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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]

#151

Post by MattRix »

linuxfan2718 wrote: post #138
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

It’s also already on the tower that it launches from, which drastically reduces the expense and complexity of setting it up for its next launch, making it easier and faster to reuse.

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

#152

Post by Klathmon »

dotnet00 wrote: post #127
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 …

They did pull the bottom of the previous booster out. On the webcast they mentioned adjusting the landing maneuver for the ship to be a bit softer in case they decide to recover it too.

The previous booster landed in the golf of Mexico.

This starship landed in the Indian ocean a bit west of Australia, it's like 3x deeper.

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

#153

Post by sbuttgereit »

minetest2048 wrote: post #119
sbuttgereit wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll lower it to the launch mount... the catch arms are effectively a crane. But I wonder if it's more "toasty" than they were expecting? There were some fires going at catch (those look out, at least on external camera views) and the engines are still a bit.... smokey. Don't know if that's normal... or if they were expecting it. My hunch is that they don't put it down for awhile. If there's still an issue were th…

From the replay, it seems that the fire comes from methane from the RCS thrusters burning, so it seems normal

The fire I mostly saw was coming from the quick disconnect ports and related plumbing. Also, there was fire on the other side, close to where there was part of a chine was clearly missing. There were a couple other things, too.

Wasn't perfect, some things to work out... but still pretty damn good.

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

#155

Post by paulryanrogers »

sekai wrote: post #30

Magnificent, it's hard to image what we'll be able to do once these do roundtrips daily. For those are not aware, that booster is 71 m (233 ft) tall!

Improvements that make space flight more sustainable are welcome ... unless that means an order of magnitude more pollution in a less controllable form, like emissions. [Due to more frequent flights]

Daily trips to space likely also mean more debris in space and falling to earth.

I hope there is a balance that includes the lives of people near these sites and all of us sharing the same atmosphere.

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

#157

Post by phkahler »

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.

Was the explosion intentional? I thought they were hoping it would float for recovery but if not I makes sense to sink it.

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

#159

Post by inglor_cz »

linuxfan2718 wrote: post #138
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

To expand on this, landing legs of Falcon 9 weigh two tons. Landing legs of SuperHeavy booster would have to be even more formidable.

Which means that the weight savings are nontrivial with the "catch the rocket!" landing method.

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

#160

Post by renewiltord »

systemvoltage wrote: post #154

Closeup of chopsticks as they were catching the booster, best clip from Everyday Astronaut's livestream: https://x.com/kagurazakimoto/status/1845447451592765820

The SpaceX clip is better https://x.com/spacex/status/1845442658397049011?s=46
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