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Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico
- chilling 2y agoIt was such a well-done engineering drama! Everyone had already written off the main hero, but he returns from the dead.
- hulitu 2y ago> Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico I see a lot of newspeak used with Musk's firm. Is this intentional ?
- elevatedastalt 2y agoWhat? Which word in that is Newspeak? Unlike other companies Tesla and SpaceX usually use very straight-speak.
- chasd00 2y agoI thought it was going to stay upright! that would have been very funny. 1 engine out on the way up, who would have thought getting 33 full flow combustion rocket engines to startup at the same time would be so hard.. /s
- XorNot 2y agoHonestly wondering if that's a Stage 0 issue: those outer engines get primed by the launch ring AFAIK.
- dotnet00 2y agoYep, the outer ring is non-relightable and rely on the launch ring to light them. That said, part of the benefit of having so many engines is that you can tolerate a couple of failures. Similarly to how F9 is able to make orbit with an engine out. Still, agreed that they'll probably opt for one more water landing test first. Especially since the current license allows for multiple launches of this profile if the booster trajectory is fine.
- rtkwe 2y agoI think the number is 3 so losing one immediately isn't great. They're much more reliable though than that first launch where so many failed.
- chasd00 2y agooh interesting, i did not know that. Just before ignition there was a bottom up view of what looked like gaseous o2 pouring out, was that the priming? They do that to get the pumps spinning to get pressure to the pre-burners so they can ignite and then get more power to turbo pumps to bring everything up to full power correct?
- sbuttgereit 2y agoCould have been cool down, but also could have been the fire suppression system which uses (as I recall) both water and nitrogen to avoid combustible gas accumulation below the launch platform. That activates not too long before ignition, before the deluge.
- thepasswordis 2y agoSeeing it seemingly hover right over the water and then slowly tip over was amazing! Go SpaceX! Go Starship!
- bearjaws 2y agoThe rate of descent is absolutely astonishing, 8km -> 1km in 20 seconds, then just hovers above the water. Absolutely incredible work by the SpaceX team. Living in central Florida I cannot wait for the new launch facility to come online. We're going to have lines of spectators into the space coast like we did for the shuttle. If any of you are heading to Disney World you should stop by the NASA Kennedy Visitor Complex, it is so well done and not that expensive (it takes less time than 1 line at Disney world to get to :) ). It has the original launch control room for Apollo that you can tour, a Saturn V rocket that is laid horizontally and you can walk under, the crew module for the moon landing. My favorite part is the Atlantis shuttle suspended from the ceiling, they left it in its "raw" landed format with scorch marks and tiles, it looks absolutely amazing.
- sixQuarks 2y agoYeah it’s hard to comprehend how powerful those engines are. The booster is relatively light without all the propellant and starship when it’s attempting to land, but it’s still 30 stories tall and I’m assuming it weighs dozens of tons.
- chasd00 2y agoiirc only 3 ignite for the landing burn, those engines are freaking monsters. I love how small they are, the latest Raptor revision is so slim and compact. The power density is just mind boggling.
- dotnet00 2y agoThat was breathtaking! Now just hoping we get even more spectacular views of Starship's reentry plasma than last time. Everything about this vehicle screams "sci-fi future". DAAAAMN looks like Starship made it! This truly fit their slogan of "Excitement guaranteed", that Starship reentry was so thrilling, falling apart, seeing the fins disintegrating, yet at the end they still moved and flipped!
- melodyogonna 2y agoThat was incredible!
- ninjamayo 2y agoIncredible! Catching the booster next JIRA ticket.
- chasd00 2y ago> Catching the booster next JIRA ticket. someone update the status from Blocked to Ready for Dev
- bell-cot 2y agoI'd put Starship Soft Landing first. That's easy and safe-ish to try in a remote location. Vs. any little oopies on a Booster Catch could damage a load of high-value infrastructure.
- pixl97 2y ago>I'd put Starship Soft Landing first. So that just happened. Been even better if the camera wasn't mostly melted, but looked like a slow enough landing.
- bell-cot 2y ago(I figured "Landing" implied "dry land". Or at least a dry barge deck. Beyond the obviously-greater precision needed - a soft & dry landing is paradise for post-flight engineering analysis.)
- mezeek 2y agothey're focusing on booster reuse and ship tile slash entry reliability. Ship reuse will come after. reason they're going hard on booster reuse is those 33 engines, they cost lotsa money to be dumping them over and over.
- thebiglebrewski 2y agoSomeone call Behnke to file it
- p51-remorse 2y ago[flagged]
- tekla 2y ago[flagged]
- insane_dreamer 2y agoSpaceX doing amazing work and Musk being an egomaniacal $hole are not mutually exclusive
- wilg 2y agoI encourage as many people as possible who are less wacko than Musk to try to beat him at his own game. Will be good for everyone.
- pfdietz 2y ago"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." -- George Bernard Shaw (1903)
- insane_dreamer 2y agoAbsolutely. Steve Jobs, patron saint of tech that he now is, was neither reasonable nor a pleasant person to work with or be around ($hole in today's parlance). (However, this changed considerably as he was nearing the end of his life.)
