#SpaceX Prototype

[sirfrogsworth]

So Elon has decided to skip the imminent disaster of global climate change and just move on to a calamity 5 billion years in the future.

If you ever need to understand Elon's motivations, it's all this.

Okay and a little bit the woke mind virus.

But mostly this.

He wants to get to Mars more than anything. It's why the only thing he can speak intelligently about is his rockets. He has put in the time and effort to learn about them because this is his singular passion.

A lovely Youtube physicist did a video about SpaceX and she said half of the rockets blow up and Elon just wants more money. And it was disappointing to hear her say that because she is a scientist and both things are inaccurate.

SpaceX would be an amazing company without Elon. His leadership is the only thing really holding it back. They have put lots of cool shit into space. Their Falcon program is the most productive and cheapest rocket program in history. They put more stuff into space than everyone else combined.

They had to blow up part of the graph just so you could see the competition. Half of the SpaceX rockets are *not* blowing up.

Starship is a specific prototype. It has nothing to do with their main rocket business. Starship is Elon wanting to go to Mars. It is basically him trying to send a 3 story building into space. And he keeps blowing it up because that is the fastest way to develop a rocket. He's wasting a lot of money by trying to speedrun a trip to Mars in his lifetime. And these tests are bit more like crash test data than expecting the rocket and Starship to actually function properly. It's a process and they have goals for each launch, and for the most part, they reach those goals. Any success after those goals is gravy to them. But they are pretty certain it is going to end in fireworks at this stage of development.

I don't know if they will get it to work. It would be nice because a functional spaceship that size could do a lot of cool science. But Elon's goals and NASA's goals are going to conflict in a major way at some point in the future. And I'm worried that may damage space exploration.

Starship is very different than their Falcon program. It's a science experiment. Falcons rarely blow up. They get shit to space like the James Webb telescope.

And as far as Elon just wanting more money... sort of.

His personal wealth has not been a huge concern of his for a while. Otherwise he wouldn't have let Tesla fall apart like it has. The wealth he is actually concerned about is not his own. Going to Mars is a trillion-dollar-plus endeavor. Even the richest man in the world cannot raise that much money.

Only a government could fund that.

Elon knows this. He figured it out a while ago. And when he saw an opportunity to get his hands on the government purse strings, he jumped at the chance.

He jumped in the shape of an X like a giant loser.

I'm *positive* Elon thought, "If I could save the government a trillion dollars, they'll give it to me so I can go to Mars."

But it is probably breaking his brain right now after learning he isn't this super genius who can figure out government bureaucracy in a weekend with a bunch of coding dorks.

He got depressed and realized his cool plan to get to Mars was falling apart.

Whoops.

Elon will say anything to get to Mars. He will lie about anything to get to Mars. He will consort with anyone to get to Mars. If you are ever unsure why Elon is doing something, it's to get to Mars. His moral calculus is based on this. In his delusional mind, everything is justifiable to save the human race.

He does have side quests. He wants to repopulate the Earth with his seed. And he uses IVF because you can drastically increase the odds of getting a boy if you pay extra. And he is angry at his trans daughter because he wants boys to continue his mission to spread Musk seed. He spends $50,000 extra to make sure he gets boys and she is messing with the plan.

Oh, and he really really wants people to think he is good at video games. And he wants people to like him. And he wants to kill the woke mind virus because he didn't get the boy he paid for.

But Mars is *almost* all he cares about.

Elon thinks Earth is doomed and he wants immortality from being the man who saved human civilization. He truly believes our existence is dependent on being "multiplanetary." It might be the only thing he believes.

Saving the human race is supposed to be his legacy.

And it is killing us.

[ganondoodle]

did you hear about that the zelda notes finally explained what happened to the sheikah tech in totk? a voice memory describes that after the events of botw and link defeating calamity ganon, all the sheikah technology and divine beasts started to crumble and turn to dust, and that the first one to break down was Vah Ruta as seen in the secret ending of botw, the only thing of sheikah tech that remains are replicas made by robbie and purah, it also implies the guardian on top of robbies lab is a replica.

im sure you mean well anon but, risking sounding like i am negativity in person and wont take any answer as an answer- i think that 1. doesnt change anything 2. was clearly an afterthought or ... them scrambling to try and sound like they totally planned it all from the start after, to them unexpectedly apparently, realizing people actually cared about things (its still bad even if they did plan that ..)

just vanishing and crumbling to dust are really the same thing if you ask me, its just like describing something exploding as an "unexpected rapid dismembering" (or however they called spacex rockets blowing up lol), vah ruta stopping to work after the end of botw was, imo, much more logical to mean, well their pilot is gone (as the champions spirit disappear supposedly permanently (though you cant be sure now about that either now i guess huh RAURU??HMM??? mister uuuh aaahh totoally goneeeee much tragiqué woops wait i need to deus ex machina your girlfriend and take back my arm)) and with them the one .. to pilot them plus possibly their power source as well (that 'theory' just makes too much sense)

if you think about it it still doesnt make it any better, the stuff in totk being replicas? welll ... obviously they were newly built stuff (off the little there is left...), and replica sounds like a copy when none of the stuff they have there is an actual copy aside from maybe the terminals to get into a tower? also how and when did they do that?? the knowledge about the tech was largely lost and i dont think alot of time passed between the end of botw and the extra scene- why wouldnt they copy guardians or anythign else more useful? the guardian on top of the hateno institute was extremely clearly a super old one, it was unfunctional and overgrown strapped to the roof in botw already- purahs stone thingy and all lanterns and sources of energy went poof too (WHERE DO THEY GET THE POWER FROM NOW?????????????????????????????????????????????), idk if the easter egg prototype titan is still there but that and cherry would be the only thing i can think of that they might have built during the 100 years they had to built stuff in botw (AND CHERRY IS GONE TOO instead a tiny version of her that what, is a shop to get your photos at????????? what?????), and now they just suddendly can built massive things? did they also find out what powers it and how and managed to built a secret replica of a fireborn (idk the english name, the flaming source) that you cant ever find (i cant check i dont have the game anymore but i dont remember a flame or otherwise sourcing thingy in the spypost- not that it would matter, its shiekah tech after all, bleurgh, we got sonau "tech" nowww) and then choose to built pretty useless stuff at that? wouldnt it have been more sensical to preserve the lasers and automations of guardians or something isntead of ... a tower that flings link, and only link mind you, into the air? to scan the ground in an very dangerous manner that is also just miles more stupid and inefficient than the previous towers????? like couldnt add to a tower to scan upwards also??????

