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The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket
- InTheArena 4y agoIt'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.
- mhandley 4y agoSpaceX moved beyond what they could test without the launch (and catch) tower. They've spent a lot of time and money developing the ground systems - in comparison the early crude Starship prototypes were comparatively cheap and easily replaced - and I would imagine they really would prefer not to accidentally demolish the tower again.
- ralfd 4y agoIf I recall correctly after this Methan explosion 9 month ago they got more cautious and slower: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjbjXTomxqI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjbjXTomxqI
- mhandley 4y agoAnd they also have previous painful experience of destroying a Falcon 9 pad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BgJEXQkjNQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BgJEXQkjNQ Really can't afford to repeat that if they are to make the timeline for using Starship as NASA's next lunar lander.
- antoniuschan99 4y agoHow much does Mechazilla cost? I read it's 1 billion. Also news is Elon said destroying nearby infrastructure would be a 9 month setback at the least.
- brookst 4y agoWow that’s like 2.5% of a Twitter.
- throwaway60134 4y ago[dead]
- usrusr 4y agoAlmost sounds like a bit chicken/egg, you can't try landing without a certain amount of confidence, you can't build confidence without trying. Considering the hover capability of the booster (can be throttled to <1G) we might see an unprecedented amount of touch and go testing before the first real attempt?
- Laremere 4y agoFrom the booster's point of view, the catch is a target location and speed. Plus a set of tolerances: however much the arm can swing to catch it, and horizontal speed has to be really low because it needs to drop down vertically into the arms. I would expect that the target on the ocean, even for the first test, is very specific. Once the booster can hit a phantom target, they can change the target to the tower and go for a catch attempt.
- usrusr 4y agoI imagine that lack of stable reference points would be an issue on the ocean. Both for the algorithms under test and for validation. (I liberally use "algorithm" here as the superset of both algorithm and the hardware it runs on, I think in reality these tests are mostly for correcting parameters that are hard to determine with sufficient accuracy on paper) If you want to write off an entire booster, adding a dummy tower somewhere in the desert would not add much to the bill and could well be worth it. Or maybe even a not-quite-so-dummy tower, but off-site, where the booster would be scrapped on location (instead of reflown) even in the best case, no matter how hypothetical?
- bumby 4y ago>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 do you mean by this?
- mlindner 4y agoSome people are confused and think the government is against Musk in some way like the public is. The government quite likes SpaceX.
- bombcar 4y agoAnd the parts that might be annoyed at him for Twitter are entirely unrelated to those dealing with space.
- chinabot 4y agoSadly "The government" is hundreds of separate organizations, agendas and politicians all with separate cover their ass agendas, NASA probably want this to succeed, I doubt the others are as enthusiastic.
- somedude895 4y agoNASA, the military and security services
- bumby 4y ago“Sadly”? Would the alternative of a monolith be preferable in a pluralistic society? What reason would the other parts of the govt have to want Musk to fail?
- mardifoufs 4y agoThe public isn't though. Most people outside of twitter don't have any opinion on him.
- trogdor 4y ago>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?
- elif 4y agoThe slowdown of testing is not a change in their methodology. It was because they succeeded in all suborbital testing. The orbital testing has been held up by bureaucracy, heat tile iterations, and launch tower refinement. The costs of test articles are pennies on the dollar compared to the launch value of these vehicles once operational. By now they have 2.5 stacks ready, and surely have enough raptor engines saved up to rapidly launch 5+ starships this year, assuming they have the heat tile stuff figured out to a degree that the tests would be meaningful.
- chasd00 4y agoAlso, I think the starship crashes and their frequency were really freaking out the authorities and potential customers. I remember Elon saying “we need to stop making craters”.
- 7e 4y agoThat’s a very charitable interpretation. Testing slowed because of flaws in the Raptor which required a complete redesign. We’ll see if their chaotic development process produces something safe and reliable.
- twicetwice 4y agoI hadn't heard that Raptor 2 was a complete redesign as a results of flaws discovered (I hadn't heard anything at all about why they made Raptor 2). Do you have a link where I can read more about this?
- dotancohen 4y agoNot a complete redesign, but substantial. Even the head of the propulsion department was changed.