- badnews2u 2y agobeing a hypocritical "nice guy" and innovation are incompatible
- 2y ago
- dr_dshiv 2y agoWait, did it land or not? Retrieved or sunk? Couldn’t tell from the video.
- ipnon 2y agoIt did not land. The plan was not to attempt a landing. But it maintained a controlled descent into the ocean and splashed down upright.
- wilg 2y agoHard to land if no land.
- almostarockstar 2y agoIt sead.
- thfuran 2y agoIt's sean, actually.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- harperlee 2y agoHonest question, did they sink the remaining fuel? Or did they just burnt all remaining fuel whilst hovering? I would imagine that's pretty toxic. Edit: Thanks for the answers!
- ralfd 2y agoPropellant is not kerosine, it is only liquid gas: oxygen and methane
- cschmatzler 2y agoMethane and oxygen are not very toxic.
- natsucks 2y agoDear SpaceX: you guys are awesome.
- wilg 2y agoThe ocean landing is so cool. I believe they said that the next one they are going to try to land back at the tower? Seems plausible now.
- XorNot 2y agoI think that might be a second IFT away personally: I imagine they'd like to see no engine relight issues on descent for at least one more mission first, since slamming it into Starbase would be a shame.
- chasd00 2y agoyeah one out on the way up and on the way down, that has to be very frustrating. It makes my issues with trying to get a stupid website working correctly seem easier hah.
- bluescrn 2y agoIt does seem like they could do with a more isolated launch site (with the tank farm in a huge concrete bunker) before trying to catch Super Heavy
- rtkwe 2y agoThey'd have to build the whole launch complex again which makes me doubt they'd do it.
- rtkwe 2y agoYou could however mock one up, either with just a big concrete pad or with a pad and tower, and the booster "return to launch site" and prove it can hover in a specific location long enough for the chopsticks to close to get a very low risk approximate test.
- bpodgursky 2y agoThey could keep the option open to splash down off the coast if the relight isn't acceptable. Default splash.
- idkdotcom 2y agoAnybody knows what the heck is going on with the broadcast? All I see is "awaiting acquisition of signal". Thank you in advance!
- cheerioty 2y agoWhat a massive achievement. What a time to be alive.
- kemotep 2y agoI am one of the people skeptical about Elon’s specific claims of Starships abilities specifically about his Mars ambitions. Today’s test, if the Starship reentry is as successful as the booster soft landing will be absolutely a great achievement and a 100% mission success. This demonstration keeps SpaceX on schedule for their part of the Artemis 3 mission. Keeping the mission parameters simpler (no “refueuling” or door bay demonstrations as far as I am aware, just orbital insert and reentry) definitely shows they are capable of the basic ideas of how they want Starship to work, especially for Starlink missions. The team should be proud.
- me_me_me 2y agoAnything Mars is pure BS. Just anything and everything. The one way trip to mars is orders of magnitude more complicated than moon. Keeping people from being riddled with cancer in 6months trip is not trivial. Landing and then what you plan a flag and die?
- zpeti 2y ago> Landing and then what you plan a flag and die? Pretty much, why do you think columbus set off? And he didn't even know if he'd actually find anything. I don't understand your attitude and people like you, human beings have been explorers forever, and seem to value exploring even over survival potentially. I'd say it's pretty obviously evolutionarily coded into us. Maybe not you, but into many people.
- simiones 2y agoColumbus very very much didn't plan to die (though he very much would have if he didn't get lucky that there was a whole new continent there). His plan was to land in India, which he thought he would reach around the time he actually reached the new continent, because he had a completely wrong idea of how large the globe actually was (he alone had this wrong idea; the actual circumference of the globe was pretty well understood by this point). In general, human-based space exploration makes 0 sense. We have robots that can do everything a human in a life-support suit can, and don't need to carry 100 times their mass just to not day on the way there and back. Doing a few experiments with humans in space, like we do on the ISS, is indeed worth it for exploring the unknown unknowns of biology. Maybe some day, far in the future after we have explored Mars with many hundreds of robots, it will even make sense to send a human there. But until then, it's just a waste of everything.
- ProfessorZoom 2y agoi love hearing the spacex team cheer and roar together over being excited about a shared goal, it makes me feel good
- cletus 2y agoSo I'm excited to see this tech develop but I wonder how much of a market there really is for super-heavy lifters. I can't wait to see a future version where they land the various stages rather than just dumping them into the sea. The first Falcon Heavy launch was super impressive. SpaceX already has the Falcon Heavy and there have only been a handful of launches, primarily military. I guess the argument is it'll open up new opportunities but will this really replace the Falcon 9 workhorse, which at this point is I believe the most successful launch system in history? Won't someone make a fully reusable smaller launch vehicle that'll suit commercial needs?
- multimoon 2y agoThere’s lots of things that are just too big and heavy and need launch vehicles like that. It might be overkill for satellites, but space stations and habitats need the payload capacity of something like this to become anything resembling economical.
- seydor 2y agohow many of those things are there?
- dotnet00 2y agoWell, most prominently, thousands of Starlink satellites.
