{"id":1204267,"date":"2023-11-17T17:42:31","date_gmt":"2023-11-17T22:42:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1204267"},"modified":"2023-11-17T17:42:31","modified_gmt":"2023-11-17T22:42:31","slug":"what-nasa-wants-to-see-from-spacexs-second-starship-test-flight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1204267","title":{"rendered":"What NASA wants to see from SpaceX\u2019s second Starship test flight"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"rss-wrap\">\n<figure class=\"intro-image intro-left\">\n  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/F_EPRK4akAA1Pme-800x533-1.jpe\" alt=\"SpaceX's Starship rocket on a launch pad in Texas awaiting liftoff on a test flight.\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\" style=\"font-size:0.8em\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/F_EPRK4akAA1Pme.jpeg\" class=\"enlarge-link\" data-height=\"1000\" data-width=\"1500\">Enlarge<\/a> <span class=\"sep\">\/<\/span> SpaceX&#8217;s Starship rocket on a launch pad in Texas awaiting liftoff on a test flight. (credit: SpaceX)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<div><a name=\"page-1\" \/><\/div>\n<p>NASA managers are in South Texas this weekend as SpaceX prepares to launch its second full-sized Starship rocket. If the rocket flies perfectly, it will unlock additional tests beginning as soon as next year to prove that SpaceX can transfer hundreds of tons of super-chilled methane and liquid oxygen between two spaceships in orbit.<\/p>\n<p>This is a fundamental part of the architecture SpaceX has designed to fly Starship missions beyond low-Earth orbit. With two NASA fixed-price contracts valued at more than $4 billion, SpaceX is on the hook to develop and fly two human-rated lunar landers based on the Starship design (and likely many more missions, assuming these first two work as advertised).<\/p>\n<p>Depending on who you ask, SpaceX may need to launch a dozen or more refueling tankers to fill up the methane and liquid oxygen tanks on the Starship lunar lander, which will have emptied its tanks just to get into low-Earth orbit following launch on top of a Super Heavy booster. The Starship lander will use this fuel to boost itself out of low-Earth orbit toward the Moon, descend to the lunar surface with astronauts, and climb back into space to deliver the crew to their Earth return vehicle\u2014an Orion spacecraft.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/?p=1984906#p3\">Read 46 remaining paragraphs<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/?p=1984906&amp;comments=1\">Comments<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#013;<br \/>\n&#013;<br \/>\nSource: Ars Technica &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/?p=1984906\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">What NASA wants to see from SpaceX\u2019s second Starship test flight<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Enlarge \/ SpaceX&#8217;s Starship rocket on a launch pad in Texas awaiting liftoff on a test flight. (credit: SpaceX) NASA managers are in South Texas this weekend as SpaceX prepares to launch its second full-sized Starship rocket. If the rocket &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/?p=1204267\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1204268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,110],"tags":[73],"class_list":["post-1204267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ars-technica","category-unfiltered-rss","tag-ars-technica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1204267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1204267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1204267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1204268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1204267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1204267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prime-wow.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1204267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}