- martyvis 4y agoFrom what I observed (reading the normal Reddit fluff, listening to NSF banter, and Tim Dodd the EA's interview with Musk) the issue with Raptor was being able to produce it reliably and rapidly. In the EA interview with Elon you can see how much less plumbing and paraphernalia there is on V2. I think both versions "worked" (they have been running lots of full duration tests at McGregor) for quite a while. One of Elon's many insightful sayings is something like "The best designed part is no part"
- s1artibartfast 4y agoIt is still a hardware rich process from a Aerospace standpoint. They have three more built at the moment and another three in production. Musk said that they are Manufacturing engines at the rate of 1.8 per day which is absolutely insane
- samwillis 4y agoSchools (where I am in the Uk) aren't back till Tuesday next week, so I'm looking forward to being able to watch this with my kids. However it goes it's going to be an incredible sight. Launch window opens 1pm BST (7am ET). Good luck to everyone at SpaceX!
- irrational 4y agoI am so looking forward to watching this behemoth fly.
- dzhiurgis 4y agoBehemoths are tiny compared to this :)
- LostLocalMan 4y agoSounds like they are not planning on testing the booster catch yet, I wonder what's stopping them
- ceejayoz 4y agoThey haven’t launched and recovered it at all yet, have they? Presumably they want to test out to sea where it won’t blow up the only launch tower if it comes in hot.
- olex 4y agoThe booster has not yet flown, no. The closest it came was a all-engines static fire (during which 2 out of 33 engines didn't fire, but it was still enough of a success to continue with the program apparently).
- starbase 4y agoRisk of damaging their only launchpad, I would assume.
- samwillis 4y agoThe hardware at the launch site is hundreds of millions of dollars (or more). They won't want to test that till they are sure they can fly the thing. The Flacon 9 did a fair few simulated landing over water before they tried on land or risked and barge.
- Me1000 4y agoThat's correct, there will be no catch attempt this launch. They're going to simulate a landing by attempting to do soft land it in the Gulf of Mexico. The reason is pretty straightforward: this vehicle has never flown before and a lot can go wrong. There is a lot of ground equipment including propellant tanks very close to the launch tower. If anything goes wrong hundreds of tons of metal + propellant is going to cause a lot of damage, and they'd likely end up having to rebuild a large portion of their launch area. Best to see how the booster behaves first before risking all that infrastructure.
- starbase 4y agoIf the two stages survive long enough to do a splashdown, will SpaceX attempt to hover them over the water until they run out of fuel? Will there be splashdown video?
- agrajag 4y agoAccording 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.
- olex 4y agoI 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 have a proper mass distribution for the first re-entry test...
- sebzim4500 4y agoI think the chance that the second stage survives reentry on the first attempt is almost zero anyway. IIRC Musk said something like that in his second interview with Tim Dodd.
- mabbo 4y agoTrue, but remember he only gave falcon heavy a 50/50 shot of getting high enough before exploding to not damage the launch site on its first launch. Musk is incredibly optimistic about schedules, and pessimistic about launches.
- bombcar 4y ago“We will launch very soon and it will explode very big”
- remarkEon 4y agoApril 17 is the anniversary of Apollo 13’s splashdown, if anyone was wondering. Edit: in case anyone wasn't aware of the coolest website on the internet https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/ https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/
- _2d30 4y agoI wasn't aware of this website! It's great, I'm following Apollo 11 right now.
- midland_trucker 4y agoI certainly wasn't and appreciate you posting it, great site! A little intimidating initially, but after a minute curiosity has you flicking between the different controller channels and stages in the mission.
- nullwarp 4y agoThis is really excellent and just a great example of the niche side of the internet I miss so dearly!
- zadjii 4y agoThis brought back all those old-school stumbleupon vibes, where suddenly, you find something magical
- marviel 4y agoVery cool. Thank you for sharing this. https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=055:55:00 https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/?t=055:55:00 ^^ The moment everyone is probably trying to find :)
- ian0 4y agoWow thats incredible, thanks
- bottlepalm 4y agoYea, but 4/20 is 4/20. I'd put my money on that.
- tschellenbach 4y ago7:00 a.m. CT, kinda early, but ill wake up for it :)
- reaperducer 4y agoTragically off-topic, but following the link I see that SpaceX has an online shop. The shop sells a SpaceX sticker pack, and one of the stickers looks like a bunch of cats in a satellite dish. I'm not a SpaceX follower, so can someone who is explain what it means: https://shop.spacex.com/collections/featured-products/products/starlink-sticker-pack https://shop.spacex.com/collections/featured-products/produc...
- bagels 4y agoCats like to sleep on warm surfaces. Starlink antennas are outdoors and warm. Cats sleep on them.
