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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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
Edit: Thanks for the answers!
Keeping the mission parameters simpler (no “refueuling” or door bay demonstrations as far as I am aware, just orbital insert and reentry) definitely shows they are capable of the basic ideas of how they want Starship to work, especially for Starlink missions.
The team should be proud.
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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.
Honest question, did they sink the remaining fuel? Or did they just burnt all remaining fuel whilst hovering? I would imagine that's pretty toxic. Edit: Thanks for the answers!