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Weekly Space Recap: August 21 – August 27

A collage of the last week in space! (Credit Richard Angle, SpaceX, ISRO, and Rocket Lab)

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Here are some of the stories you may have missed in the past week. The fourth week of August 2023 featured SpaceX hitting a Starlink milestone, India landing on the Moon, Rocket Lab moving forward with reusability, and more Starship testing.

SpaceX launches 100th dedicated Starlink mission – Starlink Group 7-1 launched from California and deployed 21 V2 mini-satellites into orbit following a short delay caused by Hurricane Hilary. This mission also featured the 15th flight of Booster 1061.

India lands Chandrayaan-3 on the Moon – India became the 4th country to successfully land on the Moon and landed the closest to the Southern pole of any country. After landing, The Pragyan rover was deployed and has begun roaming the surface of the Moon conducting experiments, and the Vikram lander has also begun its own set of experiments during the ~12-day mission.

Rocket Lab launches 40th mission – After issues on the original Electron assigned to this mission, Rocket Lab switched it out for a booster intended for recovery, and it featured the reuse of a Rutherford engine. CEO Peter Beck said the first stage and re-used engine performed perfectly, and the booster was recovered from the ocean for analysis as the company moves closer to reusing the entire first-stage rocket.

Starship performs 2nd static fire test – After a trip to the production site to add a hot stage ring, Booster 9 rolled back to the launch site for a series of tests culminating in a static fire. SpaceX confirmed all 33 engines ignited, but 2 shut down early during the ~5-second test fire. This is an improvement over the last static fire, which shut down early. Elon Musk has said they expect the next Starship test flight to happen “soon.”

Crew 7 launches and docks to the ISS – Crew 7 successfully launched from LC-39A on August 26th, and after a day of catching up to the Space Station, Crew Dragon Endurance autonomously docked. Crew 7 will now spend the next 6 months aboard the ISS, and sometime next week, Crew 6 will make its return to Earth.

Crew 7 continuing to orbit while the Falcon 9 first stage performs a boostback burn (Credit: Richard Angle)

5,000th Starlink launched into space – 22 V2 mini Starlinks launched from LC-40 in Florida the evening of the 26th, hours after the Crew 7 launch. This mission brought the total number of Starlink satellites launched to 5,005. This flight featured the 3rd flight, Booster 1081, which successfully landed on the droneship. However, that booster has still not arrived back in Port Canaveral, the port is closed due to high winds from Hurricane Idalia passing to the North.

ULA readies for the first Atlas V launch of the year – The Atlas V was rolled to the LC-41 in Florida and prepped for launch, but due to Hurricane Idalia, ULA rolled the Atlas V back to the Vertical Integration Facility to keep the rocket and secretive NRO payload safe until the storm passes. ULA will confirm a new launch date soon.

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What do you think of last week’s news? Rocket Lab made big strides for reusability, India became the 4th country to soft-land on the Moon, and as always, SpaceX was non-stop with Starship testing and Falcon 9 launches!

Thanks for reading the Weekly Space Recap!

Questions or comments? Shoot me an email at rangle@teslarati.com, or Tweet me @RDAnglePhoto.

Launch journalist, specializing in launch photography. Based on the Space Coast, a short drive from Cape Canaveral and the SpaceX launch pads.

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Tesla Model Y L gets suspension complaints in over odd issue China

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Credit: @TeslaNewswire/X

The Tesla Model Y L is arguably the most hyped trim of the all-electric crossover, other than the Performance configuration that comes with white-knuckle speed and sports car-level handling.

However, it is not all perfect. Tesla owners in China who took delivery of the Model Y L, denoted with an L to highlight its longer wheelbase, are experiencing what they are referring to as “collapsing” of the rear wheels, as suspension issues appear to be an issue with some of the builds.

The gap between the wheel arch and tire has narrowed to the point that “not even a single finger” could fit, according to a report from Car News China. The failures are not tied to a specific mileage, as one owner said that after just 9,000 kilometers (5,600 miles), they noticed the suspension issue when their car was fully loaded.

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Another one had the issue at 30,000 kilometers (18,640 miles) and noticed that the wheel gap shrank to two fingers, so not as drastic as the person who reported a similar issue at 9,000 km.

Tesla Model Y L is gaining momentum in China’s premium segment

Along with the visual recognition of the issue, others are saying the sagging is causing abnormal wear on the inside of the tires. Extra weight and instant torque already provide additional stress on the tires in electric vehicles during normal operation, so it is no surprise that this is another complaint.