- dwaltrip 2y agoThere'll be a lot more once it is actually possible and economical to put it in space.
- throwthrowuknow 2y agoA bit like asking how many 30 story buildings are there when we first started building modern steel and concrete buildings. How many cathedrals could we possibly need?
- ceejayoz 2y ago
- simiones 2y agoThe second stage is basically gone, so it seems the new heat shield failed pretty badly, though still better than the previous one. Congrats on the booster, still an awesome achievement! Still a long way to go, unfortunately. Edit: seems I was premature in thinking that pieces melting off would mean it exploded. A partial success, ultimately!
- consumer451 2y agoThey are still getting telemetry at this very moment, it looks like they landed it. My question: is the US Navy going to blow up this largely intact Starship, or are we just going to leave it on the floor of the Indian Ocean for another country to find? Actually, it's probably just floating there at this moment.
- simiones 2y agoGiven how many pieces were being burned away, the fact that the camera and telemetry survived is amazing.
- consumer451 2y agoWatching that fin burn away was crazy, I can't believe that they were still able to actuate it afterwards!
- moffkalast 2y agoIt just landed (though difficult to say how softly), with a partially melted front canard stil actuating lol. This thing is built.
- pixl97 2y agoYou didn't hang around till second stage relight I see... somehow the smoking remains landed lightly in the ocean,
- rtkwe 2y agoIt actually made it through the belly flop and maybe made the landing burn which I also was not expecting. We got some better looks at the flap near the end and it had a huge chunk burned out but seems enough remained for it to keep working and keep the craft under control.
- pixl97 2y agoWhat the hell, half melted starship actually did the landing flip and hit the ocean slow!!! That was amazing!
- openmarmot 2y agoyeah that was absolutely incredible to watch. Starships fin was melting away like the terminator robot in the smelting pot but it still did its job. Absolutely excited about the future of humanity and spaceflight!
- bamboozled 2y agosame
- themgt 2y agoThat was seriously some of the most dramatic television I've ever watched. Video of Starship being melted/torn apart by supersonic plasma, the broadcast stream dying multiple times maybe due to ship destruction, then finally back online, peeking through the cracked camera to see the nearly destroyed grid fin STILL ACTUATING. The announcers laughing about the ship being "maybe held together by some nuts and bolts" and then it still pulled off the fucking landing burn! Absolutely wild and historic.
- mavhc 2y agoYou can tell the ship still exists because the telemetry still updates
- kevstev 2y agoI have never rooted for a flap so hard, and likely never will. I am ready to buy flap merch. The energy of the SpaceX employees gave me goosebumps, this was great, it was hard not to get caught up in it- you know this is the culmination of years of hard work that is mostly theoretical until tests like these.
- 2y ago
- ReptileMan 2y agoThe guy that designed the flaps of the main starship needs a raise. The thing was glowing red hot, almost disassembled and still functioned and they managed to do a second splashdown. Amazing work from the Spacex team.
- andruby 2y agoThe fact that the flap survived is amazing design indeed! I wouldn't assume it's 1 guy though, probably a team, or a woman for that matter.
- ceejayoz 2y agoHoly shit, that was incredible. One of the fins burned half away and still managed to control for a soft splashdown. https://imgur.com/a/zNXUjbt https://imgur.com/a/zNXUjbt
- malfist 2y agoIt was crazy seeing that thing show back up in the camera
- XorNot 2y agoSometimes the test works and it's exciting, sometimes it goes wrong and suddenly I'm hugely invested in the drama of a stainless steel aerodynamic control surface.
- Laremere 2y agoThe other external view we got was mounted on one of the other flaps, and we didn't get footage from it even after the camera we did get was obscured. So some amount of damage/overheating on multiple fins is likely.
- mulmen 2y agoI was wondering how much video bandwidth they have. Do they have all angles streaming all the time and they switch in the booth or can they only capture one video feed at a time? With that fin melting they may have just elected to stay focused on it.
- HPsquared 2y agoI don't know how they had any communications at all, doesn't the plasma surrounding the craft act as a Faraday cage? Edit: supposedly the Space Shuttle could also communicate with satellites during re-entry. There's a hole in the plasma behind the spacecraft and, Starship being large, must leave a bigger opening for the signals to pass through.
- neverrroot 2y agoIncredible. And still, the guy who makes things possible again and again gets a lot of poison thrown his way. Human nature at work. On both sides.
- thebiglebrewski 2y agoHow about the other 10K+ people who did the actual work to make this happen? Or is it all about that one guy? :)
- neverrroot 2y agoIt's not his work alone, but indeed it's all about one guy.
- yareal 2y agoGwynne Shotwell isn't a guy, though...
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- admissionsguy 2y agoIf not for Musk, they would be working at Boeing, Blue Origin and such...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- shamefulkiwi 2y agoWould they? If not for the audacious decision to attempt to land an orbital booster with F9 and the public display of the failures that led to the inspirational success of the first landing, how many of those brilliant young engineers would have decided to pursue a career in a boring and tired space industry?
