Floating Launch Vehicle Operations Platform
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Floating Launch Vehicle Operations Platform
A floating launch vehicle operations platform is a marine vessel used for launch or landing operations of an orbital launch vehicle by a launch service provider: putting satellites into orbit around Earth or another celestial body, or recovering first-stage boosters from orbital-class flights by making a propulsive landing on the platform. In the early decades of spaceflight technology, all orbital launch vehicle operations were exclusively from land, and all booster stages were expended after a single use for nearly 60 years after the first orbital spaceflight, Sputnik 1. After the late 1990s and into the 2010s, new marine options for launch were built. Landing of orbital-class boosters began to be accomplished in 2015. More platforms, both for launch and landing, are currently in construction or planned. Suborbital rockets and ballistic missiles had been launched from marine platforms earlier than the 1990s, but are not the topic of this article. Platforms to date Both ...
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Marine Vessel
Any vehicle used in or on water as well as underwater, including boats, ships, hovercraft and submarines, is a watercraft, also known as a water vessel or waterborne vessel. A watercraft usually has a propulsive capability (whether by sail, oar, paddle, or engine) and hence is distinct from a stationary device, such as a pontoon, that merely floats. Types Most watercraft may be described as either a ship or a boat. However, numerous items, including surfboards, underwater robots, seaplanes and torpedoes, may be considered neither ships nor boats. Although ships are typically larger than boats, the distinction between those two categories is not one of size per se. *Ships are typically large ocean-going vessels; whereas boats are smaller, and typically travel most often on inland or coastal waters. *A rule of thumb says "a boat can fit on a ship, but a ship can't fit on a boat", and a ship ''usually'' has sufficient size to carry its own boats, such as lifeboats, dinghies, ...
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Falcon Rocket Family
SpaceX manufactures launch vehicles to operate its launch provider services and to execute its various exploration goals. SpaceX currently manufactures and operates the Falcon 9 Full Thrust family of medium-lift launch vehicles and the Falcon Heavy family of heavy-lift launch vehicles – both of which powered by SpaceX Merlin engines and employing VTVL technologies to reuse the first stage. As of 2020, the company is also developing the fully reusable Starship launch system, which will replace the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy. SpaceX's first launch vehicle, the Falcon 1, was the first privately developed liquid fuel launch vehicle to be launched into orbit, and utilized SpaceX's Merlin and Kestrel engines for its first and second stages, respectively. It was launched five times from Omelek Island between 2006 and 2009 – the Falcon 1e and Falcon 5 variants were planned but never developed. The Falcon 9 v1.0, utilizing upgraded Merlin engines on both its stages, was developed as ...
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SpaceX Starship
Starship is a Fully-reusable orbital launch vehicle, fully reusable, super heavy-lift launch vehicle under development by SpaceX, an American aerospace company. With more than twice the thrust of the Saturn V, it is designed to be the most powerful launch vehicle ever built and the first with total reusability. The Starship launch vehicle is made up of the SpaceX Starship#Super Heavy booster, Super Heavy first-stage booster and the SpaceX Starship#Starship spacecraft, Starship second stage. The second stage functions as a self-contained spacecraft for carrying crew or cargo once in orbit. Both stages are powered by Raptor engines that burn liquid oxygen and liquid methane propellants in a highly efficient, full-flow staged combustion power cycle. Both rocket stages are designed to be reused by landing vertically at the launch pad or at a separate platform. In its fully reusable configuration, Starship has a payload capacity of to low Earth orbit and is designed to be flown mul ...
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SpaceX Floating Launch Platform
SpaceX's Starship offshore platforms—''Deimos'' and ''Phobos''—are former Deepwater drilling, deepwater Oil rig, oil drilling rigs. In January 2021, SpaceX began modifying them to support launch and landing of their next-generation launch vehicle, SpaceX Starship, Starship. Both platforms are part of the Ensco 8500 Series Semi Submersible-type. History SpaceX CEO Elon Musk first showed offshore launch and landing platforms for Starship in a 2017 animation of the Earth-to-Earth passenger-carrying use case. More recently, Musk clarified in June 2020 that offshore platforms would be used both for launches into space, post-launch landings, and for the more long-term Earth-to-Earth transportation. In July 2020, Lone Star Mineral Development LLC, a subsidiary of SpaceX, bought two semi-submersible platform, semi-submersible oil drilling rig, drilling rigs from Valaris plc for each. They were renamed ''Deimos'' and ''Phobos'' after the two moons of Mars. The drilling platforms had ...
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New Glenn
New Glenn is a heavy-lift orbital launch vehicle in development by Blue Origin. Named after NASA astronaut John Glenn, design work on the vehicle began in 2012. Illustrations of the vehicle, and the high-level specifications, were initially publicly unveiled in September 2016. New Glenn is a two-stage rocket with a diameter of . Its first stage will be powered by seven BE-4 engines that are also being designed and manufactured by Blue Origin. Like the New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle that preceded it, the New Glenn's first stage has been designed to be reusable since its inception in 2016. In 2021, the company initiated conceptual design work on approaches to potentially make the second stage reusable as well, with the project codenamed Project Jarvis. Originally aiming for first launch of New Glenn in 2020, Blue Origin has publicly announced delays on three occasions: to 2021 in late 2018, to fourth quarter of 2022 in early 2021, and to no earlier than Q4 2023 in ...