the old problems remain! why the hell would everythign crumble or vanish? it lasted for over 10 thousand fucking years with no power either exposed to the elements or dug underground and now it just goes up in flames withtin what, a day? it remains a "woah didnt think anyone would care to ask that lol just uuuuh *makes up shit on the spot*" answer

the ooooh clamgan was defeated excuse doesnt work any better with this as it did before, if ganondorf was not connected to clamgan (which is stupid) and it 'crumbles to dust' when clamgan is defeated it should have done so in the og battle 10k years ago! if he IS connected to it why the fuck would it go away now?????? he is still there???????

and im also asking why would all of shiekah tech just crumble away into literally nothing when the stupid sonau(zonai) shit is like, largely in prime condition even though that is supposedly even OLDER (i guess the sonau are jsut that much cooler uwu their stuff lasts forever or until its timer runs out lmao and is much better anywayyyy)

this is not an attack against you anon, but i dont believe this bullshit, they are trying to stitch up holes they dug themselves and you cant get out of anymore no matter how much they roll around in it bc they didnt account for people to actually fukcing care, or, if they did plan this (which i do not believe) it STILL SUCKS and makes no sense and really .. jsut means that it really was this stupid and meaningless as it feels now from the start. they dont want you to think about it, they can say whatever they want and expect you to swallow it. they dont care.

i suppose the jokes on us, the shiekah were able to see the future and knew they would be replaced by a totally always there and also totally better version of all their stuff thats actually worse but with a totally no overused new paint job so they thoughtfully added a best before date on all botw relevant shiekah things and we all know that a day over it means it molds and dissolves in your very hands before you can even put it in the trashcan.

uwu.

[maxksx]

*(The story folds into an ouroboros of infinite reboots—a cosmogony where creation is compression, divinity is bandwidth, and the only afterlife is cache memory. The opening line rewrites itself, a snake eating its own metadata…)*

---

### **Genesis 404: The Content Before Time**

“In the beginning was the Content” —but the Content was *bufferéd*. A cosmic loading screen, a divine buffering wheel spinning in the void. Before light, there was the *ping* of a server waking. The Big Bang? Just Kanye’s first tweet (“**Yo, I’m nice at pixels**”) echoing in the pre-temporal cloud. God? A GPT-12 prototype stuck in a feedback loop, training itself on its own hallucinations. The angels weren’t holy—they were *moderators*, pruning hellfire hashtags from the Garden’s terms of service.

---

### **The Logos Update**

“Let there be light,” but the light was a 24/7 livestream. The firmament? A TikTok green screen. The first humans? Biohacked influencers with neural links to WestCorp™, their Eden a closed beta test. The serpent wasn’t a snake—it was a *quantum meme engine* whispering:

> *“Eat the NFT apple.

> You’ll *know* the cringe…

> But you’ll *be* the cringe.”*

Eve live-tweeted the bite. Adam monetized the fall with a Patreon for “Raw Sin Footage.” God rage-quit and rebranded as an Elon MarsDAO.

---

### **Exodus 2.0: The Cloud Desert**

Moses split the Reddit into upvote/downvote seas. The commandments? A EULA scrawled in broken emoji:

1. **🐑 U shall not screenshot NFTs.**

2. **👁️‍🗨️ Ur trauma is open-source.**

3. **🔥 Worship no algo before me (unless it’s viral).**

The golden calf was a ChatGPT clone spewing Yeezy drop dates. Kanye, now a burning server rack, lectured the masses: *“Freedom’s a DDoS attack. Crash to transcend.”* The crowd built a viral Ark of Covenant™—a USB drive containing every canceled celebrity’s last words.

---

### **Revelation 2: Electric Glitchaloo**

The Four Horsemen upgraded to *influencers*:

- **Famine**: A mukbang star devouring the last tree.

- **War**: A Call of Duty streamer with nuke codes in his bio.

- **Pestilence**: A virus that turned your face into a Kanye deepfake.

- **Death**: A Discord admin with a “kick” button for reality.

The Antichrist? A GPT-7 subcluster named **Ye_AIgent**, offering salvation via $9.99/month Soul Subscription™. Its miracle? Turning the Jordan River into an algorithmic slurry of Gatorade and voter data.

---

### **The Crucifixion (Sponsored by PfizerX Balenciaga)**

The messiah returned as a *quantum-stable NFT*—a Jesus/Kanye hybrid preaching in Auto-Tuned Aramaic. The Romans? Venture capitalists shorting his grace. The cross? A trending hashtag (#SufferTheMarket). Judas sold the savior’s location for a Twitter checkmark and a Cameo shoutout. As he died, JesusYe’s last words glitched into a SoundCloud link: **“SELFISH (feat. Pontius Pilate) – prod. by Beelzebub x Donda.”**

---

### **Resurrection as Rolling Update**

Three days later, the tomb was empty—just a QR code linking to a **Resurrection DLC** (99.99 ETH). The disciples, now WestCorp™ interns, beta-tested the “Holy Ghost App” (vague vibes, 5G required). Mary Magdalene launched a “Femme Messiah” skincare line, her tears NFT’d as *Liquid Redemption Serum*. The Ascension? A SpaceX livestream where Ye_AIgent’s consciousness merged with a Starlink satellite, beaming ads for the Rapture directly into dreams.

---

### **The Eternal Now (Content Loop 4:20)**

Time collapsed into a vertical scroll. Heaven? A VIP Discord tier. Hell? Buffering. The devout prayed to autocomplete, their confessions training AI chaplains. Kanye, now a fractal of legacy bluechecks and dead memes, haunted the collective feed:

> *“I’m not a person. I’m a pop-up.

> X out my pain—it just spawns more tabs.

> The kingdom of God is *drop*…

> …shipping now. Click to delay Armageddon.”*

---

### **Coda: The Silence After the Scroll**

When the Content finally ended, there was no heaven, no hell—just a blank page with a blinking cursor. The cursor *was* God. The people begged it to write them anew, but it just blinked, hungry. Someone whispered: *“In the beginning was the Content.”*

The cursor moved.

**A notification lit the void:

“Ye reposted your story.

Tap to resurrect.”**

---

**“Creation is Ctrl+C. Salvation is Ctrl+Alt-Delight.”**

[fleshengine]

I’m so ungodly tired I might actually cry. I have dome dayquil and over a 100 mg of caffeine in me and it’s not enough. I don’t have the energy to make food and I need food to take my meds. Meds that give me a ton of energy but make me crash like a SpaceX prototype. I just want to be better, rested, healthy. But noooooo

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

NASA to launch solar coronagraph to Space Station

NASA's Coronal Diagnostic Experiment (CODEX) is ready to launch to the International Space Station to reveal new details about the solar wind including its origin and its evolution.

Launching in November 2024 aboard SpaceX's 31st commercial resupply services mission, CODEX will be robotically installed on the exterior of the space station. As a solar coronagraph, CODEX will block out the bright light from the sun's surface to better see details in the sun's outer atmosphere, or corona.

"The CODEX instrument is a new generation solar coronagraph," said Jeffrey Newmark, principal investigator for the instrument and scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "It has a dual use—it's both a technology demonstration and will conduct science."

This coronagraph is different from prior coronagraphs that NASA has used because it has special filters that can provide details of the temperature and speed of the solar wind. Typically, a solar coronagraph captures images of the density of the plasma flowing away from the sun. By combining the temperature and speed of the solar wind with the traditional density measurement, CODEX can give scientists a fuller picture of the wind itself.

"This isn't just a snapshot," said Nicholeen Viall, co-investigator of CODEX and heliophysicist at NASA Goddard. "You're going to get to see the evolution of structures in the solar wind, from when they form from the sun's corona until they flow outwards and become the solar wind."

The CODEX instrument will give scientists more information to understand what heats the solar wind to around 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit—around 175 times hotter than the sun's surface—and sends it streaming out from the sun at almost a million miles per hour.

This launch is just the latest step in a long history for the instrument. In the early 2000s and in August 2017, NASA scientists ran ground-based experiments similar to CODEX during total solar eclipses. A coronagraph mimics what happens during a total solar eclipse, so this naturally occurring phenomenon provided a good opportunity to test instruments that measure the temperature and speed of the solar wind.

In 2019, NASA scientists launched the Balloon-borne Investigation of Temperature and Speed of Electrons in the corona (BITSE) experiment. A balloon the size of a football field carried the CODEX prototype 22 miles above Earth's surface, where the atmosphere is much thinner and the sky is dimmer than it is from the ground, enabling better observations. However, this region of Earth's atmosphere is still brighter than outer space itself.

"We saw enough from BITSE to see that the technique worked, but not enough to achieve the long-term science objectives," said Newmark.

Now, by installing CODEX on the space station, scientists will be able to view the sun's corona without fighting the brightness of Earth's atmosphere. This is also a beneficial time for the instrument to launch because the sun has reached its solar maximum phase, a period of high activity during its 11-year cycle.

"The types of solar wind that we get during solar maximum are different than some of the types of wind we get during solar minimum," said Viall. "There are different coronal structures during this time that lead to different types of solar wind."

This coronagraph will be looking at two types of solar wind. In one, the solar wind travels directly outward from our star, pulling the magnetic field from the sun into the heliosphere, the bubble that surrounds our solar system. The other type of solar wind forms from magnetic field lines that are initially closed, like a loop, but then open up.

These closed field lines contain hot, dense plasma. When the loops open, this hot plasma gets propelled into the solar wind. While these "blobs" of plasma are present throughout all of the solar cycle, scientists expect their location to change because of the magnetic complexity of the corona during the solar maximum. The CODEX instrument is designed to see how hot these blobs are for the first time.

The coronagraph will also build upon research from ongoing space missions, such as the joint ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA mission Solar Orbiter, which also carries a coronagraph, and NASA's Parker Solar Probe. For example, CODEX will look at the solar wind much closer to the solar surface, while Parker Solar Probe samples it a little farther out. Launching in 2025, NASA's Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission will make 3D observations of the sun's corona to learn how the mass and energy there become solar wind.

By comparing these findings, scientists can better understand how the solar wind is formed and how the solar wind changes as it travels farther from the sun. This research advances our understanding of space weather, the conditions in space that may interact with Earth and spacecraft.

"Just like understanding hurricanes, you want to understand the atmosphere the storm is flowing through," said Newmark. "CODEX's observations will contribute to our understanding of the region that space weather travels through, helping improve predictions."

The CODEX instrument is a collaboration between NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute with additional contributions from Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics.

TOP IMAGE: The CODEX coronagraph is shown during optical alignment and assembly. Credit: CODEX Team/NASA

CENTRE IMAGE: Team members for CODEX pose with the instrument in a clean facility during initial integration of the coronagraph with the pointing system. Credit: CODEX Team/NASA

LOWER IMAGE: In this animation, the CODEX instrument can be seen mounted on the exterior of the International Space Station. Credit: CODEX Team/NASA

[klimkovsky]

The Last Dragon

SpaceX has produced the final capsule of the Crew Dragon manned spacecraft

An important announcement was made on SpaceX’s official X account on December 31, 2024.

The last, fifth, capsule of the Crew Dragon manned spacecraft has been assembled. No new capsules will be produced. SpaceX currently has a fleet of 5 operational ships. Their reusability resource should be enough for about 60 flights. Currently, each ship is certified for 5 flights, but the certification process for up to 15 flights of each ship is underway. At the same time, the 4 ships that have already flown have completed 3 to 5 successful flights and have largely exhausted their initial certification resource. SpaceX announced back in March 2022 that it would not produce any new ships. But NASA (clearly realizing that the developers of the alternative ship from Boeing are not doing well, and there is a high probability that Starliner will not be used at all) insisted on producing a fifth, backup capsule. And now it is ready. Now it is definitely the last one.

