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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.
What I find odd is: when this thing is operational, passengers are supposed to ride through this "flip to land" maneuver?
What I find odd is: when this thing is operational, passengers are supposed to ride through this "flip to land" maneuver?
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.
I'm pretty certain that 'looks cool' has nothing to do with it.
SN10 had to be moved away from the assembly point because SN11, SN12, etc are close behind. They needed the space.
Why wasn't SN10 further away? SpaceX is moving fast, and moving these building-sized craft around is slow.
SpaceX has a many years of experience in landing rockets. Perhaps more directly, they have a lot of experience in failing to land rockets. To that end, they've use a kind of 'fail safe' methodology, where for most of the approach, the vehicle's trajectory is toward a safe, low-value spot.
For example, during the booster return of the CRS-16 mission in 2018, there was a problem, so the booster automatically didn't translate back toward its nominal landing pad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFdep0qCmYA In that case, the problem ended up not being severe enough to cause a crash.
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…
Suicide burns are probably a very bad idea when they have crews and passengers anyway. I assume they'll fire up the landing engines sooner and leave enough time for the vacuum engines to fire as backups if needed.
That's a whole new meaning to halt & catch fire.
What I find odd is: when this thing is operational, passengers are supposed to ride through this "flip to land" maneuver?
What I find odd is: when this thing is operational, passengers are supposed to ride through this "flip to land" maneuver?