spacex has been preparing for the first starship orbital flight test since the last year
but this experiment is getting delayed due to one reason or another as time elapsed
initially spacex wanted to perform the first starship orbital flight experiment with a more
stable and tested sn20 prototype talking to spacex fans on twitter earlier this week elon
musk confirmed that the first orbital flight will not be conducted on the sn20 prototype anymore
a prototype will be used from the existing sn21 or sn22 or a new one will be built for the purpose
from musk's answer to the question it seems like even the booster 4 rocket prototype will
also be eliminated from the first orbital flight test elon musk also announced that
the first starship orbital flight test is now going to possibly happen in may this delay
is also due to the production of raptor version 2.0 rocket engines last year elon
musk was hopeful of performing the first orbital flight with the first generation of raptor engines
but now spacex is going to do conduct this test using the second generation raptor two engines
first starship orbital flight will be with raptor 2 engines as they are much more capable
and reliable 230 ton thrust at sea level we'll have 39 flight worthy engines built by next month
then another month to integrate so hopefully may for the orbital flight test
a nasa document from last year suggested that the first starship orbital flight test
is going to happen in march 2022 but this also did not come to fruition as elon musk
and spacex decided to do it with the raptor two engines not the first generation ones
raptor v2 engine design is much simpler but more powerful compared to its previous generation v1
raptor v1 engine produces 185 tons thrust while v2 produces 230 tons of thrust at sea level
the reason spacex chose raptor v2 over v1 for the orbital flight test
sn20 has been stacked on the super heavy rocket booster multiple times by now
spacex stacked starship sn20 onto super heavy booster for last week for the last time yet
now it has been distact again spacex also performed a cryogenic proof test on starship
20 last week this was the first cryoproof test on a starship prototype while it was fully stacked
the fully stacked starship at the starbase launch site also went through a propellant load test
these tests are giving spacex the necessary experience and observations for the ultimate
starship launch into space a rocket lab electron launcher lifted off saturday
april 2nd at 8 41 a.m eastern standard time from the company's launch complex
one on new zealand's mahia peninsula the local time was 1 10 am sunday morning at the launch
site the two-stage electron rocket carried two spacecraft for the virginia company black sky
they were successfully deployed about 40 minutes after liftoff payloads deployed another 100
mission success by the team rocket lab ceo peter beck wrote on twitter after the successful launch
rocket lab which dubbed this launch without mission a b did not attempt to recover the
electrons first stage during this launch black sky and rocket lab are long-time partners
as electrons have delivered most of black sky's constellation to orbit since 2019 saturday's
mission was arranged for black sky by the launch services provider space flight incorporated
black sky's proprietary constellation has one of the highest hourly revisit rates in the world
providing customers with persistent monitoring change detection over areas of economic activity
across the globe rocket lab said in its without mission a beat press kit black sky satellites
are used by government agencies along with a set of large companies known as the global 2000
according to rocket lab the platform for black sky called spectra ai uses artificial
intelligence techniques to automate the detection of fast changing information for its customers
the sixth stage of aligning nasa's james webb space telescopes mirrors to its scientific
instruments so they will create the most accurate and focused images possible has concluded while
the mid-infrared instrument miri continues its cooldown optics teams have successfully aligned
the rest of the observatories on board instruments to webs mirrors previous alignment efforts were
so accurate that the team concluded that no additional adjustments to the secondary mirror
are necessary until the seventh and final stage which will involve miri when it has fully cooled
as a general rule the commissioning process starts with course corrections and then moves
into fine corrections the early secondary mirror course corrections however were so successful
that the fine corrections in the first iteration of phase six were unnecessary said chanda walker
web wavefront sensing and control scientist ball aerospace this accomplishment was due to many
years of planning and great teamwork among the wavefront sensing team
throughout the majority of the alignment process webb's 18 hexagonal mirrors and secondary mirrors
were focused into alignment to the near infrared camera instrument only upon completing this most
recent step the observatory is now aligned to the fine guidance sensor fgs the near
infrared slitless spectrograph nirus and the near infrared spectrometer as well as nir cam
once miri fully cools to its cryogenic operating temperature in the weeks ahead a second
multi-instrument alignment will occur to make final adjustments to the instruments and mirrors
if needed when the telescope is fully aligned and able to deliver focused light to each instrument
a key decision meeting will occur to confirm the end of aligning the james webb space telescope
the team will then transition from alignment efforts to commissioning each instrument for
scientific operations which are expected to begin this summer and that wraps up today's episode we
did also like to take the time to thank you for your continuous support of spacex community and
if you'd like to show us that you enjoyed today's episode please click the like button subscribe to
us and don't forget to click the notification bell so you will know when we upload future content
you