web technologies in SpaceX.
* What are some use cases of Javascript and LESS?
* How does the UI development process look like, and how is the UI tested?
* What open-source libraries does SpaceX team use if any?
* At what level and which web technologies do you use other than ones mentioned above?
* What code editors do you use?
* What is the longest method name you have in your codebase?
I am a software engineer and my wife won’t let me apply to work at SpaceX because she said she’ll never see me again, is she right to make that assumption? Or can you actually have a work life balance?
What are some of the most interesting edge cases that you have had to take into account when writing the software for Crew Dragon?
Congratulations on the successful launch!
Could you possibly tell us about the previous jobs/projects/skills that you have worked on that helped get you the job at SpaceX and anything you think it important to work on when landing your first job at a tech company?
Thanks!
Did you get any push-back from NASA on using a modern software interface instead of lots of physical buttons, etc.?
Hey guys! Huge fan of everything being done at SpaceX. Congratulations on DM-2!
I’m part of the rocketry team at my university and I work on avionics. As such, I was wondering what skills/tools i could teach myself if i wanted to work with avionics in the future? Specifically, could you talk us through what goes on behind the scenes with regards to the onboard computers, programming/software wise?
Thank you for doing this AMA!
I've seen articles mention SpaceX using Linux. What systems use it? What steps do you take to ensure real-time operation and how deterministic are the systems? Kernel modifications like CONFIG_PREEMPT_RT?
As a software developer working on non-critical systems at a company, I feel some anxiety related to code and bugs. I know you must have plenty of testing and redundancy, but how much anxiety do you all feel when it comes to all the systems?
Hi guys. Thanks for doing this. What language(s) are most used in creating the various flight software for Dragon & F9? Is it mainly C++?
Congrats on DM-2!
1. (How) did you modify the Linux kernel in order to better suit your needs?
2. How is radiation/fault tolerance implemented using ordinary non hardened CPUs?
3. Which x86 processors are you using in Dragon (/Falcon)?
How much custom development is done for a mission vs code that is more or less static for every flight. I guess I'm wondering for example are the orbital dynamics purely input/configuration vs custom software that must be written each time.
Thanks for doing this guys! I don't think most software engineers get to work on space flight. What are the unique software engineering challenges found in working in this space?
What was your favourite moment at spacex?
what control system algorithm you guys use for rectifying/validating sensor data? heard about kalman filter being used on Apollo project back in 1960s. anything new or kalman's still the best.
thanks for this opportunity.
How do you test your code against all the faults that could occur in-flight? Do you run simulated missions to test the code in an end-to-end way or do you rely on individually testing modules for robustness, or some combination of that?
What operating system does crew dragon use for the touch screens? Languages?
What about the rest of the rocket? Languages?
I assume for both it is probably c.
Have you read NASA's power of ten? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_10:_Rules_for_Developing_Safety-Critical_Code#:~:text=The%20Power%20of%2010%20Rules,to%20review%20or%20statically%20analyze.
If yes do you follow all of them? If you don't follow. Why not?
How was the software critiqued between the day the weather prevented the launch (27th) and the day of launch (30th) ?
Did you do or consider doing any new deployments? How many days typically before launch is your production code considered "frozen"?
Hi, congrats on all you have archived so far.
* How much data is generated during a typical launch? How much more was it for DM-2?
* Will any of this data be available at one point (maybe live)?
* Have you seen some of the Starlink simulations(Youtube) and how do they compare?
* Has there been any software development for Starship/Superheavy already?
Thanks for answering our questions!
Any fun stories from testing UI prototypes?
How important is it to have people with different educational backgrounds on your team? I am sure there are specialists in mathematics, physics, computer science and all sorts of engineering at spacex and specifically in your group. How much do you learn from each other and could you give an example of where different competencies worked together to make the rocket launch possible?
Also thanks for taking your time for this!
Where is the bathroom on the crew dragon?
Full Q&A copied from reddit (https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/gxb7j1/we_are_the_spacex_software_team_ask_us_anything/):
Some notes from the interview:
* Movie mission to the ISS likely to occur soon after PCM-2.
* Starship missions may have SpaceX astronauts due to extra space but unlikely for Crew Dragon.
* 4 private crewed missions currently planned, SpaceX are conservative on potential revenue.
* Lunar Starship has 6-7 raptors, due to design still evolving.
* Employee count is ~7600, probably wont grow much bigger.
* ~900 people hired at Boca Chica in past 6 months.
* Public beta of Starlink probably after the 14th launch to ensure sufficient bandwith.
Thank you! I'd heard people referring to these interviews, but I couldn't find them either via Aviation Week's website (multiple searches for SpaceX) nor Irene's Twitter feed. Attn both: do better in promoting your good work.
On April 30, three US companies were selected to design and develop human landing systems for NASA’s Artemis program aiming to allow sustainable moon exploration as early as 2024. The three prime contractors – Blue Origin, Dynetics, and SpaceX – each have strikingly different architectures for their proposals. In this AAS Future in Space Hangout, our host, Tony Darnell, will discuss the various approaches with the lead from each contractor, digging in to find out why they went the way they did, why they think theirs is the best, and more. Join us!
