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SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]

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11–20 of 391 posts

Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]

#11

Man, I saw that thing moving sideways right after liftoff and I thought it was a gonner! Huge congrats to SpaceX for landing with an offset engine like that on their first try!!!

Same here. I was waiting to see if it would cross the point of no return and obliterate their ground facilities... again. Instead, looks to have been a nearly perfect test. Onward!

Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]

#13

Man, I saw that thing moving sideways right after liftoff and I thought it was a gonner! Huge congrats to SpaceX for landing with an offset engine like that on their first try!!!

The single raptor engine is offset from the center on this test, so it had to do some pretty quick and somewhat dramatic adjustments to keep things upright.

Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]

#15
post #12

Is there an official spacex feed?

There was not. They typically don't provide one for tests, especially as these hops are relatively minor compared to getting to orbit. It's likely they'll provide one for the 20km hop coming up, since amateurs and fans aren't going to be able to set up their own feeds much further.

Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]

#16
What a week for SpaceX! Two days ago they landed Bob and Doug, and now they succeeded to hop a water tower (as a side project nonetheless, AFAIK only a small part of SpaceX is on this team)! Can't wait to see future iterations and improvements of this beast, especially to see more Raptors strapped on!

Re: SpaceX test flight of Starship SN-5 [video]

#20

What was the context behind this launch? Did they just luanch a grain silk just for kicks or something? That can't possibly be the new design for a rocket

It's a prototype to test the materials, engine, process etc. Since it's only ever going to do little hops like this one, it doesn't need to be aerodynamic.
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