I just quit my job at a SaaS. What am I doing with my life... The SpaceX team just caught the biggest rocket in history with a giant arm, we all need to dream bigger!
Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
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Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#892Do we know if there was a test payload?
Yes, there was none.
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#893Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, reusable is supposed to reduce the cost. But the space shuttle was reusable and it has been shutdown because it was too expensive. What is the differences between the two?
> What is the differences between the two? More than 40 years and many lessons learned. SpaceX took advantage of tech from both the US and Russia, including the experience with the Space Shuttle. They have better computers, better metallurgy, advanced 3D printing and their own experience with the Falcon 9. There is no guarantee that it will reduce the costs that much, but will all that experience, the chances are suc…
> lack of demand
What this also means is that if you want to get into the space economy, work on things to do in space, not yet another launch vehicle startup.
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#894Earlier quoted context omitted.
Economy of scale: starship can be "mass"-produced Material: stainless steel is much cheaper Percentage of reusability: boosters of shuttle cannot be reused, maintenance of shuttle itself is also very expensive (heat shields were pricey). whereas the starship stack has higher reuse percentage and allegedly cheaper to maintain.
The shuttle was not even reusable by any modern metric, the main tank was always expended, the boosters had to be recovered, fully disassembled and cleaned.
I'm not even sure the SRM case segments could be easily reused, given the tremendous stress. They were made of a very high strength steel (maraging steel, with a yield stress of something like 250,000 psi) operated with a safety factor of 1.4.
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#895The SpaceX engineers did a great job, as did NASA. The media needs to stop blindly attributing this to "Elon Musk". He did well taking the risks NASA was not allowed to take at the start. But these days he is toxic to the media and toxic to reporting, so for that reason alone the media could smarted up a little. Well done SpaceX and NASA engineers.
Musk is the one who makes this possible. There's a reason why neither Bezos, Gates, nor Branson are anywhere close to this achievement, despite also having vast financial resources. I strongly dislike this attempt to erase Musk from the history of what's happening (mostly because people disagreeing with him politically). It is an absolute achievement of all the scientists and engineers at SpaceX. It is also a huge victory and validation for Musk and his way of leading. Both of these statements can be true simultaneously.
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#896Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, reusable is supposed to reduce the cost. But the space shuttle was reusable and it has been shutdown because it was too expensive. What is the differences between the two?
You've got a lot of responses on the difference of reusability, but the shuttle was also more expensive because it had to carry a lot of capabilities with it every time. If you were launching a satellite, you were carrying along the crew compartment and a couple astronauts. If you were bringing a few astronauts to the space station, you brought a cargo bay. And in either circumstance, you brought big wings. Starship…
One of the drivers was the need to Abort Once Around on a polar orbit launch from Vandenberg. The launch site rotates to the east during the orbit so cross range was needed. No such polar orbit launch (abort or otherwise) ever occurred, though.
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#897Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reusability increases costs if you don't reuse often enough. The shuttle would have been much, much, cheaper per launch if it had flown more often. The expected costs for the shuttle included a range based on how often it flew which turned out to be reasonably accurate. They were much worse at predicting which end of the range they would be flying in. At the rate they ended up flying they had the extra costs of reusa…
I’ve read that a shuttle refit after landing was so expensive and time consuming to render it useless…. Feel free to correct if wrong.
And, the market projections that indicated there would be enough payloads for large amounts of launches were also basically fraudulent.
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#898Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
The square-cube law strikes again!
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#899Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm wondering if they'll be using the vertical equivalent of arresting gear on aircraft carriers[0]. See when fighter jets land on aircraft carriers? There's a cable that decelerates them. That, but for vertical landing. The way these chopsticks are set forces the booster into a dangerous, snake like maneuver (a SnakeX maneuver) at the last second from a vertical setting, to get into the chopsticks. This maneuver is…
Next year, China says it will be testing a concept very similar to what you've described, with its Long March 10A rocket: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27TvGDpPLNw It will be interesting to see how these two approaches fare vs. one another.
That's exactly it, thank you! What worries me with the current one that landed is the gradient: because the arms are short and the spot is tight, the burden is on the booster to make very sharp corrections (especially on pitch) to get caught when there's literally a few meters left, with an increased risk at the worst time (no altitude, and structures around), as opposed to leaving the pitch as is and landing vertically. In other words: the possibility to screw a perfect launch by introducing irremediable risk in the last few seconds and meters.
Then again, I just watched the launch and that was the first thing that popped into my mind, and the first "design" that popped into my mind as I was replying to the thread, so not much thought went into it.
Re: Starship Flight 5: Launch and booster catch [video]
#900Video of the catch > Mechazilla has caught the Super Heavy booster! https://x.com/spacex/status/1845442658397049011
A phone video[1] from Mexico, with nice plume refraction of the Sun.