The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

Post by olex » Fri, Apr 14, 2023, 10:41 PM UTC

agrajag wrote: post #21

starbase wrote: post #13

If the two stages survive long enough to do a splashdown, will SpaceX attempt to hover them over the water until they run out of fuel? Will there be splashdown video?

According to the flight plan published by SpaceX, the booster is going to attempt a hover in the gulf to simulate a landing, while the Ship isn’t going to slow down at all after reentry and will impact the ocean at a high velocity.

Post by ralfd » Fri, Apr 14, 2023, 10:43 PM UTC

mhandley wrote: post #3

InTheArena wrote: post #2

It's been interesting to see SpaceX shift from hardware-rich to a more traditional process the last year. I suspect a lot of it is due to the sheer cost of what they are doing, but a lot of it is PR management as well... Plus it's obvious that the US government is doing everything in their power to have Musk on as short of a leash as possible.

SpaceX moved beyond what they could test without the launch (and catch) tower. They've spent a lot of time and money developing the ground systems - in comparison the early crude Starship prototypes were comparatively cheap and easily replaced - and I would imagine they really would prefer not to accidentally demolish the tower again.

Post by sebzim4500 » Fri, Apr 14, 2023, 10:49 PM UTC

olex wrote: post #32

agrajag wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the flight plan published by SpaceX, the booster is going to attempt a hover in the gulf to simulate a landing, while the Ship isn’t going to slow down at all after reentry and will impact the ocean at a high velocity.

I wonder why they don't plan to execute the flip and landing burn with the ship, just for additional test data. So far it fully worked only once (and _almost_ worked a couple more times), surely it can't hurt to have another go at it, even if the ship is ultimately not being recovered. I guess propellant margins may be a cause, but then they'll likely want to have a "nominal" amount of leftover fuel onboard anyway to…

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 14, 2023, 10:54 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #19

Me1000 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's correct, there will be no catch attempt this launch. They're going to simulate a landing by attempting to do soft land it in the Gulf of Mexico. The reason is pretty straightforward: this vehicle has never flown before and a lot can go wrong. There is a lot of ground equipment including propellant tanks very close to the launch tower. If anything goes wrong hundreds of tons of metal + propellant is going to ca…

It can’t be that hard to not land it in your launch area right? Can’t they have a separate land and crash area (preferably separated by a few tens of kilometers)?

Post by deepsun » Fri, Apr 14, 2023, 10:58 PM UTC

00F_ wrote: post #18

i was at south padre island for the first starship landing. even though it blew up a minute or two after it landed, i consider it the first landing. i had seen pretty much every major launch from spacex on their livestreams but i was still taken aback at seeing starship. its as odd as watching a skyscraper slowly levitate upward into the sky. and to see it standing after the dust settled was unreal. and after it was…