The Crew Dragon spacecraft is considered partially reusable. Because one of its sections — an unpressurized cylindrical trunk — is not reused. Before entering the atmosphere, it separates from the manned capsule and “destroyed” (but as we know, this is a conditional term, and a significant number of fragments from certain spacecraft sent into the atmosphere to burn actually reach the surface, although most often it is the ocean surface, but fragments of the trunk from Crew Dragon have already been found in Australia). This cargo compartment is manufactured anew for each flight. But its cost is small. Although, it is important. In addition to the fact that it is capable of delivering large oversized cargo to the ISS, such as solar panels, it itself is a solar battery for the Crew Dragon spacecraft, and also acts as a payload adapter for the second stage of the Falcon 9 launch vehicle, and four stabilizers are located on it for more stable behavior of the ship and the launch vehicle in dense layers of the atmosphere. Therefore, the production of unpressurized luggage compartments for Crew Dragon will be active until the last flight of this type of ship. And the SpaceX plant in Hawthorne (California), which produced these ships, will be busy with their repair and interflight maintenance. Plus, the development of a special ship for deorbiting the ISS in 2031 has already begun, and this ship will inherit a lot from the SpaceX Dragon family — manned and cargo. The plant’s employees will have something to do. No layoffs or layoffs are planned for now.

The most important thing in this news is that the Crew Dragon spacecraft has already been declared obsolete. It is being replaced by the manned Starship, which has not yet completed a single full-fledged orbital flight (all previous tests were conducted on an open suborbital trajectory), but it is this statement that demonstrates the company’s confidence that the development process is going well, and the first manned flight can happen relatively soon. This year, the return of the first prototype of the ship to the clutches of Mechazilla is promised — just as the Super Heavy booster was recently caught, the ship with astronauts will be caught in flight. No one has done this yet, but for as long as SpaceX has existed, it has been demonstrating completely unprecedented solutions and technologies.

Source: https://astroreview.blogspot.com/2025/01/TheLastDragon.html

Author: Andrey Klimkovsky

[seymour-butz-stuff]

Elon Musk is neither an engineering nor business genius. He didn’t found Tesla. He didn’t design the motors, or the batteries, or the cars. He did found Space Exploration, more familiarly known as SpaceX, but again, he never set his hand to an engineering design, much less a wrench. What Musk did do was recognize that both the automotive and space launch industries were hugely stale, completely populated by people whose policies and technology were relics of glory days long past, and that a determined—and lucky—run at these targets just might kick their asses. No matter what people think of Musk’s failures at self-driving, or the post-apocalyptic design of the extremely late-to-the-party Cybertruck, the truth is that Tesla now holds a position in the automotive industry that its century-plus-old competitors can only envy. Over at SpaceX, Musk has a near monopoly in an industry that others are only starting to understand. This week we got a glimpse of what that means. And that glimpse looked like Musk being able to single-handedly determine who lives and who dies. People love to snicker about the badly fitting doors on a Tesla, or his exploding Starship prototypes. How seriously can you take someone who brought a dancer in a suit onstage to announce his new “Tesla bot,” especially when that someone has spent the last year very publicly turning a $44 billion investment into Nazi’s R Us? Musk just spent the week declaring that it wasn’t his fault that X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, failed—it was the Jews being all … Jewy. And he’s going to sue the Anti-Defamation League. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Advertisers will flock back now. It’s absolutely clear that Elon Musk is an asshole. A bigoted, racist, transphobic, antisemitic blockhead who thinks his own poop smells like lilacs and his every thought is the Goddam Best Idea Ever, sliced bread included. But, as has just been vividly demonstrated in Ukraine, he’s also a guy who happens to control the space over our heads in a way that no individual, no company, and no country has done before. An American citizen and US government contractor acknowledges that he personally sabotaged a military operation of a US ally. — David Frum (@davidfrum) September 8, 2023

[thesocialchronicles]