Participants
· Tony Darnell, host and moderator
· John Couluris, HLS Program Manager, Blue Origin
· Nick Cummings, Director of Advanced Development for Civil Space, SpaceX
· Robert Wright, Deputy Division Manager, Space Systems, Dynetics
This American Astronautical Society “Future in Space” online session is available for FREE and on-line participants have the ability to submit questions to the speakers. This session will set the stage for future, more detailed discussions of the science needs, programs, risks, and challenges in missions to support the human lunar exploration.
Consider becoming a member of the American Astronautical Society:
https://astronautical.org/join
#LiveAstronomy #DeepAstronomy #AmericanAstronomicalSociety
talk by Mike Sholl from SpaceX (optics expert formerly involved in SNAP and WFIRST). Visorsat is showing good preliminary results. Plan now is to go with visors rather than Darksat-style coatings.
Sholl: Changes to attitude control strategy and solar array orientation already showing brightness reduction in both early orbit and operational phases.
Jared Greene (SpaceX) we have done 4 or 5 experimental [Starlinks] with smaller component-level changes [not just Darksat and Visorsat] to understand mitigations. Collaboration with Rubin Obs folks very helpful in directing strategy
the issue with Darksat is the antennas absorb more Earth heat, so there's a thermal problem [hence visors are better]
all future sats launched (modulo maybe occasional experiment) will have visors
Mike Sholl from SpaceX, discussing Starlink optical signature characterization. He is discussing how they have done several mitigations including an "operational roll" during the orbit raise phase as well as DarkSat's specular black paint.
The next level mitigation is called VisorSat, just launched, which has a solar shade to help with both brightness and keeping satellites cool. Sholl says SpaceX is committed to reducing satellite optical signatures to do as little harm to astronomy as possible.
...Jared Greene from SpaceX. He says the revenue from Starlink is intended to fund tech to make humanity interplanetary. They want to coexist with astronomy because he feels there is a common goal of exploring space.
Greene from SpaceX ends by saying he is excited about being able to set an industry standard for collaborating with astronomers as well as sharing their technical brightness mitigations with other operators.
Here are the slides I presented at #SATCON1 today. I used a @VRubinObs precursor telescope to measure Starlink
brightnesses, and I shared some key considerations about megaconstellations and astronomy, based largely on the
conclusions in Tyson et al. 2020. http://staff.washington.edu/mrawls/Satcon-DECam-mrawls.pdf (http://staff.washington.edu/mrawls/Satcon-DECam-mrawls.pdf)
In the last couple days, someone mentioned in another NSF thread that there was a recent talk by Tom Mueller, perhaps just a Q&A session online. I can't find the mention here to quote it :/ I did check this thread here and there's nothing noted from him in the past month. Anyone know of it?
In the last couple days, someone mentioned in another NSF thread that there was a recent talk by Tom Mueller, perhaps just a Q&A session online. I can't find the mention here to quote it :/ I did check this thread here and there's nothing noted from him in the past month. Anyone know of it?https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=41014.msg2099128#msg2099128
BREAKING: .@elonmusk will join Explore Mars' .@TheeSpaceDude for a conversation & Q&A about .@SpaceX’s plans to get #HumansToMars!
Join us on August 31st at 4:30 pm Eastern for this exclusive interview with #Starship updates and more! https://t.co/hOxiMUOfBw
The Explorer's Club announced a cool event for next Monday, 7pm ET, when Richard Garriott will interview Paul Wooster (SpaceX's principal Mars engineer) about making life multi-planetary. It will be live-streamed on the organization's web site.
explorers.org
We apologize but due to unforeseen circumstances, we have to cancel tonight's lecture, "SpaceX - Making Life Multiplanetary". We hope to have the event rescheduled in the future, and will update everyone via email and on our social media channels as information becomes available.
While not directly tied to SpaceX, tomorrow Elon Musk and Tesla are doing an event that they call Battery Day. Musk has called what he is going to announce as "Mind-Blowing", and "Very Insane." Any great battery advancement probably has some applications to space.Excellent battery info. I'm wondering now about 'Terafactory Mars'. Some rocket questions as well.
https://electrek.co/2020/09/21/tesla-battery-day-hype-preview/ (https://electrek.co/2020/09/21/tesla-battery-day-hype-preview/)
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a34098933/watch-tesla-battery-day-sept-22/ (https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a34098933/watch-tesla-battery-day-sept-22/)
Live stream at: https://www.tesla.com/2020shareholdermeeting (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com//www.tesla.com/2020shareholdermeeting)
While not directly tied to SpaceX, tomorrow Elon Musk and Tesla are doing an event that they call Battery Day. Musk has called what he is going to announce as "Mind-Blowing", and "Very Insane." Any great battery advancement probably has some applications to space.
https://electrek.co/2020/09/21/tesla-battery-day-hype-preview/ (https://electrek.co/2020/09/21/tesla-battery-day-hype-preview/)
https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a34098933/watch-tesla-battery-day-sept-22/ (https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a34098933/watch-tesla-battery-day-sept-22/)
Live stream at: https://www.tesla.com/2020shareholdermeeting (https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com//www.tesla.com/2020shareholdermeeting)
Terrafactory
...