- 2y ago
- thanzex 2y agoSeeing the fin still moving and keeping attitude despite being chewed trough was amazing
- mechhacker 2y agoThe upper stage re entering was the craziest thing I've seen live. Can't believe it was burning thru the flap and still had a gentle splash down.
- pixl97 2y agoYea, when I saw the flap melt I had wrote it off and was waiting for the explosion. The explosion never came and I was awestruck.
- delichon 2y agoWatching pieces of the ship melt off, but then seeing it make a relatively controlled landing, is perversely confidence building. If it can survive that kind of damage on a control surface maybe it's a quite robust craft.
- ceejayoz 2y agoYeah, and what a useful recording for "where do we buff up the heat protection?"
- liamkinne 2y agoSurvivorship bias!
- gibolt 2y agoHopefully the takeaway is something straightforward, like thicker shielding in one area and not a big redesign of the flaps
- dotnet00 2y agoThey already do have some pretty significant flap redesigns in the pipeline. Slightly smaller and placed slightly farther back from the centerline.
- Maxion 2y agoThats... not quite survivorship bias.
- neuronexmachina 2y agoYeah, survivorship bias doesn't quite apply if there's real-time telemetry. ;)
- amoss 2y agoPart of the build up said that they had deliberately weakened / thinned some of the tiles in order to test what the tolerance was. It seems that they must have gotten some incredible data about the mode of failure.
- mulmen 2y agoWith a successful propulsive splashdown will the ship be recovered for examination?
- ceejayoz 2y agoOnly one of the SpaceX Falcon 9 boosters stayed afloat after a gentle touchdown (they weren't quite sure what to do with it, with a persistent rumor the Air Force used it for target practice); there's usually enough propellant left to make it kaboom when it tips into the water. I'd also imagine they didn't put a boat close to the landing target this time around for safety reasons. I'm hoping they had a reconnaisance aircraft out there, though.
- voidUpdate 2y agoWell, I guess we finally know kinda what it looked like from the inside of Columbia... ouch. I did think the colours looked like some kind of metal fire, but I didn't think that was going to happen
- mckirk 2y ago'The little flap that could'... Watching the stream and hearing the excitement of the whole team in the background honestly made me tear up a little. Congratulations!
- matthewpick 2y agoA bit more exciting than my standard day at the office! Production outage is about as spicy as it gets…
- jrs235 2y agoReminds me of playing Lunar Lander[1] back in the day. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Lander_(video_game_genre) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Lander_(video_game_genre...
- astral_drama 2y agoThat's a nice big ladder for getting to the heavens and back.
- gibolt 2y agoHere is a reminder that the only other rocket that can survive re-entry is Falcon 9. Now we have the 2nd!
- mulmen 2y agoFalcon 9 cannot survive re-entry. The first stage doesn’t reach orbit and the second is expended. The Dragon capsule can survive re-entry but that’s not unique among spacecraft.
- namlem 2y agoThe Falcon 9 second stage doesn't survive reentry and the booster only needs to get through a partial reentry at much slower velocity.
- gibolt 2y agoIt is not fully reusable. But partial reentry is reentry, something no other rocket had been able to do.
- mulmen 2y agoYou can’t re-enter if you never leave. If Falcon 9 “survives re-entry” then so do minivans. Falcon 9 is an impressive and revolutionary vehicle. We don’t need to overstate the capabilities.
- ceejayoz 2y agoThe Falcon 9 first stage goes past the Karman line and does a reentry burn. It’s not reentering from orbit, but it is from space.
- mulmen 2y agoSo does New Shepard. If crossing the Karman line is your definition of re-entry then the Falcon 9 isn’t unique. What Starship is doing is completely different from what Falcon 9 is doing. Falcon 9 is not the only other sub-orbital booster to propulsively land. Starship isn’t the only other spacecraft to survive hypersonic re-entry. It’s not even unique in being reusable. Starship and Falcon 9 are incredible achievements. It’s simply not necessary to lie about their capabilities.
- ironyman 2y agoSome highlights: Booster splashdown at about T+7:30, Ship engine cutoff at 151 km: https://x.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1798700946983358535 https://x.com/NASASpaceflight/status/1798700946983358535 Starship splashdown in Indian Ocean, mostly intact, with landing burn just before splashdown; landing burn: https://x.com/DJSnM/status/1798715665916014715 https://x.com/DJSnM/status/1798715665916014715 Full flight profile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship_integrated_flight_test_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship_integrated_fli...
- mhandley 2y agoAlso at T+57:20 or so, watching the front flap start to come apart: https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1798098040588480826 https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1798098040588480826
- toephu2 2y agoHow do they recover the booster? It doesn't sink to the bottom of the sea?
- dave78 2y agoThey are not recovering it this time. Once they demonstrate that it can achieve a controlled "landing" at sea, then they will move on to trying to land it back at the launch site.
- jantissler 2y agoMan, that will be spectacular.
- krustyburger 2y agoThat flap showed the kind of tenacity and courage under (literal) fire we need in our leadership. I hope it will consider entering the presidential race.