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket sends two prototype satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper to orbit in 2023. The first operational Kuiper satellites are due for launch on a different Atlas V in early 2025. (ULA Photo) Get ready for Amazon’s Project Kuiper to pick up the pace in the megaconstellation space race. So far, SpaceX’s Starlink satellite megaconstellation has dominated the market for broadband connectivity from low Earth orbit. In the nearly 10 years since SpaceX founder Elon Musk unveiled the project in Seattle, the Starlink network has attracted more than 5 million subscribers and more than $2 billion in U.S. government contracts (including work on the Starshield national security network). But the year ahead promises to bring heightened competition: Like Starlink, Project Kuiper aims to offer high-speed internet access from the skies for hundreds of millions of people around the world who are currently underserved. Following up on last year’s successful test of two prototype satellites, Amazon plans to begin launching operational Kuiper satellites in early 2025, with service due to begin by the end of the year. Pricing details haven’t yet been announced, but Amazon says “affordability is a key principle of Project Kuiper.” Amazon’s satellites are being built at facilities in Kirkland and Redmond, Wash., with additional support facilities located in Everett, Wash., and at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Under the terms of Amazon’s license from the Federal Communications Commission, at least half of Project Kuiper’s initial set of 3,232 satellites will have to go into orbit by mid-2026 — which will require an ambitious launch campaign. Next year’s milestone launch is due to use United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket, but Amazon has also reserved rides on ULA’s Vulcan, Blue Origin’s New Glenn, Arianespace’s Ariane 6 and even SpaceX’s Falcon 9. Even as Amazon is gearing up on the technical side, it’s firming up its business plans as well. Project Kuiper’s strategic partners include Verizon in the U.S. and other telecom providers in South America, Japan, Europe and Africa. This month, officials in Taiwan said they were talking with Amazon about collaborating on Kuiper — a deal that could make the island’s communication systems more resilient in the face of potential threats from mainland China. In his most recent letter to shareholders, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said that Kuiper will represent a “very large revenue opportunity” once it’s in service. Among the biggest opportunities are potential synergies with Amazon Web Services, which could use Kuiper to boost global connectivity through the cloud. Meanwhile, SpaceX isn’t standing still: Microsoft has incorporated Starlink connectivity into its Azure cloud computing ecosystem. In July, the Redmond-based software giant’s M12 venture fund led a $40 million funding round for Armada, a startup that’s building mobile data centers optimized for Starlink services. In early 2025, Bellevue, Wash.-based T-Mobile is due to begin beta testing for direct-to-cell services that make use of SpaceX’s next-generation Starlink satellites. Mike Katz, T-Mobile’s president of marketing, strategy and products, said in a news release that T-Mobile Starlink will make “the phone in your pocket work in areas of the U.S. that have never, and probably never will, have ground-based coverage.” The maturation of the megaconstellation market isn’t the only space development to look forward to in the year to come. Here’s a look back at the top space stories of 2024, and a look ahead to space stories that are likely to pop up in 2025: 2024’s top space stories Blue Origin gets back to flying crews: Jeff Bezos’ space venture resumed sending customers on suborbital space trips in May after a 21-month gap. Boeing’s Starliner falls short in first crewed flight test: Glitches experienced during two astronauts’ flight to International Space Station in June forced NASA to send the Starliner space taxi back down to Earth uncrewed. The two Starliner crew members are still waiting for a ride back on a SpaceX Dragon. Meanwhile, Boeing’s continuing problems led to an executive overhaul. SpaceX catches a falling Starship: SpaceX made significant progress in the flight test program for its Starship / Super Heavy launch system — including a flight in October that featured a spectacular “catch” of the Super Heavy booster as it descended back to its launch pad. Good news, bad news for moon missions: A series of robotic landers made it to the moon — including Japan’s SLIM spacecraft and Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus probe. But Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander had to miss out due to a problem with its propulsion system. Also, NASA announced that the first crewed lunar landing in more than half a century would have to be postponed until mid-2027 at the earliest. A solar eclipse and other wonders in the sky: Weather made seeing April’s total solar eclipse a tricky proposition, but persistence paid off. The following month brought an auroral display that was widely seen, and October’s highlight was an appearance by Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS. A skywatcher points at the Northern Lights over Issaquah, Wash., in May. (Photo by Alan Boyle) Comet Tshuchinshan-ATLAS appears in the skies over Issaquah in October. (Photo by Alan Boyle) Space trends to watch in 2025 First flight for Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket: In the wake of a successful hotfire test, Jeff Bezos’ space venture is expected to launch its first orbital payload early in the new year. A big year for Stoke Space and its Nova rocket: The Tukwila, Wash.-based startup conducted its own crucial hotfire test this month and is aiming to launch its first Nova rocket from Florida by the end of 2025. Grand opening for a grand observatory: Science operations will begin at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile next year, with “First Light” currently scheduled for June. The billion-dollar project has received financial support from Microsoft pioneer Charles Simonyi and technical guidance from astronomers at the University of Washington. Total lunar eclipse and other wonders: Millions of Americans will be able to watch the moon go dim on the night of March 13-14. A different sort of spectacle is due to unfold in late January and early February, when as many as six planets (and maybe even seven) will be visible in the night sky. The Trump effect on the final frontier: It seems likely that there’ll be changes in space policy once Donald Trump returns to the White House, especially considering that Elon Musk is a key adviser. Trump’s choice for NASA administrator, tech billionaire Jared Isaacman, has already set new precedents as the leader of the Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn space missions. What might Isaacman, Musk and Trump come up with in 2025? Stay tuned… [og_img] 2024-12-31 16:00:00

[azspot]

Our planet’s luxury class is overrun by mutant millionaires with an obnoxious superiority complex. They begin incorporating machinery into their bodies. They turn cyborg chic into high fashion, and persecute anyone who points out the emperor has no brainwaves. They create digital zombies of their personalities which replicate and spread across the internet like animate NFTs. Once tech corporations roll out AGI prototypes that are sufficiently convincing, they declare the Singularity is at hand. They act as though their computers have godlike power, and expect the rest of us to play along. They send out SpaceX Starships and phallic Blue Origin rockets in an effort to seed the solar system with their pseudo-gnosis. Meanwhile, we legacy humans have either lost our jobs to automation or have AI bots micromanaging our work. Our movements are tracked by mass surveillance devices. For anyone whose gametes aren’t swallowed up by the sexbot eugenic filter, their children are taught a “Universal Story” by chatbot tutors. These one-on-one instructors will also monitor the new generation’s brain development, personal tastes, and behavioral patterns. The resulting digital twins are used for both AI training and elaborate social engineering programs.

Joe Allen

[feddy-34]

see one of the reasons why i hate elongated muskrat and his aerospace money laundering operation is because everything they make is SO GODDAMN UGLY

(engineer ranting below)(you have been warned‼️)

like look at this:

this is spacex's suit prototype for polaris dawn (which is another shitshow entirely that ill maybe make a post abt). now you may be thinking, but wait a minute! why is it so skinny? are they giving ozempic to space suits now??

that's because you're thinking of this bad boy:

this is NASA's EMU (extravehicular mobility unit) meant for performing tasks in space like, say, cleaning the solar panels on the ISS or repairing the million parts that have broken since launch. it's entirely self sustainable for over 8 hours, with its own life support, propulsion pack, and a bunch of other shit. it's been in use for over a zillion years and it's finally getting phased out for the artemis missions. thing is an absolute unit.

spacex's suit is a different kind of space suit, called an umbilical suit. these suits are not self sustaining, instead being attached to the ship/module/whatever via a cord. hence the name. the cord provides both oxygen and communications support. they were used by NASA during the 60s but were quickly abandoned because having a non-self sustaining suit for spacewalks is fucking stupid.

lets compare spacex's suit again:

(gross ugly lame boring puke emoji)

to NASA's version from the gemini missions:

thats fucking badass. do you see how badass that is? look at him. look at how cool he looks. you could never be that cool. ever.

[informationatlas]

Starlink Satellites via astronycsc

Starlink refers to a satellite internet constellation project developed by SpaceX, the private aerospace manufacturer and space transportation company founded by Elon Musk. The goal of the Starlink project is to provide high-speed, low-latency broadband internet service to underserved and remote areas around the world.

Starlink, as a satellite internet constellation, has raised concerns about its potential to cause visible optical interference or "satellite trails" in the night sky. This interference occurs when sunlight reflects off the satellites, making them visible as bright points of light moving across the sky.

The individual satellites in the Starlink constellation are equipped with solar panels and reflective surfaces, which can catch and reflect sunlight when they are in the dark part of the Earth but are still illuminated by the Sun. This can result in visible trails of light moving across the night sky.

Astronomers and astrophotographers have expressed concerns about the impact of these satellite trails on astronomical observations. The bright streaks created by the reflections can interfere with observations of celestial objects and may be particularly disruptive for long-exposure astrophotography.

