Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

January 18 news, although SpaceX and Tesla are both owned by Elon Musk (Elon Musk), but their recent performance is very different. Tesla has been in a state of malaise since Musk bought Twitter, while SpaceX continues to flourish. In this regard, some people think that this may be due to Musk's distraction.

Whatever the reason, SpaceX is preparing for a new breakthrough in 2023, with the goal of achieving 100 launches. This means that the SpaceX is launched about every three days, while the launch pace in 2022 is about six days.

As early as March this year, SpaceX will attempt its first ever commercial spacewalk with a manned dragon spacecraft stuck in space about 700km above Earth. Soon, the company will also try to enter orbit using the most powerful rocket starship in history for the first time in preparation for future trips to the moon and Mars.

SpaceX, which has a recent valuation of about $140 billion, has been working to achieve that goal. Musk, who doesn't show up very often, devolves more power to Gwynne Shotwell, president and chief operating officer of SpaceX. Since completing his acquisition of Twitter at the end of October last year, Musk has focused on transforming it and reducing his involvement in SpaceX's day-to-day affairs, according to people familiar with the matter.

People familiar with the matter also said that Musk is more likely to help SpaceX develop a long-term vision, including its goal of going to Mars, rather than focusing on daily chores. For example, the launch workflow of the Falcon 9 rocket has become quite standardized over the years. So when Musk focused on something else, it didn't seem to have had much impact on SpaceX's operations.

Extra work according to former SpaceX employees, when Musk is too focused on day-to-day operations, it often means a lot of extra work. He will devote himself to the project and sometimes insist on making changes.

For example, when Musk thinks that some hardware has too many pipelines, connectors or wires, or does not conform to his aesthetic style of design, he will ask employees to redesign and simplify the system, forcing them to spend more time justifying the existence of certain parts or making major design improvements, which can often take weeks to complete. Sometimes, previous designs even have to be completely knocked down and started all over again.

One former employee said that when Mr Musk turned his attention to SpaceX, the company sometimes froze hiring because he wanted to have the final say on whether all new employees would join. At the end of 2021, for example, several former employees said Musk thought the company had too many employees and needed layoffs. Before that, he asked hiring managers to prove that candidates were good enough, prompting managers to try a variety of methods, including asking candidates for SAT scores. At these times, few people are hired because it is difficult to get Musk's approval.

Another former employee described a tense meeting before SpaceX's first manned flight, when the company was competing with Boeing to become the first company to send NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.

One Friday night, Musk e-mailed the SpaceX manned queue crew to attend an emergency meeting the next morning (that is, early Saturday morning). When Musk finally arrived late, he told the team that the launch could not be delayed and that they must all try their best to stick to the schedule. He also told the team that there were too many people involved in the project. The short conversation makes many people feel uneasy because they try to carry out the task as safely as possible.

Sticking to the mission given such a precedent, many SpaceX employees are relaxed that Musk has recently focused on Twitter. As Mr Musk reduced his appearances, most SpaceX executives reported to Mr Schottwell. Bill Bill Nelson, director of NASA, said in December that he had discussed with Mr Schottwell, who assured him that Mr Musk's acquisition of Twitter would in no way affect SpaceX's work.

Musk's mission for SpaceX is to help humans become a multi-planetary species, a mission that continues to make progress in Bokachica, Texas, where SpaceX develops and builds starship prototypes. In recent months, Mr. Schottwell and Mark Mark Juncosa, vice president of spaceship engineering at SpaceX, have taken over almost the entire project.

Many employees say that in the early days of the starship project, Musk often came to work at Bokacica's production facilities, sometimes personally overseeing the schedule and insisting on revising the design. Now, Ronkosa, who used to be in charge of the SpaceX space Internet project Star chain, has assumed this role, overseeing hardware development and setting project schedules.

While taking over the starship program, Ronkosa is paying more and more attention to launch reliability and more tests that can help reduce risk, according to current employees. The first few years of starship development were risky, with SpaceX conducting suborbital flight tests every few months, and some attempts ended in landing explosions, with debris scattered on nearby wetlands. On the same day that Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter, the media revealed that there had been a testing accident in SpaceX, which could lead to the injury of more than 20 employees.

SpaceX has not conducted a similar test launch since the successful landing of the starship test flight in May 2021. The company's next major flight is the first orbital launch of a starship, which will be another major milestone. Mr Musk said recently that the starship would conduct orbital tests as early as February or March at the earliest, although his predictions for the launch date are often inaccurate.

Reliability will be key to the continued progress of the starship program, as it will play an important role in NASA's return to the moon. The agency has chosen a modified starship to send astronauts to the lunar surface and plans to carry out the mission as early as early 2025. SpaceX also has its own ambitious plans for starships, including using it to launch future chain Internet satellites.

Thanks to the executives behind Mr Musk, SpaceX can move fast without a leader. But in the final analysis, they need to achieve Musk's vision, and it is only a matter of time before he returns.

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