SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight
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Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight
#2HN: "SpaceX Launches and Nearly Lands Starship on Its First Suborbital Flight"
vs
Article: "SpaceX Launches—and Crashes—Its Starship Mars Rocket"
Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight
#3I remember watching the Tesla going into space and the rockets landing on the platform. I remember thinking "Wow this man has restarted the space race for my generation." It was a hopeful and wonderful feeling, I figured with the budget cuts, the politics, and the general "been there done that" attitude that was prominent for much of my life space was closed.
To see it opened again, gives me some sort of hope, some idea that there are things bigger than our squabbles, we took one giant leap for mankind when we stepped on the moon, but it's time for the next step to see what we can do after a leap.
Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight
#4Great flight!
Elon tweeted that the header tank pressure was low:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1336809767574982658
There was also a substantial green flame coming from the raptor engine used for landing. Group consensus over on /r/SpaceX is that it was copper burning. We're amazed the engine didn't explode sooner.
Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight
#5That was so amazing to watch! I wish I could have been able to get down to South Padre to watch in person
Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight
#6HN: "SpaceX Launches and Nearly Lands Starship on Its First Suborbital Flight" vs Article: "SpaceX Launches—and Crashes—Its Starship Mars Rocket"
For whatever reason, Wired preferred the clickbait title, but the opening sentence of the article is: "On Wednesday afternoon, SpaceX successfully launched—and nearly landed—a fully-assembled prototype of its next generation Starship rocket on a suborbital flight from its facility in south Texas."
Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight
#7Swing and a miss.. but not by much! Congrats to the SpaceX team on the amazing and fast progress. What an incredible step forward.
Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight
#8Great flight! Elon tweeted that the header tank pressure was low: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1336809767574982658 There was also a substantial green flame coming from the raptor engine used for landing. Group consensus over on /r/SpaceX is that it was copper burning. We're amazed the engine didn't explode sooner.
I think it was purging leftover hypergolic fuel, which is used to ignite the engines. Or, maybe the engine sensed the engine was abnormal (because of low fuel), so it tried to re-ignite.
Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight
#9Great flight! Elon tweeted that the header tank pressure was low: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1336809767574982658 There was also a substantial green flame coming from the raptor engine used for landing. Group consensus over on /r/SpaceX is that it was copper burning. We're amazed the engine didn't explode sooner.
I think it was purging leftover hypergolic fuel, which is used to ignite the engines. Or, maybe the engine sensed the engine was abnormal (because of low fuel), so it tried to re-ignite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triethylborane
Its spark ignited. No hyperglos
Re: SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight
#10If you watch the last few frames, it looks like the ship indeed landed. From the perspective that for a split second the entire vehicle was upright and in touch with the ground, that is. I’m not one to be a pedant, but you can claim a landing if you squint at it long enough.