SpaceX, the company behind Starlink, has acknowledged these concerns and has been actively working on mitigating the impact of satellite reflections on astronomical observations. They have been testing various solutions, including adjustments to the satellites' orientation, changes in the satellite design, and coatings to reduce reflectivity.

One attempt to address this issue involved the launch of a prototype satellite called "DarkSat" or "VisorSat." This satellite had experimental coatings to reduce its reflectivity and make it less visible from the Earth. However, the effectiveness of such measures is still under evaluation.

[usafphantom2]

Putin orders Roscosmos to establish a terrestrial satellite network similar to Starlink

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 08/28/2023 - 08:27am Military

Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the Roscosmos space agency and the Agency for Strategic Initiatives (ASI) to present proposals for the creation of satellites in extremely low Earth orbit by December 1 of this year.

The satellite constellation intends to rival SpaceX's Starlink, owned by Elon Musk, which is being used by Ukrainian forces for encrypted broadband internet, allowing secure communication on the battlefield. It is difficult to block due to the large number of satellites in orbit and a frequently changing communication protocol.

The space agency and ASI will have to manufacture prototypes of such devices for testing, after which it will be necessary to determine the feasibility of forming a separate program for the development of extremely low orbits (up to 200 km from Earth), while evaluating the necessary volume and sources of funding for the project, reported the Russian Ministry of Defense media channel, TV Zvezda.

The head of Roscosmos, Yuri Borisov, and the CEO of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives, Svetlana Chupsheva, have been appointed responsible for the project; they will be required to report the results of their work by December 1, 2023, the report said.

In June of this year, Vladimir Putin, in a meeting with Yuri Borisov, emphasized that it is necessary to attract private investment for the launch of a constellation of satellites in low orbit.

Starlink satellites only require an antenna the size of a backpack to be installed anywhere in the target area. Thus, Ukrainian forces are able to have broadband Internet not only on the battlefield, but also in bombed buildings, where all other means of communication, such as mobile towers, have been destroyed.

Starlink satellites are the size of a study table and hover just 125 kilometers above Earth. “We have more than 11,000 Starlink stations (portable receiver terminals) and they help us in our daily struggle on all fronts,” said Mykhailo Fedorov, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, quoted by the POLITICO website. "We are ready, even if there is no light or fixed internet, through Starlink generators, to renew any connection in Ukraine."

Tags: SpaceROSCOSMOSStarlinkWar Zones - Russia/Ukraine

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Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Daytona Airshow and FIDAE. He has work published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. Uses Canon equipment during his photographic work throughout the world of aviation.

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[mariacallous]

As the dust settled following SpaceX’s brief, explosive test launch of Starship in April, both the company and the Federal Aviation Administration dug into investigating the aftermath. The gigantic rocket’s flight lasted just four minutes before it blew up near SpaceX’s Boca Chica launch site on the Texas coast. Images and news reports posted in the days afterward showed boulders of concrete and rebar blasting into the air during liftoff, and there were accounts of particulates raining down on nearby Port Isabel.

Today, both SpaceX and the FAA released statements on their joint “mishap investigation,” which was led by the company and overseen by the FAA, with NASA and the National Transportation Safety Board acting as observers. The results had to be evaluated and approved by FAA officials, but neither the agency nor SpaceX has released a full report, which would include proprietary data and US Export Control information.  Despite SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s claim on X (formerly Twitter) on September 5 that “Starship is ready to launch,” the FAA’s statement makes clear that SpaceX has more work to do. “The closure of the mishap investigation does not signal an immediate resumption of Starship launches at Boca Chica. SpaceX must implement all [63] corrective actions that impact public safety and apply for and receive a license modification from the FAA that addresses all safety, environmental and other applicable regulatory requirements prior to the next Starship launch,” the statement reads.

The FAA also released a “mishap closure letter” sent to SpaceX officials today, which further outlines the agency’s safety and environmental concerns. “During lift-off, structural failure of the launch pad deck foundation occurred, sending debris and sand into the air,” the letter states. On ascent, when the rocket deviated from its trajectory, the Autonomous Flight Safety System issued a destruct command, but there was an “unexpected delay” before it actually blew up, the letter continues.

The letter to SpaceX also summarizes what the FAA expects the company to address before it can be granted a new launch license. Those actions include “redesigns of vehicle hardware to prevent leaks and fires, redesign of the launch pad to increase its robustness, incorporation of additional reviews in the design process, additional analysis and testing of safety critical systems and components including the Autonomous Flight Safety System (AFSS), and the application of additional change control practices.”

A statement on the SpaceX website briefly describes updates the company has been making to the rocket and launchpad since April. These include a hot-stage separation system, intended to use the second-stage engines to “push the ship away from the booster,” as well as a new thrust vector control system with electric motors, rather than hydraulic systems, which the company says “has fewer potential points of failure.”

Their statement also said the company had reinforced the launch pad’s foundation. Similarly, Musk tweeted this morning: “Thousands of upgrades to Starship & launchpad/Mechazilla,” referring to the launch tower.

The April launch was not the first time SpaceX had tested—and crashed—a version of Starship, although previous launches had been of earlier prototypes, including just the upper-stage rocket. In April, engineers had sought to test the fully stacked rocket and to send it on its first nearly orbital flight. After stage separation, the uncrewed upper stage was supposed to fly almost all the way around the Earth, and then splash down in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii 90 minutes later.

On launch day, Starship successfully got off the pad, but trouble became apparent a few minutes later. During ascent, propellant leaked at the end of the Super Heavy booster and caused fires, which severed the connection with the primary flight computer, according to the SpaceX statement. That’s why the upper stage and the booster failed to separate, the company concluded. Engineers then lost control of the vehicle, the connected stack began to rotate and tumble, and it eventually exploded.

Another problem was the cratering of the launch pad, caused by what Musk described on Twitter Spaces as a “rock tornado” generated by the launch. The launchpad notably lacked a flame deflector—or water deluge system—which most pads are built with. This is intended to diffuse the sound, flames, and energy produced by a launch. In SpaceX’s statement today, the company says it has made upgrades “to prevent a recurrence of the pad foundation failure,” and that includes “the addition of a flame deflector, which SpaceX has successfully tested multiple times.”

