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In the latest sign of activity on the upcoming SpaceX launch site at Boca Chica Beach, a 95,000-gallon liquid oxygen tank was delivered to the site via a flatbed trailer Wednesday afternoon. midday.
The massive tank "LOX" SpaceX spokesman, Sean Pitt, said this indicates that the company continues to make progress in developing the Boca Chica site 24 miles east of Brownsville [19659003]. The new liquid oxygen tank, which will be used to support propellant loading operations during launch and vehicle testing, is the last major piece of launch material to arrive at the site for installation, "he said. declared. Chief designer Elon Musk said that brief "hopper flights" from the company's Big Falcon Rocket spacecraft component will likely take place in Boca Chica, possibly next year.
SpaceX focuses on developing the BFR to bring the first humans to Mars, Musk's ultimate goal, although he initially planned to develop the smallest Falcon Heavy rockets for this purpose. The BFR rocket probe system will be built in a SpaceX facility at the Port of Los Angeles. Fully assembled, it is expected to be 340 feet tall, according to the Los Angeles Times.
SpaceX is headquartered in Hawthorne, California, with launch facilities in California and Florida and a rocket engine testing center in McGregor, Texas. 19659004] Last October, Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of SpaceX, described Boca Chica as "the perfect place for BFR". At an official opening of the site in September 2014, Musk said, "It may well be that" Rene Oliveira, D-Brownsville, commenting on SpaceX's request for Spaceport Trust Fund funding for infrastructure funds -development, said in February that the company's intentions for Boca Chica go "well beyond the original plan."
To date, SpaceX has installed more than 600 kilowatts of solar panels on the site , as well as two 86-ton earth station antennas for monitoring crews. flights to the International Space Station aboard the company's reusable Dragon Spacecraft. The first estimates were launched in 2016, but many delays have pushed it back. SpaceX now expects Boca Chica to be operational by the end of 2018.
In 2008, the company's Falcon 1 was the first privately developed liquid rocket to reach orbit. The SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, on its maiden flight in 2010, was the first spacecraft built and operated to be recovered from orbit.
In 2012, a different version of the Dragon became the first spacecraft to dock at the International Space Station. In December 2015, SpaceX achieved another historic first by launching a reusable Falcon 9 rocket into orbit and returning it to the launch site in a controlled vertical landing.
In April 2016, on its fifth attempt, SpaceX company landed a Falcon 9. on its drone ship, dubbed "Of course, I still love you," off the coast of Florida after launching a robotic Dragon spaceship in orbit . Scientific American has called it a "major technical feat."
Last February, SpaceX celebrated the successful launch of the Falcon Heavy, the world's most powerful rocket and the controlled return to Earth of two of its three reusable thrusters. rockets.
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