- HPsquared 2y agoFunnily enough, the Simpsons did it: https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Inanimate_carbon_rod https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Inanimate_carbon_rod
- krustyburger 2y agoI’ll show you inanimate!
- HPsquared 2y agoJust noticed the name.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- nomilk 2y agoFull video: https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1798689697184764071 https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1798689697184764071 Various shades of plasma visible during re-entry: Reddish/orange: 1h 26m Blue/purple: 1h 28m White/blue: 1h 34m Yellow: 1h 37m. The forward flap visible in camera view starts melting away around 1h 38m (until basically the end of coverage). (the two stunning minutes from 1h 27m to 1h 29m were the highlight for me)
- xnx 2y agoBig respect to that camera lens cover. The drama of seeing the camera get obscured and then have the cover crack was peak.
- mlindner 2y agoEveryone said it cracked, but it didn't look like cracking to me. It looked like carbon vapor deposition/metal vapor deposition.
- xnx 2y agoThat's how it started, but there was a specific moment where it suddenly cracked. Further deposition and debris may have obscured that crack later.
- mlindner 2y agoYeah on re-watch I saw the moment it cracked, but it didn't really damage the view much as the crack was relatively small. It was only the cover rather than the lens itself. Probably from the flash cooling after how hot it got.
- Ajay-p 2y agoImagine being the engineer who designed that flap.. Wow. What an incredible spectacle.
- okdood64 2y agoAbsolutely incredible how we were able to see live, on-board video of virtually the complete flight and re-entry with the help of Starlink.
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- jmward01 2y agoThis is the 'more awesome' side of the world we need a lot more of.
- doctoboggan 2y agoDespite Elon's recent turn into divisive politics, I am still very happy he is pushing spacex development forward. I love watching these livestreams, and always look forward to Scott Manley's analysis a day or two later.
- doctoboggan 2y agoLooks like Scott Manley has been working hard and was able to release his video very quickly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m0TY6i1Kuo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m0TY6i1Kuo
- jlangenauer 2y agoA seriously incredible achievement, and I'm sure everyone at SpaceX is very happy with what they've done right now. I was absolutely certain it wasn't going to make it when I saw chunks breaking off the flap.
- namlem 2y agoI'm sure NASA is thrilled as well, since this is great news for the Artemis program.
- bradley13 2y agoI hope they have footage from ships. It would be great to see actual videos of the soft landings. One dumb question I have: There was no payload, and yet starship used essentially all of its fuel to achieve this trajectory. How does this compute?
- dirkc 2y agoI don't think they fueled it up all the way. But I do thing the booster and maybe also starship itself is a little heavier than they plan to have it at the end. *update* if you check the video just before launch (39:54), you can see that the fuel bars for both the booster and the ship is not 100% full: https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1OwxWYzDXjWGQ https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1OwxWYzDXjWGQ
- inglor_cz 2y agoNot a dumb question, they simply didn't fill the rocket completely up.
- HPsquared 2y agoThat thing is built like a tank, in more ways than one. (Get it? Tank?)
- mrandish 2y agoJust watched the recorded live stream and... wow! What a show. Incredible views of a test that appears to have successfully achieved all potential objectives through reentry, rotation maneuver, relight, landing burn and upright water landing in the Indian Ocean. The only unfortunate bit was some debris cracking the camera lens during the last part of reentry so the view for spectators was occluded but SpaceX maintained their live data feed all the way through, which is the important part. As they say, for these tests "the data is the payload."
- salesynerd 2y agoThe real-time view of the re-entry through the plasma was phenomenal!
- world2vec 2y agoSeeing the Starship's flap visibly burning in the reentry heat and still survive well enough to move around and get to a splashdown was just incredible. Amazing progress in just four test flights.
- kobalsky 2y agosaw that and wondered how do they go from there to reusable. is the shileding ablative and replaced on every flight?
- baq 2y agoyeah the thing did a soft splashdown with a leaking flap, the fluid in question being molten stainless steel. this was hard sci-fi, streamed live for everyone to see.
- marmakoide 2y agoThat flap is already a legend, kept at it even mangled by hot plasma, crazy accelerations and pressures, spitting molten steel at the camera. What a role model, the little flap that could.
- thelittleone 2y agoSomeone on the Everyday Astronaut live stream named it "Flap Norris".
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- somenameforme 2y agoI wonder what the odds are that some deep sea salvage group is moving to collect that this very instant (or being contracted for such). If Starship lives up to even a fraction of its potential, that [not so] little guy is going to have some serious historicity.
- 2y ago
- dividedbyzero 2y ago> SpaceX won a multibillion-dollar contract from the agency to use Starship as a crewed lunar lander as part of NASA's Artemis moon program So four people would arrive at Lunar orbit in an Orion, board a huge prepositioned Starship, and fly that down to the surface?
- nyokodo 2y ago> So four people would arrive at Lunar orbit in an Orion, board a huge prepositioned Starship, and fly that down to the surface? That's the idea, yes. [1] 1. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/13/2021_Artemis_Banner_-_HLS_Starship_%28936168596045%29.pdf/page1-809px-2021_Artemis_Banner_-_HLS_Starship_%28936168596045%29.pdf.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/13/20...
