Eagle-eyed experts at Electrek believe they have spotted a fascinating collaboration between two of Elon Musk’s revolutionary companies, Tesla and SpaceX. And it appears electric car maker Tesla is helping reusable rocket disrupter SpaceX with powering the electronics of the enormous spacecraft. Elon Musk is expected to provide a presentation about the updated design of the SpaceX spacecraft and its planned rocket, Super Heavy, on Saturday.
In the meantime, SpaceX fans have been closely following the development of the spacecraft prototype in Boca Chica, Texas.
Electric is the future!
Elon Musk
Onlookers on the NASA Space Flight forum discovered SpaceX has included Tesla battery packs to the prototype.
SpaceX engineers appear to have installed strapped Tesla Model S/X battery packs together, potentially packing up to 400 kWh of energy.
This is only the latest example of synergy between Elon Musk’s projects.
Cavalier South African billionaire Mr Musk has previously discussed the difficulties involved in running a number of complex companies.
But the tech entrepreneur has also acknowledged the benefits of being active in different industries.
SpaceX aims to dramatically reduce the cost of building and running rockets.
And the automotive industry is widely-regarded as one that has perfected the method of making complex machines cost-effective.
Meanwhile, Tesla itself benefits from SpaceX’s expertise of high-tech manufacturing techniques such as stir welding, a technique SpaceX uses to join large sheets of metal like the ones used for their rockets’s aluminium tanks.
News broke last year how SpaceX and Tesla are are also collaborating to create new materials to use both in space and terra firma.
They have been building material engineering teams to develop new advanced materials for their respective products.
The teams are so interlinked, Tesla recruiters reportedly referred to them as a “SpaceX/Tesla Materials Engineering organisation”.
Tesla and SpaceX plan to continue working together in the years ahead.
One of the most high-profile examples is Elon Musk’s intention to feature a “SpaceX package” in the new Tesla Roadster that will include cold air trusters developed by SpaceX.
It will result in more SpaceX technology inside Tesla vehicles, while there will be some Tesla technology in SpaceX’s rockets.
Source: Read Full Article