| Falcon Heavy side boosters separated at two minutes twenty seven seconds on NROL-97. |
Top News
- Falcon Heavy side boosters separate during NROL-97 launch
| The side boosters separated about 2 minutes 27 seconds after liftoff on the NROL-97 mission. The launch lifted off from Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, at 11:54 p.m. ET on October 1, 2026. Both boosters returned to Cape Canaveral and landed at Landing Zones 1 and 2. It was Falcon Heavy's 14th flight and its first mission for the National Reconnaissance Office. Video of the separation came from SpaceX. Source: starlust.org |
- SDA’s Fourth Tranche 1 Mission
SpaceX listed the SDA’s Fourth Tranche 1 Mission on its launches page. The entry appears under the company's active launch manifest. Source: spacex.com - Watch Starship's engines ignite during hot-staging, seen looking straight down
SpaceX shared this downward-facing view of hot-staging on Starship Flight 14. Ship 41's Raptor engines ignited during stage separation as Super Heavy Booster 21 separated beneath it. The flight reached orbit from Starbase, Texas, on September 28, 2026. The view captures the moment the upper stage engines started while the booster fell away. Source: starlust.org - Merlin Vs. Raptor: How Do These SpaceX Rocket Engines Compare?
The Falcon 9 booster houses nine Merlins while the second stage uses a single Merlin vacuum engine. A sea-level Merlin produces about 190,000 pounds of thrust and the vacuum version reaches up to 220,500 pounds. The Raptor uses full-flow staged combustion and produces 617,000 pounds of thrust per engine. Starship carries 33 Raptors on the Super Heavy booster and six on the Ship. Merlin engines run on rocket-grade kerosene and liquid oxygen while Raptors burn liquid methane and oxygen. Source: bgr.com - NASA's SpaceX Crew-12 Wraps Station Science Mission
The crew supported research that benefits life on Earth and prepares humans for deep space missions. NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Jack Hathaway, ESA astronaut Sophie Adenot, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Andrey Fedyaev will return in early October. Research in microgravity covered changes in cell behavior and material formation. Source: miragenews.com - SpaceX (SPCX) Faces FAA Review On 76 Cape Canaveral Starship Launches
The FAA launched a supplemental environmental assessment on SpaceX's proposal for SLC-37 at Cape Canaveral. The proposal covers up to 76 Starship-Super Heavy launches and 152 landings per year. The review studies environmental and airspace effects before any license modification. Commercial operations at the pad remain on hold until the process concludes. Source: ca.finance.yahoo.com - 50-Foot Bronze Prometheus Near Starbase is Finally Finished
The 50-foot bronze Prometheus statue near Starbase reached completion. The finished sculpture stands outside the Texas launch site. Source: gadgetreview.com - Musk Claims “Rank 1” for SpaceX as Grok Tops GPT-6 in Cyber Defense
Elon Musk stated SpaceX holds rank 1 while Grok leads GPT-6 in cyber defense benchmarks. The claim ties SpaceX performance to xAI model results. Source: tikr.com
Community Buzz
- Starship F14 launch trajectory ended with steeper ascent than all previous
Observers on r/spacex noted the steeper ascent profile on Flight 14. The change appears tied to orbital insertion preparations. Source: reddit.com - Google MVP Satellite Launch: SpaceX Transporter-18 [2026]
The refrigerator-sized MVP satellite carries four Tensor Processing Units. It flew as a rideshare on Transporter-18 from Vandenberg on October 1, 2026. The payload tests whether the chips survive launch vibration and space radiation under Project Suncatcher. Source: shattered.io - Station Crew Expands as NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 Prepares to Depart
Crew-13 arrived after a 7-hour 55-minute Dragon flight. The station now hosts 11 people. The new crew includes NASA astronauts Jessica Watkins and Luke Delaney along with CSA astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Roscosmos cosmonaut Sergey Teteryatnikov. Source: nasa.gov - New space station crew launches from Florida on SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule
The Crew-13 launch occurred from Florida aboard a Falcon 9. Dragon docked at the International Space Station after the record-setting flight. Source: wfit.org
The Counterpoint
One thing worth watching is the FAA supplemental environmental assessment for up to 76 Starship-Super Heavy launches per year at SLC-37. Source: ca.finance.yahoo.com
AI & Compute
Engineering Deep Dive
From an engineering standpoint the shift from gas-generator Merlin engines to full-flow staged combustion Raptors changes how propellant energy converts to thrust. In a gas-generator cycle a separate turbine burns a small propellant stream to drive the pumps, discarding that exhaust and limiting overall efficiency. Full-flow staged combustion routes all propellant through the turbines first, extracting more work before the main chamber burns it, which raises specific impulse and allows higher chamber pressures without extra hardware mass. The Raptor’s 617,000 pounds of thrust per engine versus the Merlin’s 190,000 pounds reflects that thermodynamic gain plus the switch to denser methane-oxygen propellant. Manufacturing the more complex Raptor cycle requires tighter tolerances on turbopump seals and injector elements, yet the payoff appears in Starship’s ability to carry thirty-three engines on a single booster while still targeting rapid reuse. The same cycle also reduces the number of engine variants needed across sea-level and vacuum versions because the core architecture stays consistent. Raw material costs for a single Raptor sit far below the finished engine price, creating an Idiot Index that SpaceX aims to compress through iteration and volume production.
Market Watch
SPCX is at $158.96, +6.8% vs the previous close. |