There has been no recall issued by Tesla, and the company has not yet publicly acknowledged the issue.

Some are suggesting that owners use a “finger test” to self-diagnose whether there is an issue with the suspension. There should be four fingers between the tire and the wheel well; anything less than that starts to get dicey.

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Tesla Cybercab event gains steam ahead of massive launch

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Credit: TechOperator | X

Tesla is starting to truly tease and hype its groundbreaking Cybercab event, which takes place tomorrow in Austin, Texas. It will be the first time members of the public will be able to ride in a Cybercab, a vehicle without any manual controls, on public roads.

Tesla has been dropping some hype on X over the past several days, but this morning, the excitement has truly started to build up for the event. Although Cybercab has been unveiled before, this is truly Tesla’s announcement that it is ready to start offering autonomous rides for public passengers in its new ride-hailing-geared vehicle for the first time.

The hype has started with a variety of different social media posts that are a true indication that Tesla is preparing for something big. Teasing so much of the potential of Cybercab, including its ability to truly revolutionize how people hail rides for local travel, is what the big idea for the event entails. The time that many Tesla owners, fans, and investors have been waiting for is potentially here:

The event has remained slim on details. Even invitees are still awaiting true details about what the event will entail, where they’ll go, and what is in store for the evening. This is pretty typical for an event run by Tesla; they keep things under wraps for the most part until the very last minute.

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However, there is no secret about what the real intention of Tesla is for this event: it is going to be a huge reveal party for a vehicle that has no steering wheel and no pedals. It is a truly massive step for the company moving forward.

Speculation persists as to whether this is going to be an event that simply announces that rides will begin with the Cybercab, or it will be something more substantial. Tesla has said in the past that they plan to sell the Cybercab to the general public in what could become a great way to earn passive income by adding it to a more global fleet of Robotaxi-geared vehicles.

Tomorrow, the show begins in Austin, and the Cybercab goes live at some capacity; we just don’t know exactly how quite yet.

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SpaceX tells the FCC that Starship Flight 14 is going to orbit

SpaceX filed with the FCC for Starship Flight 14, its first true orbital launch attempt.

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SpaceX has asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission to fly Starlink terminals during Starship’s fourteenth flight test, and the filing lays out a genuine trip to orbit, something the program has never attempted.

Every Starship flight so far, including Flight 13’s successful splashdown in the Indian Ocean on July 24, has flown a suborbital arc that ends with the ship reentering the atmosphere within the same hour it launches. The FCC paperwork describes a mission profile built around an actual orbital insertion instead.

The payload is the other half of the story. Flight 13 carried 20 production Starlink V3 satellites, but because that mission never reached orbit, the satellites reentered along with the ship rather than joining the constellation, something Teslarati covered in detail after SpaceX released footage shot from one of those satellites as it drifted away from Starship in space. Flight 14 is designed to close that gap. If the orbital insertion holds, the roughly 20 V3 satellites onboard would separate into an operational orbit and could eventually go into service, each one rated for about 1 terabit per second of downlink capacity by SpaceX’s own account.

SpaceX announces new Starbase for ‘thousands of Starship launches annually’

Elon Musk first flagged the orbital attempt during SpaceX’s August 4 earnings call, the company’s first as a public entity following its June IPO under the ticker SPCX. He also floated catching the ship with the Starbase tower on the same flight, an idea he walked back on August 20, saying the catch attempt would more likely come “in a few months,” as Teslarati reported at the time. Flight 14 will instead target a splashdown for the ship in the Indian Ocean, the same recovery method used since Flight 12.

Hardware has been catching up to the ambition. Booster 21 completed a full 33-engine static fire on August 28, and Ship 41 finished its own six-engine test the week before. An airspace briefing circulated to pilots on August 20 listed September 15 as the target date, later than the end of August window Musk mentioned on the earnings call, though SpaceX has not confirmed a launch date publicly and Starship schedules routinely slip while hardware and FAA paperwork line up.

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The FCC filing itself does not guarantee a launch date. It covers communications authority, and not flight readiness, considering SpaceX still needs Ship 41 fully stacked and cleared by the FAA before Flight 14 can fly. But the filing is a real marker of intent and it puts a specific regulatory process behind what had so far only been Musk’s word on the earnings call.

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