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Congrats on the booster, still an awesome achievement! Still a long way to go, unfortunately.
Edit: seems I was premature in thinking that pieces melting off would mean it exploded. A partial success, ultimately!
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Plan never was to retrieve this one. It was to simulate a landing, but over the ocean and then sink. That looks like it happened successfully... of course we'll need to wait to hear if it actually did things like hover in the right spot, etc. But looked pretty good; despite what looked like some issues with engine lights.
I wonder what happens to it now. Does the USN scoop it up or do they wait for some other navy's submarine to start prying at that sweet ITAR hardware?
The rate of descent is absolutely astonishing, 8km -> 1km in 20 seconds, then just hovers above the water. Absolutely incredible work by the SpaceX team. Living in central Florida I cannot wait for the new launch facility to come online. We're going to have lines of spectators into the space coast like we did for the shuttle. If any of you are heading to Disney World you should stop by the NASA Kennedy Visitor Comple…
The bus tours are also neat, visiting and walking around launch pads from the early days of space exploration, seeing the bunker near a launch pad with ~8" thick glass and the mechanical linkage over a couple hundred feet which let them monitor the weight of the added fuel on an early mission.
I've gone 7 times since I was a child, and love the new things I find.
The second stage is basically gone, so it seems the new heat shield failed pretty badly, though still better than the previous one. Congrats on the booster, still an awesome achievement! Still a long way to go, unfortunately. Edit: seems I was premature in thinking that pieces melting off would mean it exploded. A partial success, ultimately!
My question: is the US Navy going to blow up this largely intact Starship, or are we just going to leave it on the floor of the Indian Ocean for another country to find?
Actually, it's probably just floating there at this moment.
So I'm excited to see this tech develop but I wonder how much of a market there really is for super-heavy lifters. I can't wait to see a future version where they land the various stages rather than just dumping them into the sea. The first Falcon Heavy launch was super impressive. SpaceX already has the Falcon Heavy and there have only been a handful of launches, primarily military. I guess the argument is it'll ope…
So I'm excited to see this tech develop but I wonder how much of a market there really is for super-heavy lifters. I can't wait to see a future version where they land the various stages rather than just dumping them into the sea. The first Falcon Heavy launch was super impressive. SpaceX already has the Falcon Heavy and there have only been a handful of launches, primarily military. I guess the argument is it'll ope…
There’s lots of things that are just too big and heavy and need launch vehicles like that. It might be overkill for satellites, but space stations and habitats need the payload capacity of something like this to become anything resembling economical.
That was amazing!
The second stage is basically gone, so it seems the new heat shield failed pretty badly, though still better than the previous one. Congrats on the booster, still an awesome achievement! Still a long way to go, unfortunately. Edit: seems I was premature in thinking that pieces melting off would mean it exploded. A partial success, ultimately!
They are still getting telemetry at this very moment, it looks like they landed it. My question: is the US Navy going to blow up this largely intact Starship, or are we just going to leave it on the floor of the Indian Ocean for another country to find? Actually, it's probably just floating there at this moment.