- xoa 4y agoFeline friends always love it when humans put out nice new warm beds for them! Certainly a warm heated spot in the cold could serve no higher purpose :): https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/outdoor-cats-are-using-500-starlink-satellite-dishes-as-self-heating-beds-180979401/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/outdoor-cats-are-u...
- Aeolun 4y ago> the American Veterinary Medical Association recommends keeping cats indoors to avoid dangers associated with diseases, parasites, cars, attacks from other animals, poisons and extreme weather Now it’s not only children but cats too? I grew up in a location where cats could go anywhere they pleased (in or outside), and it’s really strange to me that some countries recommend or require them to always be inside.
- bigbillheck 4y agoOutdoor cats live much shorter lives than indoor ones.
- concordDance 4y agoBut are they happier ones?
- ChickeNES 4y agoThe license itself: https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/ast/licenses_permits/media/VOL%2023-129%20SpaceX%20Starship-Super%20Heavy%20License%20and%20Orders.pdf 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/ast/licenses_permits/media/VOL%2023-129%20SpaceX%20Starship-Super%20Heavy%20License%20and%20Orders%202023-04-14.pdf https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/as...
- grecy 4y agoYou and be both, I'm jumping out of my skin!
- mlindner 4y agoI'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.
- grishka 4y agoI remember it being called BFR, which stood for Big F**ing Rocket, lol
- mlindner 4y agoThat came later after the MCT and then ITS acronyms. There's a history here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship_development https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship_development
- SECProto 4y ago> That came later after the MCT and then ITS acronyms I believe there was a BFR originally [1], and it just returned later. But the real old one was the Falcon X and Falcon XX [2], which were to use the "Merlin 2" engine (giant RP/LOX engine a la the saturn V). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Mars_program#Early_heavy-lift_concepts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Mars_program#Early_heav... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Falcon_X&oldid=384325449 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Falcon_X&oldid=38...
- 00F_ 4y agoi 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 over people shuffled away and even i was halfway to my car when we heard the explosion. i thought it was a sonic boom or something and only later realized it had blown up because by that time the landing pad was well out of sight. i got a crazy sunburn. im not sure if im even going to attempt to see the next launch in person because i think it will be absolutely thronged. finding a hotel room, parking, even a good spot in the grass come launch time. its going to be a fucking mad house. if some people here want to split a hotel room then i might consider it. hotels can really add up because they can scrub or cancel or whatever and youre just stuck there. i think there were a couple scrubs on my last go too. my advice to anyone who goes: bring sunscreen and a really good pair of binoculars and a tripod for the binoculars.
- deepsun 4y agoThank you, such a nice inspirational and personal writeup! Keep it up!
- chasd00 4y agoI wonder if you could head over to Matamoros and give a fisherman $50 to take you out on the water. The launch tower is maybe 500yds from the beach.
- philwelch 4y agoProbably a bad idea. Rocket launches tend to have exclusion zones for sea traffic and they will scrub the launch if some boat wanders into the area, and speaking as someone who likes to watch rocket launches on stream, I’m confident in saying that lots of people will be mad at you for doing this. Edit: Oh, you said Matamoros, which is in Mexico and presumably out of the FAA's jurisdiction. Everyday Astronaut seems to think Matamoros is one of the more dangerous parts of Mexico[1] but I'm not one to talk anyone out of adventure travel. Just be wise to what you're getting yourself into.[2] [1] https://everydayastronaut.com/how-to-visit-starbase https://everydayastronaut.com/how-to-visit-starbase [2] https://www.reuters.com/world/us/mexican-cartel-says-sorry-attack-americans-serves-up-five-suspects-2023-03-09/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/mexican-cartel-says-sorry-a...
- mmaunder 4y agoHere are the TFRs. Two on the 17th and 18th from 6am to 9am MDT. The yellow section. About 15 miles long and averages 7 miles wide. https://ibb.co/H41P6Md https://ibb.co/H41P6Md
- faceloss 4y ago[dead]
- honeybadger1 4y agoCool, the SpaceX team is killing it.
- ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago[flagged]
- ge96 4y agoI hope they get a shot of it externally in orbit, that would be cool
- world2vec 4y agoIt 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"
- ge96 4y agoI see... yeah I just imagine it over Earth probably from renderings. Would be cool if it had a little buddy it released to get above/behind it to take a 3rd person view picture.
