281–290 of 413 posts
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.
So 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…
Doesn't appear so, no. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship_integrated_fli...
> On March 5, 2024, SpaceX announced that they were targeting a launch date of March 14, 2024, pending regulatory approval. On March 13, 2024, the FAA granted the launch license for IFT-3.
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.
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?
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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.]
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I wouldn’t classify the re-entry survival problem as icing. But otherwise, I agree with you.
Yeah, breaking up in-air during re-entry (at 65 km going by last telemetry) seems like a potential big issue to fix.
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Yeah, breaking up in-air during re-entry (at 65 km going by last telemetry) seems like a potential big issue to fix.
> Yeah, breaking up in-air during re-entry (at 65 km going by last telemetry) seems like a potential big issue to fix. That's what pretty much every non-SpaceX rocket does today with very few exceptions.
The big things to fix seem to be
1) The roll rates for starship (which prevented the inflight relighting test)
2) The Booster relights, which didn't have enough lighting to soft land.
Both of those feel like minor problems.
I'm amazed that the propellant transfer demo seems to have worked first time, and of course they managed to get the tihng up there in the first place.
The reusability of the Starship part of the system is a much bigger unknown, but that doesn't seem to be necessary for the next launch.
Wouldn't surprise me if the next try is by the end of April
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.
Well, the second stage definitely needs to survive re-entry if it wants to carry passengers. But it seems to work as-is for orbital cargo.
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.
The booster puncturing spheres of clouds on a way back was awesome also.