All articles tagged with #refueling
Three Ohio airmen were among the six U.S. service members killed when a KC-135 Stratotanker crashed during a combat mission in western Iraq, with Gov. DeWine confirming the Ohio casualties and noting they were from the 121st Air Refueling Wing at Rickenbacker.
An airport worker at Dallas Fort-Worth Airport accidentally lost control of a refueling hose, causing a fuel spill that was captured in a viral video, prompting an investigation and cleanup by airport authorities and American Airlines.
While SpaceX works on resolving legal challenges and reliability issues with its Starship vehicle, its Falcon Heavy rocket offers a stopgap solution for NASA's lunar exploration plans. The Falcon Heavy has had six successful flights and offers a path forward for delivering larger payloads to the lunar surface. The method involves launching a commercially available reusable first stage rocket system, followed by an expendable upper stage that docks with the first in orbit. Refueling options can also be used to increase payload capacity. This method is cheaper and more readily available than other options and can be used to distribute infrastructure on the Moon.
SpaceX released a video portraying a future Starship mission to Mars. The video shows Starship launching from Boca Chica, Texas, separating its first stage from the second stage, and making its way to Mars after refueling in orbit. The rocket lands vertically on its pad, and four astronauts open the hatch to a view of a Martian city. SpaceX is currently prepping for Starship’s orbital test flight, which could happen next week pending a launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration.