Billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX said on Wednesday that the world's first space tourist Dennis Tito and his wife Akiko have signed up to fly around the moon on the space exploration firm's Starship rocket. Engineer turned financial analyst Tito, 82, was the first private individual to pay for a trip to space on Russia's Soyuz TM-32 mission in 2001, when he spent nearly eight days aboard the International Space Station. The SpaceX flight's roughly week-long journey will see the rocket travel within 200 kilometers of the moon without landing on its surface. FILE PHOTO : Starship prototypes are pictured at the SpaceX South Texas launch site near Brownsville, Texas, U.S., May 22, 2022. REUTERS/Veronica G. Cardenas Tito and his wife are the first crewmembers to be announced for Stars...
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Elon Musk’s SpaceX was set to launch a prototype of its Mars rocket Starship in its highest-altitude “hop” test from the space company’s Texas facilities on Tuesday, a key trial for a rocket system that Musk hopes will land humans on the moon and eventually Mars. Musk sought to tamp down expectations for Starship’s first suborbital flight using three of its new Raptor rocket engines, predicting a 30% chance of success in reaching an altitude of more than 40,000 feet. That would be vastly higher than the vehicle’s first two tests at altitudes of 500 feet. The sun sets as SpaceX prepares their super heavy-lift Starship SN8 rocket for a test launch this week at the company's facilities in Boca Chica, Texas, U.S. December 1, 2020. REUTERS/Gene Blevins “With a test such as this, succe...
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