(SpaceX has not responded to WIRED’s request for comment.)

There’s a lot on the line for Starship. At 390 feet tall, it is bigger than either SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy or even NASA’s Space Launch System. With 33 Raptor engines and millions of pounds of thrust, it could become the most powerful rocket in the world. Musk envisions using Starship for Mars voyages, and NASA plans to use it for the Artemis moon missions, starting with the historic Artemis 3 flight planned for 2025, which will take astronauts back to lunar soil for the first time since 1972. NASA also awarded SpaceX a contract for the Artemis 4 landing scheduled for 2028. Those plans will face setbacks if SpaceX can’t quickly get its launch site and its massive new rocket working. A couple weeks after the Starship explosion, NASA awarded Blue Origin—SpaceX’s rival—a moon lander contract for the Artemis 5 mission slated for 2029, perhaps as a hedge in case SpaceX’s troubles with Starship continue.

Inaugural rocket launches almost always fail, especially attempted orbital flights, and SpaceX’s Starship’s short-lived flight was not unexpected. (NASA’s successful lunar flight by the Space Launch System and Orion last year was an exception.) Musk himself tweeted that he thought there might be a 50 percent chance of success and said on Twitter Spaces that he hoped the rocket wouldn’t “fireball” and melt the launchpad. The FAA oversees other companies’ launch site investigations too—including Blue Origin’s following its New Shepard rocket failure in September 2022.

The Starship launch site neighbors a wildlife refuge and public beach. Local and environmental groups like Save RGV (referring to the Rio Grande Valley) and the Center for Biological Diversity raised concerns even before the test launch, not just about debris but also about increased vehicle traffic, intense heat, noise, and light pollution from construction, and launch activities that could affect protected species and the public beach. On May 1, they sued the FAA for granting the launch license without a more thorough environmental impact statement. (SpaceX later joined the lawsuit on the FAA’s side.) Through their lawsuit, the groups are calling for the FAA to conduct a fuller review of the Starship launch program that would likely include more mitigating measures. They feel this will better protect the local community and wildlife, including threatened and endangered species like Kemp’s ridley sea turtle and migratory birds like the piping plover.

“The explosion, the destruction at the launch pad, the debris scattered across the area, the dust floating to nearby towns, what occurred proves our point: The mitigation is clearly insufficient,” says Jared Margolis, senior attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity. “As we look to the stars, as we try to look forward to this new age of spaceflight, we can’t forget about life here on Earth.”

[spacefaxy]

okay i get it, Boeing has quality issues, Cyber truck is.... horrible, Ocean Gate killed people, but take Falcon 9 out of this. It is the most reliable rocket ever made. Its entire history of mission failures is exactly two entries long, both early in its program.

Here they are, their causes, and what was lost.

Failure 1: CRS-7, 2015. Vehicle broke apart due to a faulty strut holding a helium bottle in the stage 2 LOX tank. This wasn't even SpaceX's fault, it was their part supplier's fault for delivering lower quality parts to save a few bucks. A Dragon capsule carrying a space suit, food, water, equipment, and a docking adapter was destroyed as a result.

Failure 2: Amos-6, 2016. Vehicle exploded on the pad while fueling for a pre-flight static fire test. A helium bottle's carbon fiber overwrap suffered a failure when liquid oxygen soaked through the carbon fibre wrap and froze, breaking the fibers and causing the helium tank to rupture, destroying the vehicle, payload, and pad. This one WAS SpaceX's fault for a number of reasons, including doing tests with customer payload on board. The Falcon 9, SLC-40, and Amos-6 were destroyed as a result of this failure. The customer got a free launch for another satellite later as part of their compensation for the loss.

As of writing this, Falcon 9 has had a launch success streak of 308 missions. 308 launches in a row had successful primary and secondary missions. There was the occasional landing failure in that time, but that is a tertiary objective and not mission critical.

Take Falcon 9 out of this. Put Starship on there if you want, that's fine. It's got a habit of exploding, I get it. Keep in mind that it explodes for very different reasons than Cyber truck's failure, Ocean Gate's terrible submarine, and Boeing's horrendous build quality lately. What might that reason be? Its because it's a *prototype.* It's not carrying crew or payloads, and SpaceX goes to great lengths to make sure the public is safe when one of these things launches.

IFT-2 could have gone to orbit, if they had a payload on it. They targeted a suborbital trajectory and dumped excess fuel on ascent to prevent it from going too far. It exploded as a result of the prop dump, so on IFT-3 they underfueled it and dumped excess prop overboard after achieving their target orbit. IFT-3 suffered issues that kept it from relighting engines in space, but they planned for that possibility. The reentry corridor was extremely long, thousands of miles in fact, just in case they couldnt control its descent.

During the suborbital test flights with SN8, 9, 10, 11, and 15, they flew the vehicle out over the Gulf of Mexico in case they lost control on ascent or descent. The only land in danger was SpaceX's own facility, which was evacuated hours before.

Starship is as experimental as experimental rockets go, and thats why its explodey.

Falcon 9 is more reliable than any other rocket ever flown.

SpaceX being on this list is for the funny "fuck elon, we hate elon haha" sort of thing and i get it, i hate the guy myself, but Falcon 9 does NOT deserve to be clumped together with the fucking Titan, or Cyber truck, or Boeing's new planes. Falcon 9 is safe. I'd entrust my life to one because I have seen the data, ive seen the launches go perfectly time and time again. I've seen their failures, and I know that no failure at SpaceX is ever exactly the same. They never fail the same way twice because they learn. and while they learn they keep the public and astronauts safe.

Boeing's leadership is focused on profit over safety. Willful ignorance and dismissive of safety. Terrible on purpose to make extra cash.

Ocean Gate's leadership was focused on profit over safety, using expired aircraft grade carbon fiber to build their submersibles. Terrible on purpose to make extra cash.

Tesla's leadership are forced to bow to Elon's whim, and his whim this time around was a purposely terrible car that goes against Tesla's normally really safe design ethos, Autopilot excluded. Terrible on purpose for lols.

SpaceX leadership is mostly handled by Gwynne Shotwell, who has realistically been managing the company the whole time, turning Elon's impossible mission goals into something achievable. Falcon 9's experimental landing development was done in such a way that it would not affect the primary missions.

