Why can only Elon do stuff like this and not BlueOrigin or the hundreds of other aerospace startups? Does he just have a 1/100000000 combination of intelligence, tenacity, and directionality that can't be matched by anyone, even those trying to emulate him as closely as possible?
Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
711–720 of 1001 posts
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#712Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#713Earlier quoted context omitted.
What’s the advantage of catching the booster over landing it in the ground? Catching it seems like an extra complication.
I can speculate ... I think the primary reason would be that landing legs are heavy, and it wastes performance to carry them. If your landing mechanism is mostly on the ground, you get that performance back. Secondary reasons might include that it's simpler to get the booster right back to the pad. Once things have settled into an operational cadence, it's likely feasible to lower and lock the booster onto the stool,…
Your primary reason matches what SpaceX themselves have said. You either need to be strong enough to handle the shock of inpact, or need to spread the impact over time. Building either into the rocket adds a lot of mass.
Landing on a device that spreads out the shock moves that weight to the static landing platform.
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#714Pretty impressive. The engineering team at SpaceX is really something. Some thoughts; The 'chopsticks catch' was amazing to watch. Seems like it adds a lot of risk and clearly the booster needs additional fire suppression systems :-) perhaps the tower could mount something that sprays the booster like the barges have for the F9 boosters. The heatshield held out for a much longer time, the asymmetric heating on the fl…
I imagine that they will be their own first customer - putting Starlink satellites into orbit while they are gaining confidence in the reliability of the system for external customers. They have to prove out the landing of the second stage, either with another catch or with landing gear, which they need for the lunar lander anyway.
I think that has always been the plan. the V2 starlink sats were designed to fly on Starship. When Starship wasn't coming along as planned they shoe horned the guts of the V2 on to a smaller sat that became the V2 Mini.
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#715Pretty impressive. The engineering team at SpaceX is really something. Some thoughts; The 'chopsticks catch' was amazing to watch. Seems like it adds a lot of risk and clearly the booster needs additional fire suppression systems :-) perhaps the tower could mount something that sprays the booster like the barges have for the F9 boosters. The heatshield held out for a much longer time, the asymmetric heating on the fl…
What’s the advantage of catching the booster over landing it in the ground? Catching it seems like an extra complication.
I thought it was so they can name
make the booster body thinner relying more on the fuel for structural rigidity.
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#716Earlier quoted context omitted.
SRB and tank were not re-usable. That’s the equivalent of the first stage you just saw getting caught
SRBs were in fact reusable.
They were but the cost of refurbishment was almost more than just building new boosters. Thats why SLS is currently using Shuttle Derived Boosters but not worrying with reuse.
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#717Earlier quoted context omitted.
The FAA needs more funding at this point. They're not staffed for the rate of launch requests which commercial space has grown too.
What makes you think the issue is funding?
Oh idk maybe picking up just about any recent history book? ie, the goals and effects of austerity politics?
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#718Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The detonation at the end was pretty spectacular too, but I suspect that structurally the tanks failed as the rocket hit the water vs anything that was an engineering failure. It's possible that SpaceX programed the AFTS to trigger some time after the rocket touched down in the water. Just to make sure that it completely submerges quickly. > I can easily imagine that flight 6 will be nominal end to end without any…
Why is SpaceX choosing to land the booster on the Mechazilla arms instead of performing a soft ground landing like the Falcon 9 booster?
1) legs are heavy
2) empty rockets are stronger in tension than compression
the scale of Superheavy is such that the above two items are making the arms scheme make sense. The number of engines also gives this rocket the ability to hover, which probably makes the scheme easier to pull off.
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#719Pretty impressive. The engineering team at SpaceX is really something. Some thoughts; The 'chopsticks catch' was amazing to watch. Seems like it adds a lot of risk and clearly the booster needs additional fire suppression systems :-) perhaps the tower could mount something that sprays the booster like the barges have for the F9 boosters. The heatshield held out for a much longer time, the asymmetric heating on the fl…
What’s the advantage of catching the booster over landing it in the ground? Catching it seems like an extra complication.
1) legs are heavy 2) empty rockets are stronger in tension than compression 3) the booster is large enough to make (1) and (2) matter more than they did for Falcon 9.
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#720Why can only Elon do stuff like this and not BlueOrigin or the hundreds of other aerospace startups? Does he just have a 1/100000000 combination of intelligence, tenacity, and directionality that can't be matched by anyone, even those trying to emulate him as closely as possible?
Isn't BlueOrigin going after at totally different market segment, I thought it was focused on things like space tourism and more "space base" type stuff? Also pretty sure BlueOrigin is almost all funded by Jeff B, SpaceX has a lot of external funding and focused on tangible markets vs just "people will want to do stuff in space" - I think it was only very recently they started to work with NASA.