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Elon Musk has just bought two oil platforms to use as landing sites for his Starship vehicle. 

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/19/spacex-bought-former-valaris-oil-rigs-to-build-starship-launchpads.html

He is naming them Phobos and Deimos after the moons of Mars.

So a billionaire now owns off shore oil platforms called "Fear" and "Terror"....

D8yZQriOslCntH4Uc2ZPlLCnXgBaJqSxzdSTsgRK

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

After several false starts due to issues with tech, weather and FAA licensing, it looks as if SpaceX will do their second test of Starship, the upper stage of their Mars, Moon and Earth-to-Earth vehicle today. This is the vehicle they tested in December that goes up, flips on its side, free falls in a bellyflop position using fins to stablise and steer, then reignites the engine and reorients vertically. Last time they completed all of that and then an engine cut out a few metres above the landing pad and it fell to the earth and exploded. Big chance of a fully successful test today.

I like to watch these with Tim Dodd, aka the Everyday Astronaut, whose stream can be found here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4-PwxnJimg

Recap of the previous test:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qwLHlVjRyw

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
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I think you're being unfair. There was a good radio programme about Colin Pillinger on Radio 4 Extra the other night and he wasn't the yokel everyone had an image of.

It was later discovered that Beagle had landed on Mars and that 3 of the solar panels on Beagle had unfurled as planned but a fourth hadn't. This one covered the aerial that would have received the switch on message from Earth. Bad design or bad luck but other nations have lost probes to the Martian "ghost".

 

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1 hour ago, budmiester1 said:

Was watching the NASA feed and apparently the cameras were working straight away , only showing very basic data but as systems kick in better resolution and pictures.

First hi-res by sunday.

Didnt realise they’d packed a fucking helicopter as well.

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9 hours ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

First hi-res by sunday.

Didnt realise they’d packed a fucking helicopter as well

Thats pretty cool, had no idea. 

Will be interesting to see how it does in the thin atmosphere and dust. Seeing live film from that is next level rather than just pics of the surface.

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