- bryanlarsen 4y agoIt will only complete a fractional orbit, but it will reach orbital velocity so it will prove that it can reach orbit.
- world2vec 4y agoI 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.
- Tuna-Fish 4y agoNew rockets rarely launch on their first launch day. There will likely be at least a few days of delays.
- elif 4y agoSpaceX previously tweeted that the launch could occur roughly a week after the Wet Dress Rehearsal (WDR) which still has not happened. In fact the rocket is not even stacked at the moment, so 4/20 is more probable than 4/17 imo.
- efiftythree 4y agoI believe they have stated or otherwise insinuated that the WDR from January 23rd is sufficient, and they will not be performing another prior to the initial launch. As for the de-stacking of Ship 24 that has occurred only to enable the Flight Termination System (FTS) after which Ship 24 will be restacked. This is in line with an April 17th launch date.
- elif 4y ago"Starship fully stacked at Starbase. Team is working towards a launch rehearsal next week followed by Starship’s first integrated flight test ~week later pending regulatory approval" Literally what I said is what spaceX said. https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1644044484026716160?s=20 https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1644044484026716160?s=20 I'm glad your "belief" got my factual account downvoted
- elif 4y agoHUH
- elif 4y agoHUHHHHHH
- aliljet 4y agoSay what you will about Elon Musk, but this is the kind of human creativity that should know no bounds. Here's getting very excited about the species' chase for other worlds.
- sixothree 4y ago[flagged]
- TarasBob 4y agoWhich organization?
- macintux 4y agoNPR.
- colordrops 4y agoNPR has a clear political agenda biased toward a particular party. While I happen to agree with a lot of their politics, I don't think organizations with political agendas should receive public funding. Also, the bulk of their funding is not from the government, so they should do fine. Musk is not pushing for something crazy with this. One other problem with NPR is that they also take money from some seriously questionable orgs, like Walmart and McDonald Douglas.
- macintux 4y ago¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I was simply answering the question, and have no desire to get into an argument over Musk's politics.
- colordrops 4y agoNot really replying to you, just adding context the thread.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mabbo 4y agoIn response to various people asking "why aren't they also trying..." (starship hover landing on water, booster catch by the tower, etc), remember that the plan has to be approved by the FAA. The more complex the test, the more things they can ask for changes about or deny the request over. Keep it simple and approval is easier.
- xoa 4y agoFWIW no I don't think it has anything to do with the FAA. They don't care about it blowing up on landing and taking lots of SpaceX's extremely expensive infrastructure with it, it wouldn't be any worse then it blowing up at lift off full of fuel which naturally has already been accounted for as part of the safety and environmental review. SpaceX though very much cares, and it's cheaper for them to expend an SS+SH (the whole point of which is to mass manufacture and next version is improved already) then tower, fueling infra etc. Geographic constraints have forced them to have a lot of stuff much closer to the pad than might otherwise be ideal. An explosion at launch would be legitimately painful, would easily be months of delay not due to regulations but just in raw rebuilding, and set back their whole schedule and moment they can start putting it to work. Wouldn't kill it or anything, but it'd suck, which is why "minimum goal" has been stated to be getting high enough above the tower before blowing up to not hurt anything on the ground, then its gravy (obviously everyone would prefer it do much better than that). So they're being quite deliberate, pushing but not reckless gambling. They're running a hardware rich program, they can afford to do that, it's part of their competitive advantage. They'll start trying to land SH for real once they're confident the odds of avoiding any serious tower damage are sufficiently high.
- pantalaimon 4y agoThey could still do the re-entry burn and behave as if they would catch the booster/starship but over water without any infrastructure nearby. I’m a bit surprised they don’t because seeing if the heat shield survives the re-enrty maneuver would have been quite interesting.
- WalterBright 4y ago* Elon Musk and his Earth Boring Machine * Elon Musk and his Electric Car Company * Elon Musk and his Starship Rocket Tom Swift for real?
- ggm 4y agoYou know what I'd like? I'd like a launch which said 5 4 3 2 1 lift off! All systems nominal, flight proceeding And what were going to get is: 5 4 3 2 1 lift off of what will be, for all humankind the first tenuous steps into the void, as mankind proves the value of endeavours against odds... I can supply my own poetry. I don't need the emote which appears to be now mandatory.
- schiffern 4y agoSpaceX will typically livestream a "Technical webcast" simultaneously, which only includes audio from the ground support loop without any hosted commentary. That's what you're looking for.
- realworldperson 4y ago[dead]