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The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

arstechnica.com

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Re: The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

#71

Post by grecy »

mlindner wrote: post #51
ChickeNES wrote: post #15

The license itself: https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/as... As someone who has been waiting since the ITS presentation in 2016, I've very excited :) Edit: they reuploaded with additional info: https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/as...

I've been following it since even before that point when it was still called the "MCT", but without any explanation of what the acronym meant. A long time coming. This is the beginning of a new era in space exploration.

MCT was Mars Colonial Transport

Re: The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

#72

Post by grecy »

olex wrote: post #32
agrajag wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the flight plan published by SpaceX, the booster is going to attempt a hover in the gulf to simulate a landing, while the Ship isn’t going to slow down at all after reentry and will impact the ocean at a high velocity.

I wonder why they don't plan to execute the flip and landing burn with the ship, just for additional test data. So far it fully worked only once (and _almost_ worked a couple more times), surely it can't hurt to have another go at it, even if the ship is ultimately not being recovered. I guess propellant margins may be a cause, but then they'll likely want to have a "nominal" amount of leftover fuel onboard anyway to…

> I wonder why they don't plan to execute the flip and landing burn with the ship, just for additional test data

There's been a lot of speculation about this over the last week, and consensus seems to be they decided they were trying to do too much on the first launch, and they should limit the scope down to just the "essentials" and learn from that.

They don't want to over complicate things.

Re: The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

#74

Post by eco »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #65
00F_ wrote: post #18

i was at south padre island for the first starship landing. even though it blew up a minute or two after it landed, i consider it the first landing. i had seen pretty much every major launch from spacex on their livestreams but i was still taken aback at seeing starship. its as odd as watching a skyscraper slowly levitate upward into the sky. and to see it standing after the dust settled was unreal. and after it was…

My email's in my profile, I'm trying to figure out how to get down there. Looks like the flight and renting a car is going to cost more than the hotel room...

Tim Dodd just released an excellent guide on how to visit Starbase.

https://youtu.be/aWvHrih-Juk

Re: The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

#76

Post by world2vec »

ge96 wrote: post #73

I hope they get a shot of it externally in orbit, that would be cool

It won't get to orbit, just "nearly orbital" as the article states.

"(...) the Starship vehicle will attempt to ascend to an altitude of 235 km and become "nearly orbital." Starship's engines will shut down at 9 minutes and 20 seconds into the flight, after which the vehicle will coast for more than an hour before entering Earth's atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean. It will not complete a full orbit and is expected to make a high-velocity splash down about 225 km north of the Hawaiian island of Oahu. On the nominal timeline, this will occur 90 minutes after liftoff"

Re: The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

#77

Post by trogdor »

InTheArena wrote: post #2

It's been interesting to see SpaceX shift from hardware-rich to a more traditional process the last year. I suspect a lot of it is due to the sheer cost of what they are doing, but a lot of it is PR management as well... Plus it's obvious that the US government is doing everything in their power to have Musk on as short of a leash as possible.

>Plus it's obvious that the US government is doing everything in their power to have Musk on as short of a leash as possible.

What are you referring to?

Re: The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

#78

Post by mjevans »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #66
wmf wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has everything.

But they're obsolete. S24 uses hydraulic actuators, S27 uses electric actuators.

Mass distribution consistency is important. They can't just lop them off and change the design ad hock.

Re: The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

#79

Post by eco »

Me1000 wrote: post #26
Aeolun wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can’t be that hard to not land it in your launch area right? Can’t they have a separate land and crash area (preferably separated by a few tens of kilometers)?

It's a good question, and I don't have a great answer for you other than my understanding is that the ground space they have to work with in Boca Chica is not really that large. And there are a lot of environmental concerns (+ the chances of blowing up on landing is greater than blowing up on liftoff). But I've heard speculation that they might build a dedicate landing tower around their Florida launch site for that…

It's about weight. The landing legs on the Falcon 9 first stage make up 10% of the dry weight if I remember correctly. 10% is huge savings for a booster. They've already proven they can do pinpoint landings so moving the hardware to the ground makes a lot of sense. Also, the booster should be easier to control because it can hover (the Falcon 9 booster has to do a suicide burn because its near empty thrust to weight ratio is > 1 even with only one engine). They wouldn't want to hover because it's a big waste of fuel to rely on that but it is an option while they are still practicing the catch maneuver.

They are building a tower at the Cape (it's fully erected already) but people have noticed the arms on it are shorter leading some to speculate that it might not be used for catching.

Re: The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket

#80

Post by Tuna-Fish »

world2vec wrote: post #75

I was betting on April 20 for meme reasons (and Musk likes the 420 reference) but next Monday works as well. I am very excited about it.

New rockets rarely launch on their first launch day. There will likely be at least a few days of delays.
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