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Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

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Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#131

Post by wwarek »

skrebbel wrote: post #123

Can someone explain to me why this is more impressive than landing the rocket? To a layman like me, it looks very similar - the thing looks just like a rocket but without a pointy tip, and on the way down I don't understand why difference that matters. (I mean I still think it's mind blowing, because I think landing a rocket is also mind blowing)

It's more precise than landing on the ground, there is coordination with the tower required, it is way bigger than Falcon 9.

This video goes into details pretty well: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OYvWYp0--bQ&t=832s

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#132

Post by sobani »

monkeydust wrote: post #105
ghc wrote: post #23

Nothing could have prepared me for how that catch looked. I was sure the rocket was careening into the tower at the last second before it straightened out. The control algorithms must be incredible for the landing system to work within those small tolerances.

Watched several times, amazing stuff. Had flashbacks to playing Jupiter Landing on the C64! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Lander Edit: SpaceX should create a simple 'catch' the rocket game. Play in browser style. Just for kicks and marketing.

> SpaceX should create a simple 'catch' the rocket game. Play in browser style. Just for kicks and marketing.

They did: https://starshipthegame.spacex.com/

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#133

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

flaburgan wrote: post #76
treespace8 wrote: post #14

I'm just so happy to see this level of progress. This another big step for opening up space. To think that one day this will be considered normal. 150 Metric tons sent on a fully reusable rocket. Thats like a 747 to space.

So, reusable is supposed to reduce the cost. But the space shuttle was reusable and it has been shutdown because it was too expensive. What is the differences between the two?

The Shuttle consisted of the shuttle (orbiter) itself, the external tank (not reusable), and the two boosters which could be reused after ocean recovery. The orbiter itself was slow and expensive to reuse since (among other things) all the heat shield tiles were inspected and 30-100 replaced between each launch. I don't know how much work was done to the engines between launches, but SpaceX's parts and cost reduction on the Raptor engine have to give it an advantage there.

StarShip consists of the Super Heavy booster that we saw "caught" today, and the StarShip (orbiter) itself. Having the booster return to launch site vs requiring ocean recovery should potentially increase cadence and reduce cost of reuse. StarShip is also meant to be reusable, although it remains to be seen how that will pan out. On the previous flight there was burn through from inadequate heat shielding - maybe we'll see an improvement with today's vehicle. I'd expect SpaceX to iteratively arrive at a quicker and more cost effective orbiter reuse procedure than NASA had with the shuttle, but how quick remains to be seen. Of course they are planning many of these to go on one-way trips to Mars rather than being reused.

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#134

Post by haspok »

credit_guy wrote: post #109
flaburgan wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, reusable is supposed to reduce the cost. But the space shuttle was reusable and it has been shutdown because it was too expensive. What is the differences between the two?

The main difference is that this is built by a private corporation who can't afford to throw money away, while the Space Shuttle was build by the government, and moreover it had to fulfill a number of conflicting requirements, and commercial profit was not one of them. But on a more technical level. I think the vertical landing is the main difference. Vertical landing was obviously known and done by NASA, this is how…

Spacex might be a private company, but this project is funded by NASA, meaning the American taxpayer. Approved by a person whose last act was this approval before leaving NASA and joining Spacex (effectively putting money in their own pocket).

It is also yet to be seen how Starship will ever be profitable (outside of spending government money), who is going to pay for those launches and for what purpose. Other than Starlink, of course.

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#135

Post by t1234s »

eqvinox wrote: post #122
t1234s wrote: post #118

Do they recover whats left of the ship from the Indian Ocean?

They can probably go fishing, but anything that sunk is gonna stay sunk. That ocean is not shallow, and deep submarine operations are expensive …

Do they worry about any issues of the debris winding up in the hands of China or Russia? I would imagine the raptor engines are mostly intact.

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#137

Post by throwaway48476 »

haspok wrote: post #134
credit_guy wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main difference is that this is built by a private corporation who can't afford to throw money away, while the Space Shuttle was build by the government, and moreover it had to fulfill a number of conflicting requirements, and commercial profit was not one of them. But on a more technical level. I think the vertical landing is the main difference. Vertical landing was obviously known and done by NASA, this is how…

Spacex might be a private company, but this project is funded by NASA, meaning the American taxpayer. Approved by a person whose last act was this approval before leaving NASA and joining Spacex (effectively putting money in their own pocket). It is also yet to be seen how Starship will ever be profitable (outside of spending government money), who is going to pay for those launches and for what purpose. Other than S…

The problem is that launch costs went down fast but satellite costs haven't gone down as fast and still have long development timelines. The other problem is the market for satellite services hasn't developed as fast as anticipated, except for starlink.

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#138

Post by linuxfan2718 »

skrebbel wrote: post #123

Can someone explain to me why this is more impressive than landing the rocket? To a layman like me, it looks very similar - the thing looks just like a rocket but without a pointy tip, and on the way down I don't understand why difference that matters. (I mean I still think it's mind blowing, because I think landing a rocket is also mind blowing)

This method doesn't require landing legs on the rocket, allowing their weight to be used for payload instead

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#139

Post by JumpCrisscross »

forgot-im-old wrote: post #136
dang wrote: post #506

[stub for offtopicness]

[flagged]

This is a nonsense conspiracy theory. It popped up based mostly off conserving a single man’s connection to 2001 SpaceX.

Does Starship enable brilliant pebbles? Sure. But that’s because it provides easy access to space. Starlink could be described as a network of communication ‘pebbles’, as could Starshield, SpaceX’s actual military contract [1].

(Starship provides a technology platform for rapid launch. That’s more valuable for missile defence than orbital nonsense for intercepting warheads by way of predictable and observable plane-change manoeuvres.)

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield

Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]

#140

Post by rapsey »

t1234s wrote: post #135
eqvinox wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can probably go fishing, but anything that sunk is gonna stay sunk. That ocean is not shallow, and deep submarine operations are expensive …

Do they worry about any issues of the debris winding up in the hands of China or Russia? I would imagine the raptor engines are mostly intact.

You think there are Russian submarines in the gulf of mexico?
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