- shmoe 2y agoBecause the SLS can't do anything close to what the Saturn V did, yup.
- dotnet00 2y agoUnfortunately Orion is stupidly heavy.
- Rebelgecko 2y agoIs that in addition to taking a pit stop at the lunar gateway?
- nyokodo 2y agoThat's where they transition from one to the other, yeah.
- jlmorton 2y agoThe eventual plan is to build an orbiting space station, the Lunar Gateway. Astronauts will then launch on SLS/Orion, which will perform a Trans Lunar Injection. However, before that, a Starship will be launched into LEO. There will then be something like 17 (the actual number is not clear, but it is a lot) Starship tankers that will launch to re-fuel the original Starship. The Starship then does a Trans Lunar Injection. The Orion docks with the Lunar Gateway, Starship docks with the Lunar Gateway, the astronauts transition to Starship, which does a propulsive landing on the moon.
- pants2 2y agoSeeing Live HD video of the outside of the ship on reentry is just incredible. Here's a link to the timestamp: https://youtu.be/8VESowgMbjA?t=35093 https://youtu.be/8VESowgMbjA?t=35093
- idontwantthis 2y agoWow I actually got served the Elon crypto deepfake scam as an ad on that video.
- adolph 2y agoElon crypto deepfake scam is the new rick-roll
- idontwantthis 2y agoExcept Google is making money on it too by serving the ads.
- andruby 2y agoIt's crazy that Google doesn't prevent those videos. It can't be that hard to detect and block.
- MeImCounting 2y agoTheyre incentivized to serve any and all ads, if they are scammy illegal or otherwise google doesnt care because theyre insulated from any potential consequences. I marvel every time I see people on HN talking about being served ads on youtube videos or elsewhere. You would think here of all places adblock would be standard.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- dave78 2y agoThe difference in presentation between the launch of Starliner yesterday vs Starship today was stark. For most of the Starliner launch, all we got to see was a Windows desktop showing some basic animations that look like they're from the late 90s and unexplained telemetry with about a 1Hz update rate. Perhaps interesting to hardcore space nerds but not very exciting for John and Jane Public. Also, the "timeline" at the bottom of the webcast looked broken most of the time since it only updated when a couple major milestones occurred. Boeing even tried to address some of this in the press conference stating that video of the crew riding up to the station will be available after they download it post-flight (which, at that point, hardly anyone will care about). Meanwhile, Starship had nearly-continuous live HD-quality feeds of video from multiple cameras from both the booster and spacecraft including all the way through reentry, producing some absolutely incredible views, some of which have probably never been seen before. Also, SpaceX puts very user-friendly telemetry displays on the bottom of their webcast that are easy to understand and seemingly have high update rates. Maybe in the end it doesn't matter. On the other hand, if you were a potential future aerospace engineer, I think the Starship launch this week was the one that would have created most of the interest and enthusiasm. SpaceX is winning in the public-relations battle and a lot of that is because they've put focus and attention into their webcasts for a long time. Old space needs to learn a thing or 2 from them.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- shmoe 2y agoWe did get a lot of those Starlink views on flight 3 before the ship was destroyed, but yes -- definitely first time we've ever gotten to visualize re-entry live. Crazy stuff. They are so far ahead if you're paying attention it's not even funny.
- bryanlarsen 2y ago> hardcore space nerds Can confirm. My coworkers are hardcore space nerds and datavis nerds, and they took over our #random slack channel yesterday really digging the Starliner visuals.
- 2y ago
- inglor_cz 2y agoStainless steel is one helluva material. Already the first launch of Starship a year ago showed how tough the rocket was. It was out of control, spinning wildly in high winds, and yet it still held together and had to be blown up remotely. Anything made of aluminium or aluminium alloys would have been torn to tiny pieces by the sheer aerodynamic force alone. And now, the melting flap that was still capable of actuation and steering the ship towards a successful landing... One day, this sturdiness is going to save some lives.
- ericcumbee 2y ago>Already the first launch of Starship a year ago showed how tough the rocket was. >It was out of control, spinning wildly in high winds, and yet it still held >together and had to be blown up remotely. and even when they blew it up, it just laughed until it depressurized enough to break up.
- ein0p 2y agoHow did Boeing fall so far behind?
- baq 2y agocost-plus.
- ceejayoz 2y agoStarliner is very notably not cost-plus.
- helpfulContrib 2y ago[dead]
- yayitswei 2y agoBooster executed a successful landing burn and had a soft splashdown. Starship survived reentry, did the flip and landing burn, and splashed down. There was visible damage to the flaps.
- toephu2 2y agoHow do they recover the booster? After the soft splashdown isn't it going to sink to the bottom of the sea? Or they have nets or something?
- jantissler 2y agoThey don't right now, because they are still testing. They can't risk bringing the booster or the ship back over land, because they don't know yet how well and precise they can steer and maneuver them. When they've figured that out, we will see the first landing of a super heavy booster for recovery and that will be pretty spectacular I bet …
- mjamesaustin 2y agoBooster is designed to land directly on the launch mount, but that won't be attempted until they are confident it won't blow up the whole base. Starship is designed to land on any flat surface (earth, moon, mars) but again they won't attempt ground landing until they feel confident in the design.