Terrafactories
They are monster factories on Earth, so there's that. ;)Terrafactory
...
Terrafactories
That should be "Terafactory," after the SI prefix tera- (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tera-) (literally "monster factory").
Breaking News: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to Speak Virtually at 2020 Mars Society Convention
October 15, 2020
There’s no better way to kick off Day 1 of the 2020 International Mars Society Convention than with a big announcement: SpaceX CEO and founder Elon Musk will be joining us virtually tomorrow (Friday, October 16th) at 4:00 pm PST (7:00 pm EST) to provide our global audience with a special update about SpaceX and its plans for the Moon and Mars.
As a world leader in advocating for humanity to become a multi-planetary species, Mr. Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) in 2002 with the goal of creating affordable (reusable) launch vehicles and spacecraft to help open up exploration and settlement of the solar system, including the planet Mars.
To date, SpaceX achievements include the first privately funded liquid propellant rocket to reach orbit (Falcon 1, 2008), the first private company to launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft (Dragon, 2010), the first private company to send a spacecraft to the ISS (Dragon, 2012), the first vertical take-off and vertical propulsive landing of an orbital rocket (Falcon 9, 2015) and the first private company to send astronauts to orbit and to the ISS (Crew Dragon Demo-2 Mission, 2020).
SpaceX has also begun developing Starship, a fully-reusable, two-stage-to-orbit, super heavy-lift launch vehicle designed as a long-duration cargo and passenger-carrying spacecraft, capable of traveling to both the Moon and Mars.
Mr. Musk is also actively working to revolutionize ground transportation on Earth through the design and production of electric cars at Tesla and the streamlining of underground tunnels and infrastructure for use by cars and other vehicles by The Boring Company.
Online registration for the International Mars Society Convention is free of charge, although attendees are kindly asked to consider supporting the organization and its programs by making a $50 contribution. For more details about the four-day virtual conference, including how to sign up online, please visit our web site at: https://www.marssociety.org.
Join us virtually for the 2020 International Mars Society Convention, with 150 speakers (now 151!) and 5,400 people registered (so far)! Sign up today!
QuoteBreaking News: SpaceX CEO Elon Musk to Speak Virtually at 2020 Mars Society Convention
October 15, 2020
New thread started just for this talk: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=52105.0
Will the Elon talk be streamed separately on youtube or elsewhere?I signed up, I'm not sure how to actually watch, though.
I signed up for the Mars Society Virtual Convention anyway, Mike Griffin is making some interesting comments :)
zoom, ok... what's the meeting ID? I'm not seeing how to connect with the conference.
(I just tried convention.marssociety.org on zoom as you said, didnt work)
EDIT: got a DM from an organizer, thanks for the help.
SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell, speaking from the company's HQ at the #TIME100Talks, says she believes in the next 10 years "people will be able to travel into space who are not billionaires" and that "people will be able to travel to Mars."
Shotwell told : "I remember when I was interviewing with Elon in 2002 and he had such a ambitious goal, it sounded absolutely insane at the time. And now almost 20 years later, it doesn't actually sound that insane - at least not to the insiders, maybe to the public."
Shotwell: "We are not giving up on Earth, when we talk about building capability to move humanity to other planet ... it's actually just giving humanity another shot in case there would be some horrible event on Earth ... a second planet to live."
Shotwell on Starlink: "A low Earth orbiting broadband constellation has never been successful ... Elon is always talking about [how] this business is littered with dead bodies with companies that have not made it."
Shotwell: "The second reason was, once you take people to Mars, they're going to need a capability to communicate. In fact, I think it will be even more critical to have a constellation like Starlink around Mars. And then of course you need to connect the two planets as well."
Shotwell: "Starlink will not be great over cities – you can only put so much capability into a geographic area and cities are well served in general in the United States already by big telecom providers."
Shotwell: Starlink has helped SpaceX "learn our own lessons" when it comes to space debris.
Shotwell: There are "rocket bodies littering the space environment and dead satellites," so "it's quite possible that we could leverage Starship to go to the some of these dead rocket bodies, other people's rockets ... basically go pick up some of this junk in outer space."
Shotwell: "Space tourism is an interesting business area. The market is not there yet and we have never counted on tourism as a market. I do believe that it will be a business."
Shotwell, asked if employees have concerns about Pentagon contracts: "They have expressed some concern about building weapons systems, but we're not doing that. We're providing space transportation capabilities. Even the satellites for missile tracking, we're there to watch."