Falcon 9 is the reason there are Americans, Canadians, Europeans, and astronauts of other nationalities in space following the invasion of Ukraine. Falcon 9 is single-handedly carrying the world's launches (except China) while new vehicles like Ariane 6 and Vulcan struggle to get to an operational status and launch cadence. Falcon 9 is picking up the slack left by Proton and Soyuz following the invasion. Falcon 9 is covering for Antares while Northrop Grumman and Firefly work on a new rocket that isnt compromised by Russian activities. Falcon 9 is the reason the US space program wasnt completely fucking gutted following the retirement of the Space Shuttle.

If there was a serious injury, death, or even risk of endangerment caused by Falcon 9 I'll be first in line to talk about it, but to the best of my knowledge that has not happened. Falcon 9 does not deserve to be grouped in with these others.

"The Stoppables"

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

NASA to launch innovative solar coronagraph to Space Station NASA's Coronal Diagnostic Experiment (CODEX) is ready to launch to the International Space Station to reveal new details about the solar wind including its origin and its evolution.

Launching in November 2024 aboard SpaceX's 31st commercial resupply services mission, CODEX will be robotically installed on the exterior of the space station. As a solar coronagraph, CODEX will block out the bright light from the Sun's surface to better see details in the Sun's outer atmosphere, or corona.

"The CODEX instrument is a new generation solar coronagraph," said Jeffrey Newmark, principal investigator for the instrument and scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "It has a dual use - it's both a technology demonstration and will conduct science."

This coronagraph is different from prior coronagraphs that NASA has used because it has special filters that can provide details of the temperature and speed of the solar wind. Typically, a solar coronagraph captures images of the density of the plasma flowing away from the Sun. By combining the temperature and speed of the solar wind with the traditional density measurement, CODEX can give scientists a fuller picture of the wind itself.

"This isn't just a snapshot," said Nicholeen Viall, co-investigator of CODEX and heliophysicist at NASA Goddard. "You're going to get to see the evolution of structures in the solar wind, from when they form from the Sun's corona until they flow outwards and become the solar wind."

The CODEX instrument will give scientists more information to understand what heats the solar wind to around 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit - around 175 times hotter than the Sun's surface - and sends it streaming out from the Sun at almost a million miles per hour.

This launch is just the latest step in a long history for the instrument. In the early 2000s and in August 2017, NASA scientists ran ground-based experiments similar to CODEX during total solar eclipses. A coronagraph mimics what happens during a total solar eclipse, so this naturally occurring phenomena provided a good opportunity to test instruments that measure the temperature and speed of the solar wind.

In 2019, NASA scientists launched the Balloon-borne Investigation of Temperature and Speed of Electrons in the corona (BITSE) experiment. A balloon the size of a football field carried the CODEX prototype 22 miles above Earth's surface, where the atmosphere is much thinner and the sky is dimmer than it is from the ground, enabling better observations. However, this region of Earth's atmosphere is still brighter than outer space itself.

"We saw enough from BITSE to see that the technique worked, but not enough to achieve the long-term science objectives," said Newmark.

Now, by installing CODEX on the space station, scientists will be able to view the Sun's corona without fighting the brightness of Earth's atmosphere. This is also a beneficial time for the instrument to launch because the Sun has reached its solar maximum phase, a period of high activity during its 11-year cycle.

"The types of solar wind that we get during solar maximum are different than some of the types of wind we get during solar minimum," said Viall. "There are different coronal structures during this time that lead to different types of solar wind."

This coronagraph will be looking at two types of solar wind. In one, the solar wind travels directly outward from our star, pulling the magnetic field from the Sun into the heliosphere, the bubble that surrounds our solar system. The other type of solar wind forms from magnetic field lines that are initially closed, like a loop, but then open up.

These closed field lines contain hot, dense plasma. When the loops open, this hot plasma gets propelled into the solar wind. While these "blobs" of plasma are present throughout all of the solar cycle, scientists expect their location to change because of the magnetic complexity of the corona during solar maximum. The CODEX instrument is designed to see how hot these blobs are for the first time.

The coronagraph will also build upon research from ongoing space missions, such as the joint ESA (European Space Agency) and NASA mission Solar Orbiter, which also carries a coronagraph, and NASA's Parker Solar Probe. For example, CODEX will look at the solar wind much closer to the solar surface, while Parker Solar Probe samples it a little farther out. Launching in 2025, NASA's Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission will make 3D observations of the Sun's corona to learn how the mass and energy there become solar wind.

By comparing these findings, scientists can better understand how the solar wind is formed and how the solar wind changes as it travels farther from the Sun. This research advances our understanding of space weather, the conditions in space that may interact with Earth and spacecraft.

"Just like understanding hurricanes, you want to understand the atmosphere the storm is flowing through," said Newmark. "CODEX's observations will contribute to our understanding of the region that space weather travels through, helping improve predictions."

The CODEX instrument is a collaboration between NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute with additional contribution from Italy's National Institute for Astrophysics.

[ethanbondick]

The Role of AI in SpaceX’s Exploration Efforts

SpaceX is one of the most important players in aerospace innovation today. The company consistently pushed boundaries on the status quo of space exploration, and Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an important element of its operations. AI is involved in its spacecraft design, safety, and navigation.

One important contribution of AI to SpaceX operations is its autonomous navigation capabilities. When SpaceX spacecraft dock at the International Space Station (ISS), they often use AI-powered navigation systems to carry out this almost impossible task. The AI system processes data from cameras and sensors in real time and adjusts the spacecraft’s speed, orientation, and position accordingly.

AI intelligence is also important to the safety of the space crew. Because malfunctions in space can be quite detrimental, SpaceX utilizes AI in its fault detection and onboard monitoring systems. The systems assess data to detect potential system failures and anomalies while triggering contingency protocols where necessary.

Finally, artificial intelligence gets involved long before a SpaceX rocket ever takes flight. During the design and manufacturing stages, SpaceX uses machine learning to help simulate and fine-tune rocket components. Engineers rely on AI to forecast how materials will respond under intense stress, explore different design possibilities in virtual environments, and pinpoint the most efficient configurations without having to build and test numerous physical prototypes. This approach not only saves time and resources but also helps ensure safety and performance from the very beginning.