271–280 of 413 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Grid fins aren't drag devices. They are control surfaces. As long as they are oriented so the fins are aligned with the airflow, they have no effect on orientation. The benefit of not folding them in is one less part that can fail. There might be a slight reduction in drag by folding them in, but not much and apparently not worth it.
The side edge of the grid fin may have more surface area than edge on.
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.
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No, most rocket engines have quite limited amount of throttle capability and run near maximum thrust until cutoff. The rocket yaws and pitches in the first seconds of flight while the vehicle is still subsonic, then flies a gravity turn trajectory at zero angle of attack (facing the direction of travel) at near maximum thrust. Any errors accumulated during early part of the flight will be corrected by adjusting the t…
Thank you. Yes, I figured that real life engines could not throttle enough for the maneuver as stated. I am familiar with the gravity turn, but I just don't see how energy can be added continuously, uniformly right up to a circular orbit. But I've not really put much effort into trying to understand that, I'll start looking more at real life pitch angles at various altitudes. Maybe I just need to start that gravity t…
Finding the correct number of key taps to get the right pitch angle is the key. The throttle can only help so much.
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What’s grifty about nasa space flight? They’re a private news org that does incredible coverage of SpaceX and spends funds doing as such. They’re mostly donation driven but they don’t solicit them really. They just thank folks that do on their livestream. Their forums are an absolute goldmine of knowledge if you take a look and it is an incredibly friendly community.
Whenever I've seen them (not sure which specific ones) they've been either 1) Whining about donations (and shoutouts every few seconds) 2) Whining about the cost of cameras (I remember one of the early exploding and the commentator spent the next 10 minutes going on about his expensive cameras) Yes they are funded by begging, that's not something I'm interested in listening too. I've seen US TV occasionally, I find i…
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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.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_of_the_Internationa...
Am I wrong?
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…
>T+46: the little bits of debris must be tiles coming off 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.
It certainly looked like there was either a fairly continuous firing of the cold gas thrusters, a stream from the second stage engines, or some atmospheric effects from being in such a low orbit.
Did anyone notice at around T+30:16 the cargo door was almost shut when it looked like it popped out of place. Then the view suddenly switched to an external camera. Am I wrong?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Then look at expected reusable launch cost and figure out how many HSTs or JWSTs we could have put in orbit for the same cost.