Shotwell: "Candidly, I'm team USA, and I think a strong military is the greatest way to be able to peacefully negotiate settlements when inevitably that occurs ... I'm deeply grateful for the U.S. military and for the fact that they want to work with us."
Is there any news on when Musk might do another Starship briefing, ala the "I'm standing next to Mk 1" event? IIRC, there had been one tentatively scheduled for Nov.
SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell is speaking on a panel at the @SATELLITEDC LEO Digital forum, alongside SES CEO Steve Collar, Viasat $VSAT CEO Mark Dankberg, Hughes President Pradman Kaul, and Eutelsat CEO Rodolphe Belmer.
SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell, on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic:
"We had a bunch of customers move out. There was a lot of learning that other companies had to do to figure out how to keep their stuff moving. The supply chain was devastated."
A Conversation With Gwynne Shotwell, 2020 Satellite Executive of the Year
RACHEL JEWETT
Days before sending the Crew-2 mission to the ISS, Gwynne Shotwell jumps on the phone for an interview with Via Satellite while working at SpaceX’s facility in McGregor, Texas. She speaks openly about the company’s ambitions for Starlink, her interplanetary dreams, and how she sees her role as an industry leader. At one point during the interview, when an engine fires in the background, she doesn’t hold back her amazement.
https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1388122062632402952 (https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1388122062632402952)QuoteSpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell, on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic:
"We had a bunch of customers move out. There was a lot of learning that other companies had to do to figure out how to keep their stuff moving. The supply chain was devastated."QuoteA Conversation With Gwynne Shotwell, 2020 Satellite Executive of the Year
RACHEL JEWETT
Days before sending the Crew-2 mission to the ISS, Gwynne Shotwell jumps on the phone for an interview with Via Satellite while working at SpaceX’s facility in McGregor, Texas. She speaks openly about the company’s ambitions for Starlink, her interplanetary dreams, and how she sees her role as an industry leader. At one point during the interview, when an engine fires in the background, she doesn’t hold back her amazement.
http://interactive.satellitetoday.com/via/may-2021/a-conversation-with-gwynne-shotwell-2020-satellite-executive-of-the-year/ (http://interactive.satellitetoday.com/via/may-2021/a-conversation-with-gwynne-shotwell-2020-satellite-executive-of-the-year/)
Gwynne Shotwell to give commencement address at Northwestern University (my wife’s Alma mater, too).
We're a few of the people on SpaceX’s software team, and on Saturday, May 15 at 12:00 p.m. PT we’ll be here to answer your questions about some of the fun projects we’ve worked on this past year including:
Designing Starlink’s scalable telemetry system storing millions of points per second
Updating the software on our orbiting Starlink satellites (the largest constellation in space!)
Designing software for the Starlink space lasers terminals for high-speed data transmission
Developing software to support our first all civilian mission (Inspiration4)
Completing our first operational Crew Dragon mission (Crew-1)
Designing the onboard user interfaces for astronauts
Rapid iteration of Starship’s flight software and user interface
We are:
Jarrett Farnitano – I work on Dragon vehicle software including the crew displays
Kristine Huang – I lead application software for Starlink constellation
Jeanette Miranda – I develop firmware for lasercom
Asher Dunn - I lead Starship software
Natalie Morris - I lead software test infrastructure for satellites
Elon Musk @elonmusk will speak at the Russian three-day forum "New Knowledge", said the first deputy head of the presidential Administration of the Russian Federation Sergey Kiriyenko. The forum started today.
https://ria.ru/20210520/mask-1733080389.html
SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell is speaking at the @nss International Space Development Conference on June 25, as well as SpaceX board member Steve Jurvetson on June 26, with the latter also receiving the NSS Space Pioneer Award. #ISDC2021 https://isdc2021.nss.org/home/schedule/schedule-at-a-glance/
Reminder that Shotwell is also today giving Northwestern's commencement address to the Class of 2021:
https://youtu.be/mVosLGiOqmc?t=141 (https://youtu.be/mVosLGiOqmc?t=141)
This is my first time posting so hopefully I posted correctly :)
At around 2:02 and 2:21 you can see on a board which says STARSHIP ORBITAL FLIGHT what seems to be a countdown of 25 days 7 hours and 30 minutes!!!! Also it shows in green that the center cluster of Super Heavy engines and 2 raptors for Starship have been shipped!!!!!!
According to the schedule at:
https://isdc2021.nss.org/home/schedule/schedule-at-a-glance/
Gwynne is receiving the Wernher von Braun award.
Elon Musk is speaking virtually at #MWC21 as SpaceX CEO. Livestream: https://www.mobileworldlive.com/
Thread:
https://twitter.com/thesheetztweetz/status/1409897902382661636QuoteElon Musk is speaking virtually at #MWC21 as SpaceX CEO. Livestream: https://www.mobileworldlive.com/
Thread:
With respect to Starship full reusability: I don’t know if we will ever get there.
With respect to Starship full reusability: I don’t know if we will ever get there.
