SpaceX第九次星艦軌道試飛任務

Chun Wang, Mission Commander of Fram2 , the first human spaceflight mission to fly over Earth’s poles, announced today he will fly aboard Starship’s first human spaceflight interplanetary missions to Mars! The two-year mission will explore outside the Earth-Moon system before flying-by the Red Planet and returning to Earth. Prior to this interplanetary mission, Chun will join Dennis and Akiko Tito on the first planned Starship commercial human spaceflight around the Moon . The week-long circumlunar fly-by mission will help advance Starship’s systems for deep-space, long-duration missions and is planned to fly within 200 km of the Moon’s surface. Since May 2020, SpaceX has safely flown 78 crewmembers from 20 countries to and from space across 20 missions aboard Dragon, including seven commercial and private astronaut missions that have greatly expanded access to space in low-Earth orbit. Starship will now expand that access further – to the Moon and Mars with two upcoming commercial human spaceflight missions. The third generation of Starship and Super Heavy, powered by Raptor 3 and launching from an entirely new launch pad, incorporate learnings from years of flight testing and development. The Super Heavy V3 booster features several significant upgrades. The number of grid fins has been reduced from four to three, with each fin now 50% larger and significantly stronger. These fins include a new catch point and have been re-clocked on the booster to support vehicle lift and catch operations. They have also been lowered to reduce heat exposure from Starship’s engines during hot-staging. Additionally, the grid fin shaft, actuator, and fixed structure have been moved inside the booster’s main fuel tank for better protection. An integrated hot stage replaces the previous single-use protective interstage. The forward dome of the booster fuel tank is now directly exposed to the Starship upper stage’s Raptor engines upon ignition, with the booster’s internal fuel tank pressure and a non-structural layer of steel protecting it during stage separation. And the actuators on the interstage that connect the ship and booster now retract after separation to further shield them from Raptor exhaust. The fuel transfer tube, which channels cryogenic fuel from the main tank to the 33 Raptor engines, has been completely redesigned and is now roughly the size of a Falcon 9 first stage. This new design enables all 33 engines to start up simultaneously and faster, more reliable flip maneuvers. The aft end thermal protection system has been redesigned, with propulsion and avionics systems now tightly integrated to coordinate the distribution of fluids, power, and networking to the 33 Raptor engines. Large individual engine shrouds have been eliminated, and shielding has been added to the surface area between engines and around the thrust vector control hardware on the inner 13 engines. The carbon dioxide fire suppression system has been removed following the deletion of the aft cavity and engine shrouds. Finally, the booster has gone from a single quick disconnect, which is the primary path for loading fuel and oxidizer into the vehicle, to two physically separated connection points. This change provides additional redundancy between the pad and vehicle connections while allowing the supporting mechanisms to be smaller and less complex. Starship V3 incorporates a clean-sheet redesign of its propulsion systems. These changes enable a new Raptor startup method, increase propellant tank volume, and improve the reaction control system used for steering while in flight. The propulsion updates also reduce contained volumes in the aft end of the vehicle that could trap propellant leakage. Aft end fluid and electrical systems have been rerouted allowing for the deletion of individual engine shrouds and the large aft close-out volume, which previously required extensive environmental control. The aft flap actuation system has also been upgraded fro