Starship – SN9 – High-Altitude Flight Test • Hacker News Board

Re: Starship – SN9 – High-Altitude Flight Test

#11

Post by dgritsko » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:43 PM UTC

djaychela wrote: post #8

It felt much less eerie as it had commentary this time (and probably because it wasn't the first Starship high-altitude flight), but on the face of it, it looked to be a rougher 'landing' than SN8. I'm sure they got a lot of data from it, but it looked like some of the debris was headed towards SN10 - definitely squeaky bum time then! Can't wait to see this work, though, it really will be a step change for space expl…

Yeah - it really looked like they just got lucky with the debris somehow avoiding SN10. I wonder what the reasoning was behind them even having SN10 on the other pad during this launch - surely it would have been safer to just keep it in a hangar until afterwards?

Re: Starship – SN9 – High-Altitude Flight Test

#12

Post by guardiangod » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:44 PM UTC

Looks like 1 of the engines failed to re-lit during the landing.

At least this time 1 of the engines was functioning correctly all the way to the explosion. This is an improvement over SN8 where all the engines failed to re-lit properly.

Re: Starship – SN9 – High-Altitude Flight Test

#13

Post by dgritsko » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:49 PM UTC

I've been so conditioned by how flawless SpaceX launches have tended to be over the last few years. It's exciting going back to not knowing what will happen during the stream. I'm reminded of the enthusiasm around the early Falcon 9 first-stage landing tests, when folks were attempting to reconstruct individual frames of footage from the first "ocean landings" just to get a small taste of what happened. I'm sure they'll nail this landing before too long.

Re: Starship – SN9 – High-Altitude Flight Test

#14

Post by CobrastanJorji » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:49 PM UTC

guardiangod wrote: post #12

Looks like 1 of the engines failed to re-lit during the landing. At least this time 1 of the engines was functioning correctly all the way to the explosion. This is an improvement over SN8 where all the engines failed to re-lit properly.

I've plotted a graph with these two data points and predict that it will successfully re-light all three engines in only two more tries.

Re: Starship – SN9 – High-Altitude Flight Test

#15

Post by ogre_codes » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:51 PM UTC

We just have to work on that landing "A little bit".

Understatement of the day.

What's kind of odd is how the video has a weird 80s-90s era sci fi feel. All these years I've thought those special effects were terrible.

Re: Starship – SN9 – High-Altitude Flight Test

#16

Post by madjam002 » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:52 PM UTC

Amazing to witness this, although I must say I preferred the camera angles we had in the SN8 stream. Seeing SN8 flip from a distance was great but with SN9 we had to watch it from underneath.

Re: Starship – SN9 – High-Altitude Flight Test

#17

Post by NikolaeVarius » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:55 PM UTC

It looked like something from the engine fell off during the flip

Re: Starship – SN9 – High-Altitude Flight Test

#18

Post by comprambler » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:55 PM UTC

BatFastard wrote: post #4

I was impressed that they confidently landed it right next to another prototype. I am sure they will stick the landing next time.

It is irresponsible and it seems to me that the only reason they risked millions of dollars in prototypes is for media attention.

Just because it looks cool is not a reason to do it.

Re: Starship – SN9 – High-Altitude Flight Test

#19

Post by Diederich » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:56 PM UTC

And that's why you have an assembly line for Starships: https://i.redd.it/dmr9bjhpcee61.jpg (SN9 lacking the RUD symbol in that image of course.)

Re: Starship – SN9 – High-Altitude Flight Test

#20

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 02, 2021, 8:56 PM UTC

dgritsko wrote: post #11

djaychela wrote: post #8

It felt much less eerie as it had commentary this time (and probably because it wasn't the first Starship high-altitude flight), but on the face of it, it looked to be a rougher 'landing' than SN8. I'm sure they got a lot of data from it, but it looked like some of the debris was headed towards SN10 - definitely squeaky bum time then! Can't wait to see this work, though, it really will be a step change for space expl…

Yeah - it really looked like they just got lucky with the debris somehow avoiding SN10. I wonder what the reasoning was behind them even having SN10 on the other pad during this launch - surely it would have been safer to just keep it in a hangar until afterwards?

[deleted]