111–120 of 413 posts
Looked very impressive and there is enormous progress compared to the earlier tests. Especially as all engines seemed to work throughout the entire launch, the earlier tests had significant engine troubles so they seem to have a handle on that now. The reentry burn failing doesn't seem like a huge deal in this case, especially as the engines worked very well earlier.
Hot staging avoids a relight, but they still need to do it.
It does mean they technically have an expendable heavy launch vehicle though.
Hahah, the elevator music while they wait for reentry...
those plasma views when starship was coming into atmosphere were absolutely mind blowing. it makes a lot of sense to use starlink for this, but it never ever crossed my mind.
T+37: Seems a little turny-aroundy in orbit there and a bit "small-pieces-falling-offy" Still, good job getting it there T+43: seems to be turning around a bit too much for something thats got heat shields on one side and is about to re-enter T+45: flaps moved, maybe that is supposed to get it the right way round, I get it now - it uses the flaps to orient for re-entry T+46: the little bits of debris must be tiles co…
Seemed like ice to me, which itself can be it a problem. The vehicle didn't seem very stable even before this point so I'm wondering if we're getting ice build up on the cold gas thrusters which changed the control dynamics keeping the ship from flying stably.
The test is essentially a success at this point. Starship can take payload to orbit and open/close the payload doors. The remaining things are icing on the cake. They can refine re-usability while flying payloads.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Replying to myself. Booster made the boost back burn successfully and had a mostly controlled flight into the gulf. I say mostly because it looked like it had some instability and met the water somewhere close to 1000km/h if telemetry was right (or went unstable just before then). 10 minutes into flight starship is coasting in space for the next 30 minutes and should relight at around 40 minutes.
the instability was due to partial engine relight
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Musk decided that Twitter is now a video platform and he's decided to dogfeed with SpaceX.
Twitter was a video platform before Musk took over. They were doing Thursday night football (NFL) and other things. Looking at the SpaceX feed, they seem to be using whatever tech they got from the Periscope acquisition (at least the servers were still pscp.tv).