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Tragically off-topic, but following the link I see that SpaceX has an online shop. The shop sells a SpaceX sticker pack, and one of the stickers looks like a bunch of cats in a satellite dish. I'm not a SpaceX follower, so can someone who is explain what it means: https://shop.spacex.com/collections/featured-products/produc...
I think it is a play on words - five cats -> Cat 5
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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…
Sounds like they are not planning on testing the booster catch yet, I wonder what's stopping them
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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…
Perhaps the version of the upper stage they're launching is not equipped with whatever the relevant control surface hardware (ailerons / grid fins / etc..) is?
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…
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Perhaps the version of the upper stage they're launching is not equipped with whatever the relevant control surface hardware (ailerons / grid fins / etc..) is?
It has everything.
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I wonder if you could head over to Matamoros and give a fisherman $50 to take you out on the water. The launch tower is maybe 500yds from the beach.
There is a marine exclusion zone: https://twitter.com/VisitBocaChica/status/164693832218955776...
Also the launch should pivot & head out more your-a-way too, which could be cool.
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You would need to build a second tower with catch arms there. The booster does not have landing legs and will not touch down on the ground, the plan is to have it settle on the same "tower arms" that are used as a crane to stack the booster and the ship for launch, with engines still well above ground.
They managed landing legs and they decided to up the level of difficulty a few notches or something?
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.
What do you mean by this?