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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]

#581

Post by cryptonector »

ro_bit wrote: post #520

The catch looks amazing, but one thing I don't understand is why SpaceX needs the technology to catch a booster they've already demonstrated the ability to land boosters on barges. Is the arm more cost effective to scale compared to a barge?

Weight. Legs weigh a lot. That's dead weight for a launch system, and it serves only to reduce payload to orbit.

For Falcon 9 that's not that big a deal because they're NOT trying to reuse the second stage. Whereas with Starship they need more fuel to recover the ship, and that means they need to save weight elsewhere to avoid losing too much payload to orbit.

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

#582

Post by WalterBright »

cryptonector wrote: post #577
WalterBright wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California officials reject more SpaceX launches, with some citing Musk's X posts https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1845131546501734440...

That's madness. And unconstitutional.

Musk tweeted that he's filing a lawsuit Tuesday morning.

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

#583

Post by ls612 »

credit_guy wrote: post #79
dmix wrote: post #17

Video of the catch > Mechazilla has caught the Super Heavy booster! https://x.com/spacex/status/1845442658397049011

I wonder what will happen when they get to 99% reliability? They clean up and rebuild the Mechazilla every once a hundred catches, on that occasion that one fails?

They've landed over 300 Falcon boosters and haven't wrecked their barges yet I expect that this won't be a major issue.

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

#585

Post by creer »

robwwilliams wrote: post #420

Awesome achievement. Watched it with my sister at home and brought back memories from the 60s in front of the B&W TV watching some of the early amazing flights and landings. Question for hackers: How does this reorient space programs world-wide? If I were a politician or technocrat in China, Russia, or the EU this would feel like an inverse and intense Sputnik moment — “holy sh—- we have to up our game!”

Eventually it convinces everybody that "quantity in space" is possible. Moving to projects where you don't have to count every ounce. It opens the path to wild schemes, in amount of weight that could be moved.

And why "eventually"? SpaceX should have already convinced people of that. Yeah it's not yet in production, but the momentum and progress have been amazing to witness.

(The previous one was convincing everyone that there was lots of space for tech improvement. Wake up call achieved just a few years ago also by SpaceX.)

See also this blog post: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2021/10/28/starship-is-st...

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

#587

Post by tuatoru »

the8472 wrote: post #552
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…

> Methane is better than all other fuels There are better fuels in terms of Isp and density. They have some downsides such as being corrosive or having highly toxic exhaust. https://x.com/ToughSf/status/1453391050681327622

Yeah, methane is kind of second best (or worse) in many parameters, but most importantly, it's cheap, abundant, and easily and safely storable and transportable, and it does the job.

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

#588

Post by robotnikman »

The engineers at spaceX are amazing, and I'll admit I envy their tenacity and genius.

The amount of progress we have seen in rocketry and space travel in the last decade is mind blowing, I never thought I would see this in my lifetime.

Edit: Decided to give it a shot and applied for a backend software engineering position at SpaceX. I'm not sure if it will be noticed, but its worth a shot. I may not be a rocket scientist, but it would be great to contribute using the knowledge I do have.

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

#590

Post by mock-possum »

_djo_ wrote: post #530
ro_bit wrote: post #520

The catch looks amazing, but one thing I don't understand is why SpaceX needs the technology to catch a booster they've already demonstrated the ability to land boosters on barges. Is the arm more cost effective to scale compared to a barge?

This booster is much, much larger than the Falcon 9 first stages that land on barges. It's ~70 metres high, versus ~40 metres for the Falcon 9 first stage, and weighs about 275 000 kg compared to the ~20 000 kg of the Falcon 9 first stage. In short, it would require such huge and heavy landing legs and landing barges that it probably wouldn't be feasible.

Holy shit I didn’t realize it’s an order of magnitude heavier
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