- liuliu 2y agoHow come the stream not cutting off during re-entry "blackout" period? Is it because the re-entry is low / slow enough so no thick plasma layer, or because it is streamed through StarLink which happens to be on the other side of the plasma layer?
- the_duke 2y agoThey indeed started streaming through Starlink on the third (previous) test flight.
- DarmokJalad1701 2y agoThere is a "hole" in the plasma in the wake of the re-entering Starship due to its shape. They used Starlink terminals to beam the data up to Starlink satellites. Starlink also uses higher frequency signals than older systems and that also helps.
- spdif899 2y agoI'm not sure if they have shared details but I assume this leaves a relatively narrow window over the ship that they need to put a satellite, which would be really cool to see more on logistically. Like how do you move a satellite or satellites to a certain area, at the right time, avoiding other space objects, and then keep them there for 45 minutes during the mission or at least 15 minutes during the blackout zone. I'm sure it takes a huge amount of planning, math, coordination with various entities....
- abulman 2y agoThey might do some minor optimisation in terms of when the fly to keep some coverage but ... > As of May 2024, there are 6,078 Starlink satellites in orbit, of which 6,006 are working - https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites.html https://www.space.com/spacex-starlink-satellites.html
- DarmokJalad1701 2y ago> like how do you move a satellite or satellites to a certain area, at the right time, avoiding other space objects They have 6000+ satellites in orbit. While it may not be easy, it is probably not a huge challenge to plan for one or more to always be in the field of view for this flight.
- avmich 2y agoThe 4th Starship test flight was absolutely great test, which really pushed the state of the art - both in general (after all, Starship 2nd stage is 1.5-2 times heavier - when empty - than a Space Shuttle returning from orbit) and specifically for developing the Starship as a robust launch system. Regarding return from orbital (and above) velocities - there was a flight ( https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/irdt-fregat.htm https://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/irdt-fregat.htm ) in 2000 when the payload was returning from orbit using inflatable heat shield, which would tolerate much less of heat flow than Starship. The approach was to dissipate a lot of energy in high enough atmosphere, so that while temperature (measure of gas molecules kinetic energy) is high, the heat flow (amount of gas molecules with that kind of high energy to the ship) is low and so heat effects on the ship are also low. Another approach was used e.g. in Zond-6 flight ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zond_6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zond_6 ) when the spacecraft entered the atmosphere, shed some speed and got heated, then ballistically exited the dense atmosphere layers, cooled down a bit, then got into atmosphere again with less speed and so less heat load. The point is we still have some tricks up our sleeve to fight the problems of atmospheric reentry.
- computerdork 2y agoThe Orion capsule (in 2022) used atmospheric bounce during reentry to cool off the craft: https://www.livescience.com/orion-capsule-lands-in-ocean https://www.livescience.com/orion-capsule-lands-in-ocean
- gabesullice 2y agoSomething like this is what I've been thinking about post flight. In the heat of the moment ;), I was thinking about what SpaceX was learning about the ship's hot spots. After more reflection, I realized that the bigger picture is learning about how quickly it decelerates and how quickly it heats up. With that data, they can design a different reentry profile. E.g. maybe it's better to "plunge" to lower altitudes and experience higher peak pressure for a shorter duration or maybe it's better to have a very gentle but slow reentry to minimize peak pressure. After seeing how robust the ship is (and knowing SpaceX :P), I wouldn't be surprised if they decide to go for a higher peak pressure/temp. A better reentry profile is like massless heat shielding! Maybe more challenging than the profile or optimizing the heat shield though: how are they going to reject heat from the flap joint? Maybe relocating the flaps leeward, like Elon's been saying for a while, will do the trick
- thelittleone 2y agoAs an ex-army guy who never misses a launch, I was both surprised and delighted to choke up and almost cry while witnessing today's historical launch. Thank you SpaceX for reconnecting me with my inner child. Thank you Flap Norris.
- mlindner 2y agoFor some reason the main hacker news article keeps getting deleted and merged with this one. The link should be changed to: https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1798715759193096245 https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1798715759193096245 Also the title is wrong for the subject. It should be about Starship, not Super Heavy. I don't know who did this but you did it wrong.
- dotnet00 2y agoIt was posted when the booster had just landed and the ship was still coasting. I guess the mods figure the topic should be contained here for being the first related post.
- mlindner 2y agoBut there was already a growing post with the other link, they forcibly merged that one into this one rather than the reverse.
- vl 2y agoThere is a full launch video on the SpaceX website: https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-4 https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-...
- szundi 2y agoAll enthusiast people, just buy the Kerbal Space Program (1, not the 2), play it through. Then play it without reloading saves. That’s something!! And then, install the RP-1 mod and get blown away. I have 2k hours in this game, worth every of those hours.
- itslennysfault 2y agoAfter a TON of trial and error I made it to orbit. I decided that was "beating the game" for me and never played it again. Ain't nobody got time for a moon mission.