Is that a typo? How does Starship not get to full reusability? The system is a failure otherwise, all it's economics depend on rapidly reuseable tankers.
Need to get over the chip hump and think they will in October.
Need to get over the chip hump and think they will in October.
What does this mean? Global chip shortage is affecting their ability to ramp up user terminal production?
Need to get over the chip hump and think they will in October.
What does this mean? Global chip shortage is affecting their ability to ramp up user terminal production?
Not sure why people are surprised by Gwynne's talk, that's just her being cautious and doesn't want to count chickens before they hatch. Elon said something quite similar a month ago:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1417949463591591936QuoteBut, much more important, is that this *design* is capable of full & rapid reusability.
Long way to go from design to making it actually fully & rapidly reusable with high payload, but at least success is *one* of the possible outcomes haha.
In other words, failure is a possible outcome here.
Gwynne Shotwell at Space Symposium 2021:
Gwynne:
“When responsible operators don’t weaponize licensing, then we can make this work”
Hmm.
Jarrod McLachlan (https://2021.satelliteinnovation.com/speakers/jarrod-mclachlan/) (SpaceX Director of Rideshare Sales) will be speaking in the Competitive Advantages of Various Launch Companies (https://2021.satelliteinnovation.com/agenda/) discussion at the Satellite Innovation 2021 conference, on October 6th, 15:45-16:30 PDT.
https://livestream.com/accounts/7036396/events/9926169
Musk acts like they got a mitigated FONSI from FAA.
He expects an orbital Starship launch in Jan-Feb, 12 launches in 2022, and commercial launches in 2023.
Edit to add:The auto generated subtitles are hilarious.
https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1461118159860207624?
https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1461114997388492804?
Edit to add:The auto generated subtitles are hilarious.
https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1461118159860207624?
https://twitter.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1461114997388492804?
YouTube stream starts at ~1800 Eastern
YouTube stream starts at ~1800 Eastern
That video got set to private after a few hours, so I'm glad I watched right away :) But FYI you can find other reproductions of the video on Youtube (I found two) by searching there for "Elon NASEM" and then filtering to show just >20 minute long videos. You'll have to suffer ad interruptions but at least you can watch it, and it was super interesting thanks to the great Q&A from an elite, topic-literate audience. Some of the answers were the usual Elon BS, sure, and his comments about Starlink light pollution were particularly offensive. But his answers were generally very illuminating.
YouTube stream starts at ~1800 Eastern
That video got set to private after a few hours, so I'm glad I watched right away :) But FYI you can find other reproductions of the video on Youtube (I found two) by searching there for "Elon NASEM" and then filtering to show just >20 minute long videos. You'll have to suffer ad interruptions but at least you can watch it, and it was super interesting thanks to the great Q&A from an elite, topic-literate audience. Some of the answers were the usual Elon BS, sure, and his comments about Starlink light pollution were particularly offensive. But his answers were generally very illuminating.
Just to show how large the dynamic range of different subjective opinions can be, I thought the "elite, topic-literate audience"
(sic) questions mostly reflected ignorance or minimal knowledge of SpaceX's long stated plans and Musks oft repeated standard pitch and stock answers. Very little new learned from the elite's questions besides minor issues like obvious use of insulated tankers, anticipated by most here, and target of January or February launch also anticipated by most here.
Joanna Stern is interviewing Elon Musk on Monday (Dec. 6) at 8 p.m. ET during the WSJ 2021 CEO Council.
SpaceX’s Bill Gerstenmaier is giving a great talk at #AIAASciTech. I asked about learning from Shuttle for Starship, and he gave 3 keys aspects to learn from: First, incorporate either abort modes (like Shuttle’s RTLS or Transatlantic) or a separate abort system (like Dragon).
Second, use refueling flights and cargo flights to drive a high flight rate, providing lots of opportunities for learning from flight data.
Third, operate uncrewed variants alongside crew vehicles to provide testing opportunities, much like Cargo Dragon informing Crew.
https://twitter.com/TGMetsFan98/status/1478123549822836743QuoteSpaceX’s Bill Gerstenmaier is giving a great talk at #AIAASciTech. I asked about learning from Shuttle for Starship, and he gave 3 keys aspects to learn from: First, incorporate either abort modes (like Shuttle’s RTLS or Transatlantic) or a separate abort system (like Dragon).
Second, use refueling flights and cargo flights to drive a high flight rate, providing lots of opportunities for learning from flight data.
Third, operate uncrewed variants alongside crew vehicles to provide testing opportunities, much like Cargo Dragon informing Crew.
I went looking but couldn't find even a transcript of that talk. Can someone here with contacts try to get it posted? I see some of the sessions are posted on youtube by the presenter.
I went looking but couldn't find even a transcript of that talk. Can someone here with contacts try to get it posted? I see some of the sessions are posted on youtube by the presenter.
Looks like Bill Gerstenmaier's talk will be available in 11 days at this URL:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WkA2uBiC2U
When is the Starship presentation happening, @elonmusk?
