#starship

#starship

Pad 40 has been the primary Falcon 9 launch site for most of the rocket's history, while Pad 39A provided a location for crew launches and an augmentation to support SpaceX's growing launch cadence. But there are signs the Falcon 9 launch cadence, which reached 165 missions last year, may be peaking as the company turns its attention to Starship. And SpaceX has steadily reduced the time it takes to reconfigure Pad 40 between launches, cutting the turnaround time to less than 48 hours.

If the flotation proceeds as planned, it would sit just below Saudi Aramco's record-setting $1.7 trillion IPO in 2019. Musk, 54, founded SpaceX in 2002 with the goal of revolutionising space travel by slashing launch costs and making human missions to Mars viable. Over the past two decades, the company has reshaped the global launch market, fielding its reusable Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets and becoming the partner of choice for governments, satellite operators and private clients.

With the government shutdown over, the FAA has lifted its daytime launch curfew. Welcome to Edition 8.20 of the Rocket Report! For the second week in a row, Blue Origin dominated the headlines with news about its New Glenn rocket. After a stunning success November 13 with the launch and landing of the second New Glenn rocket, Jeff Bezos' space company revealed a roadmap this week showing how engineers will supercharge the vehicle with more engines.

What comes to mind when you think of Starship' s eternal 1985 hit "We Built This City?" For most it'll be that bright, synth-heavy chorus, which is sung with such gusto by Grace Slick and Mickey Thomas that you can practically picture them fist-pumping in the vocal booth when they recorded it. Some people may hear "We Built This City" and just generally think about the mid '80s, where this brand of so-called "corporate rock" had reached a dominant apex in Reagan's America