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Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

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Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#24
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

SpaceX doing amazing work and Musk being an egomaniacal $hole are not mutually exclusive

I encourage as many people as possible who are less wacko than Musk to try to beat him at his own game. Will be good for everyone.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#25
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it’s hard to comprehend how powerful those engines are. The booster is relatively light without all the propellant and starship when it’s attempting to land, but it’s still 30 stories tall and I’m assuming it weighs dozens of tons.

iirc only 3 ignite for the landing burn, those engines are freaking monsters. I love how small they are, the latest Raptor revision is so slim and compact. The power density is just mind boggling.

You can see for yourself in the video - all 13 center engines attempt to light, and all but one do so.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#27
post #13

Wait, did it land or not? Retrieved or sunk? Couldn’t tell from the video.

It did not land. The plan was not to attempt a landing. But it maintained a controlled descent into the ocean and splashed down upright.

Hard to land if no land.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#28
post #15
post #12

The ocean landing is so cool. I believe they said that the next one they are going to try to land back at the tower? Seems plausible now.

I think that might be a second IFT away personally: I imagine they'd like to see no engine relight issues on descent for at least one more mission first, since slamming it into Starbase would be a shame.

yeah one out on the way up and on the way down, that has to be very frustrating. It makes my issues with trying to get a stupid website working correctly seem easier hah.

Re: Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico

#30
post #16
post #14

I thought it was going to stay upright! that would have been very funny. 1 engine out on the way up, who would have thought getting 33 full flow combustion rocket engines to startup at the same time would be so hard.. /s

Honestly wondering if that's a Stage 0 issue: those outer engines get primed by the launch ring AFAIK.

Yep, the outer ring is non-relightable and rely on the launch ring to light them. That said, part of the benefit of having so many engines is that you can tolerate a couple of failures. Similarly to how F9 is able to make orbit with an engine out. Still, agreed that they'll probably opt for one more water landing test first. Especially since the current license allows for multiple launches of this profile if the booster trajectory is fine.
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