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SlothmanAllen

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Well, more Blue Origin \ New Glenn news! Apparently Blue Origin is going to phase in upgrades over the next coming several launches for New Glenn that will eventually transition it to a Super Heavy lift vehicle in the range of the SLS. The new vehicle will include uprated BE-4 (550,000 pounds, to 640,000 pounds) and BE-3 (320,000 pounds to 400,000 pounds) along with the use of super-cooled cryogenic propellants among other changes.

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The most significant part of the update concerned an evolution of New Glenn that will transform the booster into a super-heavy lift launch vehicle. The first stage of this evolved vehicle will have nine BE-4 engines instead of seven, and the upper stage four BE-4 engines instead of two. In its update, Blue Origin refers to the new vehicle as 9×4 and the current variant as 7×2, a reference to the number of engines in each stage.
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Such a booster would be a notable vehicle, with a lift capacity nearly on par with NASA’s Space Launch System rocket. However, it would have a fully reusable first stage with a larger payload fairing and would likely cost less than one-tenth the
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of NASA’s super-heavy rocket.
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new-glenn-9x4-1.jpg
 
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nimitz123

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Does anyone know the full scale of the damage to Baikonur's launch pad 31. It seems this accident may set back ISS and Roscosmos for years
 
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anzha

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nimitz123 said:
Does anyone know the full scale of the damage to Baikonur's launch pad 31. It seems this accident may set back ISS and Roscosmos for years
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ROSCOSMOS acknowledged the damage, but did not say what the damage actually was. They claim it will be fixed quickly. Others are less sanguine. I think we need to wait and see.

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SlothmanAllen

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We are basically at the end of the year, and the number of orbital rocket launches this year (across all countries) has been very impressive! As of December 28th, there have been 328 total launch attempts with 315 successes. We are quickly approaching a period in which 1 orbital rocket will be launched per day!

Both the US and China have had banner years for orbital launches. The US has launched 198 rockets so far, while China has launched 91. Both countries have plans to still significantly increase the rate of launches, so expect those numbers to keep growing over the next couple of years.
 
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SlothmanAllen

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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2012684547419193794

Getting very close to the launch of Artemis II! I know this program gets a lot of fault for waste (justifiably), but with all that in mind NASA is potentially only a couple of weeks away from sending four astronauts around the Moon! The mission is sure to be fraught we dangers and difficulties, but if they can pull it off it will rank as one of the great achievements in human spaceflight.
 
vincent

vincent

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SlothmanAllen said:
Getting very close to the launch of Artemis II! I know this program gets a lot of fault for waste (justifiably), but with all that in mind NASA is potentially only a couple of weeks away from sending four astronauts around the Moon! The mission is sure to be fraught we dangers and difficulties, but if they can pull it off it will rank as one of the great achievements in human spaceflight.
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Completely reckless
 
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iewgnem

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SlothmanAllen said:
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2012684547419193794

Getting very close to the launch of Artemis II! I know this program gets a lot of fault for waste (justifiably), but with all that in mind NASA is potentially only a couple of weeks away from sending four astronauts around the Moon! The mission is sure to be fraught we dangers and difficulties, but if they can pull it off it will rank as one of the great achievements in human spaceflight.
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Well, a 3 week mission is certainly one way to check if life support works for the first time, so I guess it would be a great achievement if they survive indeed.
 
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