Hahah, the elevator music while they wait for reentry...
My first thought was "This sounds vaguely like the music on the radio in Portal. Does a future SpaceX become Aperture Science? Is Elon Musk the progeny of Cave Johnson?"
Starship's Third Flight Test [video]
261–270 of 413 posts
Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have a great pipeline for building ships. They want reusability, but for near-term needs like deploying bigger Starlink satellites and their moon lander contract they could probably power through without reentry survival. It would be expensive, but unlike in-orbit refueling not really mission critical
> but for near-term needs like deploying bigger Starlink satellites and their moon lander contract they could probably power through without reentry survival Starlink sat deployment, probably. I’m not convinced on the moon lander contract though. Each mission requires the moon lander itself, plus a number of tanker launches to refuel the moon lander. I think it’s something like 8-15 tanker launches. If each of those…
Though, if the tankers are expendable they won't have to reserve fuel for the landing, and the number needed to refuel would probably be at the lower end of that estimate - maybe even 6-10?
Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]
#263FR24 shows a Dassault Falcon 900EX doing circles around the expected Starship re-entry location (Perth to Perth flight plan): https://www.flightradar24.com/MXJ/345b8f09
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Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]
#264Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have also been eager to launch version 2.0 starlink satellites, but they don't fit in the falcon fairing. The first couple batches of those would be test articles as well, so I'd be surprised if the next starship launch doesn't a few on board.
They've been launching a version of the v2 sats that do fit in the Falcon 9 fairing and supposedly have all the functionality of the larger versions. The issue is that F9 can only carry ~24 of those at a time, which slows down the pace of expansion a lot.
The new 'Pez dispenser' on the starship is designed for the full sized V2 sats, which are about 2x the mass of the V2 minis.
Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]
#266T+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…
I'm still in awe that I got to watch a reentry live stream just now. I wish I could tell my child self what wonders were in store. Watching humanity progress in real time is amazing.
Kids. I got to watch a moon landing live. (Not a stream, and crummy resolution, but still...)
[Edit: I meant to be talking smack a bit, but don't let me ruin your enjoyment of the really amazing things that are happening now.]
Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly, they’ve reached feature parity with large expendable launch systems so they can piggyback paying customers with a high risk threshold (starlink) on flights they’d be doing anyways. Given their cadence this phase won’t last long, they’ll likely achieve at least one successful landing next flight.
Yes this would all be true, if it were true. It is likely to become true at IFT-4 but they are very demonstrably not quite where you say they are. This was still a suborbital flight and they cannot do much of anything that is commercially practical on suborbital flights (like launch satellites, even if they raise their apogee). They appear to have not had good control authority in coast and reentry. They did not do a…
> This was still a suborbital flight and they cannot do much of anything that is commercially practical on suborbital flights
If they had flown a slightly steeper ascent and burned for a little longer (possibly a minute if not less), they would have ended in a stable orbit. Not doing that was intentional.
They do not need engine relight capability to reach orbit - plenty of orbital rockets exist that cannot relight their final stage.
Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the contrary, they absolutely had attitude control. Otherwise reentry would have seen the ship tumbling out of control and quickly breaking up. Instead, SpaceX was able to begin a controlled reentry in the upright position, indicating nominal orientation performance.
My bet on the re-entry failure is that they have really poor attitude control. They definitely had some, but you can also see at different points that the plasma was shifting directions. At T+46, it was doing a spin as the first plasma started to show. At T+47, it was going down on the edge of the heat shields. At T+47:40 it appears to be going down engine first. Moreover, I'm guessing the reason they skipped the moc…
I just noticed that I typed "Tim Todd" instead of "Tim Dodd". It's past the edit period so I shall forever live with this shame. In my defense, I was on 5 hours of sleep so I could watch the launch.
Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's a fun thought, how many Starship launches would it take to put the equivalent mass of the ISS up in the same orbit?
The ISS weighs ~420 metric tons. That is 2-3 expendable launches or 3-4 reusable ones.
Jesus Christ, that really puts it into perspective what a game changer starship is
Re: Starship's Third Flight Test [video]
#270So FAA cleared SpaceX and then within a few days they completed their launch pretty successfully by all accounts. So does that mean SpaceX could have launched a while back with no issues and were just waiting on the FAA? Did the FAA literally just slow down progress? Not a good look on the FAA, they should just let SpaceX do what it does at the speed they want. If they cannot add any value to this engagement, the lea…
When you're launching the largest and heaviest rocket ever made not running headlong into creating the biggest fuel air explosion is part of the regulatory agencies job. The first launch was pretty wildly out of control so everyone wants to make sure the rocket explodes when told if it doesn't go where it's supposed to.
I think you touch on the issue of managing public perception as part of the FAAs job.
In general the public is not monolithic when it comes to this. Many people would ecstatic with the biggest fuel air explosion and thought Launch 1 was great while others were aghast.
Some people even think rockets shouldn't be developed at all.
As a result, you see regulators trying to find a line between covering their asses from blowback from different groups of constituents.