6 ms·
It only needs one or two of its three engines to land.
by maccam94 6y ago
It only needs one or two of its three engines to land.
- sschueller 6y agoI think the flip maneuver is a big issue as it happens near ground and if it fails there is not time to recover irregardless if there are other engines that could perform it.
- nickik 6y agoThe flip starts with 3 engines and should work even if 1 of them doesn't start.
- sschueller 6y agoIt still failed on SN9.
- throwaway292893 6y agothey weren't trying to light all 3 for SN9. now they light all 3 and turn 2 off when one lights.
- nickik 6y agoSo a single failure of a prototype means its never ever ever gone work? What kind of logic is that? Also you are wrong. SN9 actually used 2 engines for the flip, not 3. They only swapped to 3 for SN10 and the flipped worked perfectly there. The problem with SN10 was the temporary helium system they put after SN8 in so the engine was ingesting helium. The point is that you have engine out capability both on the flip and during landing. Of course over time SpaceX need to test some of these profiles in more detail, just as they did for Falcon 9 where they tried various ways of landing.
- sschueller 6y agoOf course not. But you can't assume that anything will work 100% of the time. So what will be done if in a rare case the flip maneuver fails? Engines fail but a plane can still land with just one engine. If we are going to be doing intercontinental flights it needs to be as safe as flying.
- iso1631 6y agoWhat happens to a plane if the tail falls off? What happens if all the engines fail? What happens if it flies into a mountain?
- iso1631 6y agoThe Wright Model A crashed, and actually killed someone. That's why aircraft are so unsafe.
- greedo 6y agoThey can do the flip at a higher altitude to provide more time for recovery.