Thursday next week at 8pm Texas time
Talk is live; link updated w direct timestamp to Gerst's remarks.
A couple notes from a talk SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell gave at Caltech that just wrapped up:
• SpaceX had been working for a month and a half with the Ukrainian gov’t to get landing rights in the country, then “they tweeted at Elon so we turned it on.” (1/x)
• Shotwell says a 30,000 satellite constellation for Starlink is the “sweet spot” based on demand; can’t meet all the demand for the service now in the US.
• Emphasized commitment to space sustainability, since Starlink would be deep trouble if its orbit was “junked up.” (2/x)
• Starship will “change everything about space” and that people haven’t gotten their heads around it; optimizing for mass or size will be “dumb” given the vehicle’s performance and cost.
• No specific updates on Starship itself. (3/3)
Talk is live; link updated w direct timestamp to Gerst's remarks.
That link to about 53:17
Another Starbase interview with Elon coming soon."Soon" here means "weeks"
https://twitter.com/Erdayastronaut/status/1515521262763880459
SpaceX’s Aarti Matthews says at AIAA ASCENDx that the Starship lunar lander is “taking away one of your biggest constraints” in designing payloads: far greater mass (100 metric tons to lunar surface) and volume and an order of magnitude lower cost.
Aarti Matthews of SpaceX says the company's investment in Starship is "significantly greater than 50 percent of the cost of the vehicle" compared to government. Point being, the $2.9 billion NASA is putting in for the Human Landing System is a small fraction of the overall cost.
NASA engineer asks what they should do to help industry. Matthews: Plan for capabilities of Starship; 100 metric tons, essentially infinite volume for payload, an order of magnitude of lower costs. "What does your system look like when you have no mass or volume constraints?"
More from Matthews: That's four firetrucks. It's 100 Moon rovers. It's the mass of 11 elephants. "NASA specified a high level need, but industry is taking away one of your biggest constraints, mass. I think that we all need to be thinking bigger and better."
Benji Reed of SpaceX is now speaking on the panel, talking about launching. "A high flight rate is so very important. So important. We should be launching every day. Every hour." Executives from Boeing and Lockheed sitting next to him look on, with poker faces.
More from SpaceX's Reed: "We're big believers in firm, fixed-price contracts. Contracts should be firm, fixed-price." These comments earn him additional hard stares.
Boeing's John Mulholland has a different view on NASA contracts. For beyond LEO, he says, "We've got to be really thoughtful." NASA needs to own (ie buy cost plus) these systems. "There’s some areas that NASA still needs to drive, and own, and be the technical powerhouse."
Photo of the reactions Reed engendered from his counterparts at Boeing (left) and Lockheed (center).
Aaaaand the NASA chief throws cold water on those poker faces. (https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/05/nasa-chief-says-cost-plus-contracts-are-a-plague-on-the-space-agency/)This is a very welcome change of policy. It can actually have a twofold impact of lower costs and overall shorter schedule. It will make cost plus an almost extreme exception not the norm.
In a complete reversal from when he was pimping SLS, Nelson now thinks cost-plus should be shown the door.
The are good reasons for cost-plus. One of them is that if you let the client change requirements and dictate every design decision, you just can't stay within a budget. I think the critique on Nelson's side is just about keep NASA doing design that contractors would be willing (and have the industry expertise) to do the whole project for themselves, like rockets and crew capsules. I'm looking at you MSFC. And probably a bit to Johnson's future regarding LEO stations. But might apply to EO, comms and much more.Aaaaand the NASA chief throws cold water on those poker faces. (https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/05/nasa-chief-says-cost-plus-contracts-are-a-plague-on-the-space-agency/)This is a very welcome change of policy. It can actually have a twofold impact of lower costs and overall shorter schedule. It will make cost plus an almost extreme exception not the norm.
In a complete reversal from when he was pimping SLS, Nelson now thinks cost-plus should be shown the door.
Another Starbase interview with Elon coming soon™.
https://twitter.com/Erdayastronaut/status/1515521262763880459
Deck from SpaceX all-hands update talk I gave last week
SpaceX and our Starlink team will be at DEFCON 30 (@defcon). Are you attending? If so, come stop by and check out our Starlink hardware at the Radio Frequency Village (@rfhackers)! We'll be there Fri & Sat from 10am - 6pm. See you there!
#defcon30 #starlink #spacex
Advancements and Partnerships for the Future
MACRO-01
Monday, 24 October 08:30 - 09:45 PDT (UTC-7)
Keynote Address: Going Back to the Moon by Design
Through the Artemis program, NASA will lead an international coalition of nations and industry partners to establish a long-term presence in cislunar space. The blueprint objectives for further exploration in the solar system and the partnerships required to achieve them are opening a new era of exploration.