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First Stage (rocketry)
A multistage rocket or step rocket is a launch vehicle that uses two or more rocket ''stages'', each of which contains its own engines and propellant. A ''tandem'' or ''serial'' stage is mounted on top of another stage; a ''parallel'' stage is attached alongside another stage. The result is effectively two or more rockets stacked on top of or attached next to each other. Two-stage rockets are quite common, but rockets with as many as five separate stages have been successfully launched. By jettisoning stages when they run out of propellant, the mass of the remaining rocket is decreased. Each successive stage can also be optimized for its specific operating conditions, such as decreased atmospheric pressure at higher altitudes. This ''staging'' allows the thrust of the remaining stages to more easily accelerate the rocket to its final speed and height. In serial or tandem staging schemes, the first stage is at the bottom and is usually the largest, the second stage and subsequ ...
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Underway
Underway, or under way, is a nautical term describing the state of a vessel. "Way" arises when there is sufficient water flow past the rudder of a vessel that it can be steered. A vessel is said to be underway if it meets the following criteria: * It is not aground * It is not at anchor * It has not been made fast to a dock A dock (from Dutch language, Dutch ''dok'') is the area of water between or next to one or a group of human-made structures that are involved in the handling of boats or ships (usually on or near a shore) or such structures themselves. The ex ..., the shore, or other stationary object. If a vessel is adrift and not being propelled by any instrument or device, it is said to be ''underway, not making way.'' "Under weigh" is a variation, coming from folk etymology, first used in 1749. "Under way" is likely from the Dutch ''onderweg'' or Middle Dutch ''onderwegen'' (lit. "under" or "among the ways"). Weigh is also a synonym for hanging or dangling, so t ...
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Port Of Pensacola
The Port of Pensacola is an operational deep-water port located on Pensacola Bay. With origins dating back to 1743, it is now one of the City of Pensacola's Enterprise Operations, having been incorporated in 1943 as the Municipal Port Authority. The present-day Port of Pensacola occupies approximately 50 acres of landfill at the southern terminus of Barracks Street in downtown Pensacola, on the site of the former Commendencia Street and Tarragona Street wharves. The Port has eight 33' deep draft berths, 265,000 square feet of warehouse space, and on-dock rail service. Port Pensacola is located on the Gulf of Mexico only 11 miles from the first sea buoy with no overhead obstructions - one of the quickest transits in Gulf of Mexico. Class 1 rail line (CSX), Interstate system (I-10 Interstate), Pensacola International Airport (most traveled airport along the Gulf of Mexico coast between New Orleans and Jacksonville, Florida) – all modes directly accessible from the Port. Port Pe ...
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Jacklyn (ship)
''Jacklyn'', formerly known as ''LPV'', ''Stena Freighter'', ''Stena Seafreighter'', RFA ''Sea Chieftain'', and ''Stena Hispanica'', was a roll-on/roll-off cargo ship which was purchased by Blue Origin in 2018 for use as a landing platform ship. Ultimately, Blue Origin abandoned their plans to use the ship as a landing platform, and in August 2022, the ship was towed to the Port of Brownsville for scrapping. History ''Stena Freighter'' was built by Società Esercizio Cantieri of Viareggio, Italy, and completed in 2004 by Elektromehanika d.o.o. at Kraljevica Shipyard, Croatia, for Swedish operator Stena Line. The ship was initially laid down in February 1997 as ''Stena Hispanica'' for Stena Line, but on 5 May 1998 was renamed after the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) contracted with Stena for a long-term charter of the vessel for freight-carrying capacity to support the Joint Rapid Reaction Force. The ship was launched just four days later on 9 May 1998. Società Eser ...
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Blue Origin
Blue Origin, LLC is an American private spaceflight, privately funded aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company headquartered in Kent, Washington. Founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, the founder and executive chairman of Amazon (company), Amazon, the company is led by CEO Bob Smith and aims to make access to space cheaper and more reliable through reusable launch vehicles. Rob Meyerson led Blue Origin from 2003 to 2017 and served as its first president. Blue Origin is employing an incremental approach from suborbital to orbital flight, with each developmental step building on its prior work. The company's name refers to the blue planet, Earth, as the point of origin. Blue Origin develops orbital technology, rocket-powered VTVL, vertical takeoff and vertical landing (VTVL) vehicles for access to sub-orbital spaceflight, suborbital and orbital spaceflight, orbital outer space, space. Initially focused on suborbital spaceflight, the company has designed, built ...
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Long March 11
The Long March 11 (), or Chang Zheng 11 as in pinyin, abbreviated LM-11 for export or CZ-11 within China (and designated 11H when launched from sea), is a Chinese four stage solid-propellant carrier rocket of the Long March family, which is developed by the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. It was designed with the ability to launch on short notice and it can launch from road vehicles (CZ-11) and ships (CZ-11H). It is likely based on the DF-31 missile. The vehicle can be cold launched from a launch tube mounted on a road mobile vehicle. The maiden flight of the Long March 11 occurred on 25 September 2015. The first sea launch occurred on 5 June 2019, from a converted barge stationed in the Yellow Sea The Yellow Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean located between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula, and can be considered the northwestern part of the East China Sea. It is one of four seas named after common colour terms .... Fifteen l ...
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Smallsat
A small satellite, miniaturized satellite, or smallsat is a satellite of low mass and size, usually under . While all such satellites can be referred to as "small", different classifications are used to categorize them based on mass. Satellites can be built small to reduce the large economic cost of launch vehicles and the costs associated with construction. Miniature satellites, especially in large numbers, may be more useful than fewer, larger ones for some purposes – for example, gathering of scientific data and radio relay. Technical challenges in the construction of small satellites may include the lack of sufficient power storage or of room for a propulsion system. Rationales One rationale for miniaturizing satellites is to reduce the cost; heavier satellites require larger rockets with greater thrust that also have greater cost to finance. In contrast, smaller and lighter satellites require smaller and cheaper launch vehicles and can sometimes be launched in multipl ...
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