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Despite Elon's recent turn into divisive politics, I am still very happy he is pushing spacex development forward. I love watching these livestreams, and always look forward to Scott Manley's analysis a day or two later.
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…
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_external_tank
Seeing the Starship's flap visibly burning in the reentry heat and still survive well enough to move around and get to a splashdown was just incredible. Amazing progress in just four test flights.
Also lost an engine at startup and another engine during the landing burn on the booster. Judging by the debris maybe a third engine during landing burn shutdown (or maybe that was the second engine just exploding a bit more). Still a successful test, still a lot of work to do before they can meet their promises for Artemis (which require >10 back to back launches for one lunar mission...)
Some highlights: Booster splashdown at about T+7:30, Ship engine cutoff at 151 km: https://x.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1798700946983358535 Starship splashdown in Indian Ocean, mostly intact, with landing burn just before splashdown; landing burn: https://x.com/DJSnM/status/1798715665916014715 Full flight profile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship_integrated_fli...
How do they recover the booster? It doesn't sink to the bottom of the sea?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That flap is already a legend, kept at it even mangled by hot plasma, crazy accelerations and pressures, spitting molten steel at the camera. What a role model, the little flap that could.
Someone on the Everyday Astronaut live stream named it "Flap Norris".
Also the title is wrong for the subject. It should be about Starship, not Super Heavy. I don't know who did this but you did it wrong.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That flap is already a legend, kept at it even mangled by hot plasma, crazy accelerations and pressures, spitting molten steel at the camera. What a role model, the little flap that could.
Someone on the Everyday Astronaut live stream named it "Flap Norris".
Booster executed a successful landing burn and had a soft splashdown. Starship survived reentry, did the flip and landing burn, and splashed down. There was visible damage to the flaps.
How do they recover the booster? After the soft splashdown isn't it going to sink to the bottom of the sea? Or they have nets or something?