Pam Melroy, Deputy Administrator, NASA
Partnering for Innovation in Cislunar Exploration
Starting in 2023, the United States ventures back to the moon with a collection of nation-states and commercial partners for both scientific exploration and development of outposts on the moon’s surface. NASA and its commercial and international partners will discuss how human and robotic exploration will secure a better future for all.
Moderator: Ellen Ochoa, Astronaut; former Director, NASA Johnson Space Center
Lt Gen Nina Armagno, Director of Staff, U.S. Space Force
James Free, Associate Administrator, Exploration Systems Development, NASA
Todd Nygren, Senior Vice President, Engineering and Technology Group, The Aerospace Corporation
Gwynne Shotwell, President and COO, SpaceX
Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA
SpaceX president & COO Gwynne Shotwell was scheduled to speak on this #ASCENDspace panel this morning, but SpaceX VP Jessica Jensen is instead.
A conference spokesperson: "This was an overnight change to the program."
Partnering for Innovation in Cislunar Exploration
Starting in 2023, the United States ventures back to the moon with a collection of nation-states and commercial partners for both scientific exploration and development of outposts on the moon’s surface. NASA and its commercial and international partners will discuss how human and robotic exploration will secure a better future for all.
Moderator: Ellen Ochoa, Astronaut; former Director, NASA Johnson Space Center
Lt. Gen. Nina Armagno, Director of Staff, U.S. Space Force
Sandra Connelly, Deputy Associate Administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA
James Free, Associate Administrator, Exploration Systems Development, NASA
Jessica Jensen, Vice President, Customer Operations and Integration, SpaceX
Todd Nygren, Senior Vice President, Engineering and Technology Group, The Aerospace Corporation
Jessica Jensen, Vice President, Customer Operations and Integration, SpaceX: moving forward with static tests on path to first Starship/Super Heavy flight. Public/private partnerships like commercial cargo and crew spurred tech and business development.
SpaceX’s Jessica Jensen discusses how early Starship launches, both test flights and Starlink missions, are essential to “incrementally build up capabilities” for its NASA HLS work to allow it safely land astronauts on the Moon. #ascendspace
SpaceX's Jensen: "We want to be able to deliver significant amounts of cargo and infrastructure for all of these missions that are going to be essential for letting people live work and do research on the moon for long durations."
Here is a conference (Ascend) that discusses Artemis among other topics:
https://vimeo.com/763203729
It was a pleasure hosting @SpaceX President & Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell @NASA_Johnson this week. During her visit, Gwynne met with our senior staff & employees, and also discussed the evolution of SpaceX’s partnership with NASA during a town hall meeting.
Following the event, Gwynne visited with employees, toured our Commercial Low-Earth Orbit program tables and spoke with NASA subject matter experts.
#GiantLeapStartHere
Up next: McCain Institute’s @PaulFaganDC, Director of Democracy Programs introduces @SpaceX COO @Gwynne_Shotwell and McCain Institute Executive Director @EvelynNFarkas for “Technology, Innovation & our National Interests.” Watch now:
“In the 21 years or so I’ve been at @SpaceX, I’ve come to believe that it’s a very important goal.”- @Gwynne_Shotwell on the possibility of humans living on other planets #SedonaForum2023
“If you want to take people to another planet, you need the ability to go and come back…you need to land the rocket.”- @Gwynne_Shotwell #SedonaForum2023
“Senator McCain was visionary in looking at the state of the launch industry 10-15 years ago.”- @Gwynne_Shotwell #SedonaForum2023
“He [Senator McCain] was fighting the fight to ensure that innovation was allowed in government operations and programs.”- @Gwynne_Shotwell #SedonaForum2023
“We need to really force a rethinking on how we procure systems…what’s tied to that is the regulatory element of how you do things for the government.”- @Gwynne_Shotwell #SedonaForum2023
“In less than 5 years we put 4,000 satellites in orbit…there’s not a government program that can do that.”- @Gwynne_Shotwell #SedonaForum2023
“If you ever dismiss you competition, you will get outcompeted. China is a [Space] powerhouse.”- @Gwynne_Shotwell on the new Space race #SedonaForum2023
“One thing China does not have is reusable rockets. I believe they will get there pretty quickly.” @Gwynne_Shotwell #SedonaForum2023
“I believe Russia is losing their stronghold on Space, but we should not ignore them because they have capabilities in Space that we have been unwilling to use.”- @Gwynne_Shotwell #SedonaForum2023
“We have Senator McCain to thank in large part for where we are today.”- @Gwynne_Shotwell #SedonaForum2023
Putting this here just in case there might be some SpaceX related information.
https://app.vivatechnology.com/session/c4c3bdfa-2209-ee11-907a-6045bd9538fd
Free registration on the website is required.
Maybe there should be a general Elon Musk live interview announcement thread, to avoid creating new ones like this? Just a suggestion.
Posting here to not have multiple threads.Putting this here just in case there might be some SpaceX related information.
https://app.vivatechnology.com/session/c4c3bdfa-2209-ee11-907a-6045bd9538fd
Free registration on the website is required.