- dotnet00 2y agoDon't forget Principia! The stock orbital mechanics make RSS too easy.
- moskie 2y ago[flagged]
- alfiopuglisi 2y agoPeople happy and proud of their work. What's wrong?
- moskie 2y ago> given the very real concerns that there is a dangerous cult of personality surrounding Musk, seeing this footage presented this way is unsettling.
- indoordin0saur 2y agoSeems like a very small-minded way to see things... But if it makes you feel any better, Musk is only one of many people working at SpaceX. You could see him as just a figurehead and you wouldn't too far from reality.
- moskie 2y agoI could call you small minded for thinking only of advances in rocket technology, and ignoring the negative aspects of advancing Musk's power and influence. Should I?
- read_if_gay_ 2y ago>no u
- kbmr 2y agoThis was a huge achievement and the workers were rightly cheering. I didn't take it as a sign of a cult of personality surrounding Musk at all.
- colechristensen 2y agoI don't think this in particular is a personality cult, but it is pretty obvious people are kept around and probably encouraged to cheer and shit like it's a sporting event. It's a bit awkward and wouldn't surprise me that the awkward suggestion came from the top. I get occasionally getting excited but this feels forced and doesn't it happen on every launch?
- philomath_mn 2y agoI always get chills hearing the live viewing audience just losing their minds during these recordings. Must be an incredible feeling to be a part of such a massive accomplishment.
- sfblah 2y agoReminds me of the "We Stand Tall" Scientology video.
- riffic 2y agofor context which is often lacking in posts like this, this is what a Super Heavy is (I had to look it up lol because it's not really obvious from the title alone): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Super_Heavy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Super_Heavy meta but it absolutely would not kill anyone to include some context in your submissions here.
- mlindner 2y agoThere WAS more context, but some moderator of hacker news merged in the post with more context into this link that was posted first. That erased all the context. Also the significance is not Super Heavy landing in the Gulf of Mexico, but Starship landing in the Indian Ocean.
- resolutebat 2y agoBoth are very significant events, since previous tests didn't get even close to soft landing.
- sam_goody 2y agoI kinda feel bad for Boeing. SLS should be docking about now to the ISS, and instead everyone is watching their competition.
- SmartJerry 2y agoMayba a dumb idea, but given we have regenerative braking on cars, why not harness the heat energy produced while landing to store and/or use the energy generated for whatever mechanism that might help counter the heat.
- stephenitis 2y agoHave you tried to use the steam heat from boiling a pot of water to operate a turbine to cool down the pot of water?
- fernandopj 2y agoI've been trying to find an "outside" view of the landing, as it is usual with SpaceX' dropships. So far no luck, they just haven't showed it yet or because it was middle of the ocean they probably don't have one?
- cubefox 2y agoThey didn't have them either for the previous flight test. Neither for the booster (Gulf of Mexico) nor the ship (Indian ocean I believe).
- napierzaza 2y ago[dead]
- bamboozled 2y agoAnyone else excited for being able to ride one of these into space while remaining in their cybertruck and then driving off the craft and through the McDonals Mars drive through all while using StarLink internet?
- throwaway2037 2y agoAbout landing the Super Heavy booster, Wiki[1] says: > [S]hortly before landing,[67] it ignites its engines to slow sufficiently to be caught by two mechanical arms attached to the tower. Does anyone know the reason to choose "two mechanical arms", instead of landing like the Falcon 9? And has SpaceX announced any plans to test these arms? In my mind, it sounds more wild to try to "catch" the landing booster with arms, rather than land on a pan. Anyone else?
- hahn-kev 2y agoIIRC the plan is for rapid reuse, the idea being that it can land on the launch pad.
- synecdoche 2y agoWeight savings and less complicated rocket without the legs makes for higher payload capacity.
- yetihehe 2y agoThey were originally trying to land on pad, but they couldn't get legs light enough and strong enough not to bend while landing, there were also problems with maintaining structure around those legs. It was simpler to have two hardpoints and legs be more massive but on the ground.
- speedylight 2y agoWhen people hundreds of years from now watch these videos, they’re gonna think that Aliens helped us build this amazing craft in the same way some people today think that aliens helped the Egyptians build the pyramids!
- 8bitsrule 2y agoAs I recall, the spaceships in the -movies- gently lowered themselves onto the land, or even into a porthole, on a well-formed plume of flame. Without flaps! So watching these images of things flapping and flailing and sputtering causes mental discordance.
- yetihehe 2y agoI recall that going through atmosphere was always the most shaking moment. With some creaking from time to time and having to hold your steering instruments really tight.
- matheusmoreira 2y agoI watched the atmosphere eat away at the stainless steel in real time and in first person point of view. Beautiful gradients of plasma... And then this thing somehow still managed to maneuver, lit up its engines and splash down gracefully. Astonishing.
- Isuckatcode 2y agoCan they recover the booster back to shore for an investigation?
- alex_muscar 2y agoJust curious who pays for cleaning up the debris after one if these landings.
- MaxikCZ 2y agoThe Future. But honestly, there is less to clean up than if an empty sea ship would sink.