Maybe there should be a general Elon Musk live interview announcement thread, to avoid creating new ones like this? Just a suggestion.
Running the Algorithm: SpaceX’s Approach to Exponential Growth with VP of Launch Kiko Dontchev
This Sunday morning, watch as Pogue and I wander through the SpaceX factory and Tesla design studio and talk about Elon Musk.
I know how to suppress Youtube embeds here, but not how to suppress Twitter embeds.
It is our pleasure to announce that we will be hearing from Elon Musk @SpaceX again at the #IAC2023 in Baku! On Thursday 5 Oct he will join us virtually to discuss together with the IAF President how we can create a more exciting future. Don't miss it at 17:45 – 18:45 (GMT+4)!
IAC 2023 Starship presentation: CREATING A MORE EXCITING FUTURE (https://www.iafastro.org/events/iac/iac-2023/plenary-programme/highlight-lectures/creating-a-more-exciting-future.html)
I haven't found this reported anywhere on NSF (possibly looking in the wrong places) so I'll put it here:@steveleach posted transcript link to Gerstenmaier's Congressional testimony on the 'B9 + S25 IFT/General Discussion' thread.
Bill Gerstenmaier (and others) testified in front of a Senate committee yesterday. Video and prepared statements are at this link; Gerst's opening comments start at 42m04s:
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2023/10/promoting-safety-innovation-and-competitiveness-in-u-s-commercial-human-space-activities
If you want an understanding of SpaceX's view on the state of FAA launch licensing, and how they think it could be improved, Bill Gerstenmaier's testimony yesterday can be found at...
https://www.commerce.senate.gov/services/files/ADC08FC1-E28D-4178-8D39-16E02BB803CE
SpaceX Yearly Launch Rate at Vandenberg SFB Could Soar to 100 by 2025
EconAlliance Future Forum attendees hear about ambitious plans to bring Falcon Heavy rocket to West Coast
by Janene Scully | Noozhawk North County Editor
December 4, 2023 | 6:23 pm
A busy SpaceX soon will be even busier with the addition of a second launch pad and a heavy rocket at Vandenberg Space Force Base, where the firm’s yearly liftoff rate could reach 100 in a couple years.
Nate Janzen, manager of launch pad systems and operations for SpaceX at Vandenberg and a 10-year employee of the firm, spoke last week during the 10th annual celebration and Future Forum for the Economic Alliance Foundation, or EconAlliance, at the Santa Maria Country Club.
Next year, SpaceX will re-evaluate and conduct analysis with an eye toward certifying the first-stage boosters for 25 to 30 flights, he said.
Work to ready the site should begin soon, with a goal of the first Falcon launch from SLC-6 taking place in mid-2025, Janzen added.
Next week, I will do a company talk for SpaceX, followed later by a company talk for Tesla after the 10K.
I will recap the talented team’s amazing accomplishments of 2023 and describe exciting plans for 2024 and beyond!
These will be posted publicly to @SpaceX and @Tesla.
SpaceX completed 18 successful missions in 2017, launching flight-proven rockets and spacecrafts for the first time. It was a record-setting year and we were just getting started on our path toward a more exciting future.
Watch the full company talk with @elonmusk:
Pretty much everything I predicted in that talk has happened or is in process of happening
In 2023, SpaceX completed 96 successful missions, safely flew 12 more astronauts to orbit, launched two flight tests of Starship, and more than doubled the number of people around the world connected by @Starlink.
Watch @elonmusk deliver a company update:
This is why I’ve worked for @elonmusk going on 22 years.
Watch and hear so many quotable themes. My favorite is: “We don’t want to be one of those lame, one planet civilizations.”
Our extraordinary employees are passionate in the extreme about this mission, they also take on tough challenges, question requirements, and speak up when there’s a better way.
I could not be more proud of what they’ve accomplished, and we are truly just getting started.
If you want to join the team, we are always looking for the best and brightest → x.com/SpaceX/jobs
Whether it’s launching another rocket into space or connecting a school in the Amazon to the internet for the first time, officials at SpaceX see every success as a step towards something much bigger. SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell joins Goldman Sachs’ Susie Scher to discuss her leadership of SpaceX, the fast-evolving world of space travel and commerce, and the latest technologies SpaceX and Starlink is using to revolutionize the industry.
Recorded: 11/1/2024
It says recorded in January, but it’s before OFT-2, so Oct /Nov:QuoteWhether it’s launching another rocket into space or connecting a school in the Amazon to the internet for the first time, officials at SpaceX see every success as a step towards something much bigger. SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell joins Goldman Sachs’ Susie Scher to discuss her leadership of SpaceX, the fast-evolving world of space travel and commerce, and the latest technologies SpaceX and Starlink is using to revolutionize the industry.
Recorded: 11/1/2024
I'm going to make an assumption that it is a typo on the year and they meant to say 11/1/2023, which in the U.S. would be November 1, 2023.It says recorded in January, but it’s before OFT-2, so Oct /Nov: