19 ms·

Starship's Sixth Flight Test

337 points by hnburnsy 2y ago

anticrymactic 2y ago
Last times catch was incredible, anything groundbreaking being attempted this time?
- bryanlarsen 2y ago
  They're working off the same license they used for test 5, so they basically have to exactly the same thing they did for test 5. They did manage to add this: "An additional objective for this flight will be attempting an in-space burn using a single Raptor engine, further demonstrating the capabilities required to conduct a ship deorbit burn prior to orbital missions."
  - modeless 2y ago
    I think that's the last thing they need to do before they can actually launch satellites. I'm surprised there was no attempt on the last launch. Glad to see it this time. The improved Starlink constellation that Starship will enable is going to be awesome.
    - cryptonector 2y ago
      That and flap sturdiness, if they want to be able to re-enter over land so they can catch the ship.
      - modeless 2y ago
        It's not required for launching satellites. But yeah, they need to figure out the heat shield for the flap hinges before they can recover the ship.
        cwillu 2y ago
        The next block of starship has an altered geometry/location of the flaps for that reason; it's more or less a solved problem, but not worth scrapping the older ones they've already built. Iirc, the launch after this one will be SN7, which is block 2 with the new geometry.
        jltsiren 2y ago
        It's not a solved problem. Surviving the re-entry in a condition that makes reuse economical was always the biggest challenge for the Starship. It's far from certain that they can achieve it without a fundamental change in the concept. The feasibility of building big rockets was already demonstrated a long time ago. Given the reliability of the Falcon 9, it looked plausible that a big rocket could work with many engines. And SpaceX had already shown that they can reuse boosters economically. But reusing orbital spacecraft – the entire upper stage with engines, fuel tanks, and whatever – without expensive and time-consuming refits is something nobody has done before.
        Dylan16807 2y ago
        They're saying that one specific part burning off is a solved problem, not the entire reuse process.
        cryptonector 2y ago
        If that part burning off is a solve problem then returning the orbital ship to the launchpad is too given that they are able to gently put it down on the sea, and that they are able to gently catch the booster. This part is basically the only problem left that is ship-specific. However for reuse (or rapid reuse) they might need to rethink heat shielding to reduce refurbishment time and cost.
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    - mnau 2y ago
      I think they will want to deal with heatshield first. As of now, it hasn't survived deorbiting. SpaceX can launch satellites using Falcon9 and do it routinely. Starship needs to be developed and reach milestones, so they can get paid by NASA. Having a payload is a complication (unless it's a fun payload, remember the roadster car :D)
      - cwillu 2y ago
        The next block of starship has altered flap geometry that should largely fix that.
      - laverya 2y ago
        I think they can probably do both at once - heatshield testing and pez dispenser testing shouldn't interfere with each other, so might as well use whatever spare upmass you have! Yeah you might lose the payload, but SpaceX has the cheapest satellites in the business from what I understand.
      - 93po 2y ago
        i hope the next dummy payload is a giant 2 story tall anime figurine, knowing musk it's not out of the question
  - cryptonector 2y ago
    And they need to demo that the flaps hold up through re-entry with nominal, minimal damage, otherwise a permit for a plan involving re-entry over land (which is needed to catch the ship) would obviously not issue.
    - bryanlarsen 2y ago
      They've addressed that in Block 2. Test 6 still flies block 1, so we won't see any substantive improvements on that until test 7.
  - scotty79 2y ago
    That's cool PR move. If they managed to light one then it's great success. If they don't people will think they just got unlucky. But if they tried to light all and only one would work or none, or one would work but some other blew up whole rocket it would look terrible. That last eventuality is something they want to prevent by trying to light just one.
- sebzim4500 2y ago
  It's not groundbreaking but it's important. They are demonstrating in orbit relight capability of the raptor engines. This is an absolute requirement before they can put it fully into orbit because losing control of a Starship in low earth orbit would be catastrophic.
  - lysace 2y ago
    > because losing control of a Starship in low earth orbit would be catastrophic Why? Remote detonation wouldn't work in that case?
    - perihelions 2y ago
      Remote termination is something they can do in the early boost phase, when there is a defined hazard zone over a depopulated patch of ocean. It doesn't cause the rocket to disappear; its effect is to disable the engines, end uncontrolled acceleration, and break the booster apart into small pieces—all of which will still fall to the ground (ocean) as debris. If you did this to a Starship in orbit, you'd likely have large chunks of steel reentering and reaching the ground intact.
      - lysace 2y ago
        If I understand you correctly: So you'd have to do it over unpopulated/depopulated areas, which is impossible to guarantee when you are zooming around the globe at very high speeds. Thanks for explaining.
      - mcswell 2y ago
        "...all of which will still fall to the ground (ocean) as debris..." After it's been flying in orbit for awhile, where it could in theory hit something else. As you say, the other part of it--and probably more important--is that if it's turned into orbiting pieces, there's no control over where it lands. Some of it could easily land on the ground rather than the ocean, who knows where. That of course has happened with other satellites and their final stage rockets in the past (notably by the Chinese), but Starship is bigger, and therefore the pieces that hit the ground could be bigger. By launching it sub-orbital for now, and turning off the engines so it lands in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the risks of both orbital debris and unknown ground landing points are avoided.
- panick21_ 2y ago
  Not to much mostly just a repeat. Just engine relight on the upper stage. The reason for this is that the next version is much improved and almost ready. That's the one they will really want to do the next steps with.
_m7ae 2y ago
[flagged]
- geetee 2y ago
  Sad
- rkagerer 2y ago
  Well they were 1 second away from the last one auto-aborting and smashing into the pad instead of catching it.
- inglor_cz 2y ago
  Don't let spite erode you from within. It is a destructive feeling.
  - _m7ae 2y ago
    [flagged]
lupusreal 2y ago
Note that there will not be an official livestream on Youtube. Every time there are some people who fall for scammers pretending to be one and end up listening to an AI impersonation of Elon Musk try to sell them cryptocoins, missing the real launch. If you must watch on youtube, NSF or Everyday Astronaut typically have good (unofficial) livestreams.
- djd3 2y ago
  The Everyday Astronaut was ahead of the SpaceX curated one for Flight 5. It had the weird effect of showing the outcome before the sound of the cheering crowd going crazy when the booster got caught by the chopsticks (which was also audible in the same stream).
  - gridspy 2y ago
    Each streamer adds a delay to their stream. This means that any stream forwarded to you by another streamer is going to be delayed. The delay was between SpaceX recording and uploading an event and Everyday astronaut decoding it at their mixing desk. Their own feeds from their cameras and microphones had less delay than the SpaceX stream did. Everyday astronaut then had another delay between when they encoded this result and you saw it. If you had opened up the SpaceX stream directly you would have found it was ahead of the stream shown inside Everyday Astronaut. BTW I was also watching EA's stream.
    - wmf 2y ago
      EA and NSF have their own cameras so they aren't just republishing SpaceX's Twitter stream. But things definitely get out of sync when there are multiple layers of streaming.
      - abulman 2y ago
        Some of the views their cameras get are fantastic - and the tracking on the last flight test would quite possibly make NASA envious. Cameras on the beach and also just next to StarHopper are in harms way too, they've lost a couple of them. I'm not sure what the cost of repair was after a chunk of concrete from what used to be the pad took out the back of a car!
waltbosz 2y ago
> the 30-minute launch window will open at 4:00 p.m. CT Is that correct? They're launching in the afternoon this time?
- Always42 2y ago
  They call out later launch on the page linked
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- sbuttgereit 2y ago
  "Finally, adjusting the flight’s launch window to the late afternoon at Starbase will enable the ship to reenter over the Indian Ocean in daylight, providing better conditions for visual observations." From the linked article.
- rkagerer 2y ago
  Finally, adjusting the flight’s launch window to the late afternoon at Starbase will enable the ship to reenter over the Indian Ocean in daylight, providing better conditions for visual observations.
- Nekhrimah 2y ago
  It's explained further down the page that this launch time will facilitate the Indian Ocean landing in sunlight, for improved visual capture of that.
- umeshunni 2y ago
  For anyone else who was confused and thought this was happening today. It's actually in 12 days: The sixth flight test of Starship is targeted to launch as early as Monday, November 18. The 30-minute launch window will open at 4:00 p.m. CT
delabay 2y ago
[flagged]
- roflyear 2y ago
  Not sure he really cares about the country - but I guess you can be glad.
  - sebzim4500 2y ago
    Does that matter?
    - rbanffy 2y ago
      I’m not American, but for me it would matter a lot. Not aligning with the country’s best interests is a yuge dealbreaker.
    - roflyear 2y ago
      Of course, I don't want super powerful people in the US to not have the country's best interests in mind.
  - loceng 2y ago
    He cares about freedom and the spark of consciousness, of which he requires a foundation of a strong and free country; maybe you're being perfectionistic, e.g. The Selfish Gene?
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - kwisatzh 2y ago
      Since when does he care about freedom? He was shadow banning content that he disliked on X, all the while boosting takes he approved of. Sure, he owns X and can do whatever he wants with it, but he doesn’t care about freedom.
    - chairhairair 2y ago
modeless 2y ago
SpaceX just posted this video of the last test. It's one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI9HQfCAw64 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI9HQfCAw64
- paul7986 2y ago
  Not into space things and while this is cool i wonder what the great significance of this is? I see lots signaling how great this is and it's lost on me.
  - modeless 2y ago
    Totally reasonable question. This is the first rocket ever that will (assuming further success) land in its entirety back on the launch pad, refuel, and go back to orbit the same day. Imagine that every time an airliner landed its cockpit was destroyed and you had to build a new one. A fully reusable airplane would be a transformational improvement. That's the level of achievement we're talking about here.
    - nexus6 2y ago
      Is there such a need for a heavy launch rocket to launch routinely?
      - stetrain 2y ago
        If we want to establish long term bases on the Moon or Mars then yes, you need not only to send crew and habitation modules but ongoing supplies and equipment. Other use cases include launching and maintaining satellite constellations (Starling / Starshield), and launching singular large payloads like space telescopes. Even for smaller payloads, having both the first and second stages be reusable will reduce launch costs.
      - soperj 2y ago
        If satellites don't have to worry as much about weight constraints they can be made cheaper and quicker. Space missions can become more routine.
fasteddie31003 2y ago
[flagged]
- k4rli 2y ago
  Perhaps they will soon be able to reach the first step in their HLS timeline (initially scheduled to be done in 2022 by having an orbital launch test).
- thimabi 2y ago
  Thanks to the wonderful SpaceX engineers who are actually responsible for the company’s achievements. What they’ve been accomplishing recently never ceases to amaze me.
  - inglor_cz 2y ago
    Talented people are everywhere. Unfortunately, most of them sit in boring jobs and wear out their brains thinking how to push even more ads on other people etc. As a result, their trace in the world isn't what it could be. Gathering many talents together, keeping them together and channeling their abilities towards a laudable goal is a huge feat.
    - simondotau 2y ago
      Were it not for Steve Jobs’ return to Apple, the brilliant engineers who made the iPod would not have made the iPod. Their talent would have been directed towards yet another Apple inkjet printer PCB, or yet another iteration of the Newton, or something. Great talent and bold leadership are a uniquely powerful combination.
  - derekp7 2y ago
    The one big difference with the SpaceX organization is the willingness to "blow stuff up" while they are developing, which is enabled by the amount of sensor data they get on each test. That allows them to have a higher revision cadence that decreases development time. Compared to old space tech, where a rocket failure (even during early development) spells the end of the program (such as the X-10 -- it was looking good until a failed landing leg caused an impressive looking loss of vehicle, and then no more program).
unaut 2y ago
Seriously, who cares! There are far more interesting stuff in space exploration than this flight tests of a giant boiler that's been going on for years now.
- hersko 2y ago
  You must be joking
  - shkkmo 2y ago
    I find the starship news exciting, but given the incremental nature of starship development, it really isn't the most exciting stuff happening today with space exploration as there is all kinds of other cool stuff happening and being discovered. One example off the top of my head: https://earthsky.org/space/final-parker-solar-probe-flyby-of-venus-nov-6-2024/ https://earthsky.org/space/final-parker-solar-probe-flyby-of...
    - rbanffy 2y ago
      Starship is an enabling technology. We can easily imagine the things it will make possible.
      - shkkmo 2y ago
        Which is why I find it exciting and am stoked every time I see progress made. Howevever, it's hard to view an announcement of the next launch with some minor additions to the experimental flight, as the most exciting space news today. Future launches, once they get the license updated, will he more exciting.
      - righthand 2y ago
        Please list them because right now it is a hugely costly project that has shown no significant capital advancement for society beyond propping up Elon Musk and a “someday the average man will walk on the moon” dream. If anything of capital gain comes from it, it will never actually benefit the financial bottom line of the middle and lower class.
mise_en_place 2y ago
Does anyone know how to witness these launch events live? Is it open to the public or only SpaceX employees + friends & family?
- ganyu 2y ago
  I believe they clear out the launch site within a few kilometres so nobody gets hit by random concrete debris or just melt away, literally. The control centre is probably invitational. But you can freely watch them live on Twitter. Just follow the official @SpaceX account.
- llboston 2y ago
  Yes it's open to everyone. South Padre Island would be your best bet.
  - cryptonector 2y ago
    So is the Gulf, except in the areas closed by the notam.
- rigrassm 2y ago
  Isla Blanca Park on South Padre Island is the best public spot you can watch from (IIRC it's 3 or 4 miles from the launch pad) and it's an amazing experience, highly recommended to anyone who's able to make it out.
montagg 2y ago
I'm just going to choose peace today and say: the SpaceX engineers who've been at this forever and have shown that crazy stuff is actually possible are seriously amazing humans, and I do hope they are successful.
- trompetenaccoun 2y ago
  >I'm just going to choose peace today As an alternative to what? I don't understand how the first part of the comment is connected to the rest.
  - grecy 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - facialwipe 2y ago
      Democracy?
      - p2detar 2y ago
        Idiocracy
      - canadianfella 2y ago
        Democracy happened in 1930s Germany as well.
        thrw42A8N 2y ago
        It really didn't, it was an armed insurgency. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives
  - steve_adams_86 2y ago
    I think they’re trying to maintain focus on the engineering rather than the politics surrounding Musk at the moment.
jimnotgym 2y ago
I imagine SpaceX is on for some pretty juicy government contracts now!
- mjamesaustin 2y ago
  Yes, considering they're achieving far better results at much lower cost than the SLS and other launch providers.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
    That remains to be seen. It ain't finished yet!
    - indoordin0saur 2y ago
      They're already the best and cheapest launch provider with Falcon 9.
      - 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
        Falcon 9 and SLS are not in the same class.
        mpweiher 2y ago
        This is true. SLS is around $ 37000 / kg to Orbit Falcon 9 is around $ 2700 / kg to Orbit So in excess of an order of magnitude difference. Starship build cost is currently estimated at $90 million [1]. Let's call it $100 million to make the calculations simple. So even if they can't reuse anything and the payload is at the low-end of what they expect, so 100t from the 100-150t range, that would be $1 million per ton or $1000 per kilo. So 1/37th of SLS even when fully expendable. With full reuse, the cost should come down to around $10/kg. [1] https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/rocket-report-a-new-estimate-of-starship-costs-japan-launches-spy-satellite/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/rocket-report-a-new-es...
bnastic 2y ago
Thread devolved into petty politics quicker than expected.
- oittaa 2y ago
  I tried to search faq how to block people but couldn't find any info. How do I do that? If it's not possible, I'm pretty sure this site is breaking the EU social media laws.
  - JacobThreeThree 2y ago
    There's no "block user" requirement in the EU DSA.
  - akvadrako 2y ago
    The site doesn't need to follow the laws of every country on earth. If they had paid advertisers from EU it would be different.
  - mise_en_place 2y ago
    HN is a pretty high trust site, I'd hope the community is still mature enough to self-moderate. Then again I was here when Terry would post his (admittedly) entertaining rants, the epic Michael O'Church essays, and flamewars between idlewords and pg. Maybe it always allowed for a little bit of funposting, in moderation.
  - shkkmo 2y ago
    Which EU laws do you think mandate a 'block' feaure on HN?
  - AnonMO 2y ago
    A brilliant idea some startup accelerator in the EU can create a platform that conforms to EU laws. It can't be that hard, given that the UI hasn't changed much in a decade or more. I can already see it "Hacker news, but hosted in the EU with Swiss privacy and is GDPR compliant".
  - tantalor 2y ago
chairmanwow1 2y ago
Well, I started planning a road trip down Austin as soon as I saw this post. Crew of friends is coming together to watch! Thanks for posting. I'm so excited to witness this in person.
adamm255 2y ago
Can someone give me sources for how to debunk this? https://youtu.be/75a49S4RTRU?si=dcGFgcIWNz3nDwxw https://youtu.be/75a49S4RTRU?si=dcGFgcIWNz3nDwxw For me, it’s compelling but I’m no expert. Anyone got any background that can prove this guy is wrong?
- ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
  TF has had terminal Musk derangement syndrome for a while now. You can safely ignore him.
- cryptonector 2y ago
  TF seems to have an axe to grind with all things Musk.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
    What did he say that was wrong?
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  I’ve liked some of his other videos and made it in twenty minutes. He has three arguments: SpaceX is late and over budget on HLS, booster recapture is the easiest part of Starship’s technical risks and Starship is bad value for money. On the first two he’s right. Starship was, per SpaceX’s proposal to NASA, supposed to be almost ready by now. It’s not. But neither is any other leg of Artemis, and there is no unforgivable delay in the timeline. (To the degree there are stupid delays, it’s because the FAA was playing water cop.) Recapture is the easiest technical challenge of the programme. Partly because SpaceX already demonstrated most of the tech with Falcon 9. Partly because in-orbit refuelling is unprecedented. The lunar lander was one of the easiest parts of the Apollo programme, by similar measure—that doesn’t make it unimpressive. The last—bad bang for the buck—is a value judgement. Do we want a heavy lift booster or more Mars rovers? If we want sustainable access to space, we need cheaper launch. If one doesn’t care about that, rovers are better spend, but at that point I can start arguing for feeding the hungry with those bucks. I stopped watching when the criticism of Falcon 9’s price came up. Why should SpaceX, a private company, undercut itself? It’s already the cheapest (PSLV gives it a run for some orbits), most reliable and most frequent launch provider in the world. It makes sense to capture the delta as profit, in part to fund things like Starship. (There is also no inflation adjustment.) In summary, the technical criticisms are accurate but out of context. The value judgement is subjective. If you don’t value cheap, frequent space launch of course Starship won’t make sense for any amount of money. EDIT: Kept watching. The energy math on second-stage reëntry is okay as a first estimate. But we don’t have final numbers for anything. And there are a lot of unknowns, e.g. final dry weight, how much energy the heat tiles can store and dissipate, if transpiration cooling could work, how plasma could dissipate energy, whether compression heat could be redirected away from the craft, whether firing mid-descent could reduce heat, et cetera. We certainly don’t have enough data to reject it ex ante. And the second stage being unreadable doesn’t tank Starship, though it probably does Artemis.
dzannetandreevn 2y ago
[dead]
WalterBright 2y ago
Science fiction becomes reality! Love the diamonds in the exhaust!
- cwillu 2y ago
  Just in case you weren't aware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_diamond https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_diamond
486sx33 2y ago
Completely amazing.
jmward01 2y ago
I am a fan of space. I love the things that have happened with SpaceX and breaking the space industry out of a multi-decade rut, but is it possible to dsiconect the political ambitions of Musk from the technical achievements? Or, to put it more clearly, should the discussion be less about 'look how cool this tech is!' and more about 'This tech will be the gateway to space and Mars, shouldn't we be talking about the gatekeeper?'
- rob74 2y ago
  I don't think we should. SpaceX has successfully applied the "move fast and break things" approach to rockets, but that's not something you can do everywhere. If Musk, as Trump's "efficiency secretary", will reduce regulations that "hinder" Tesla from doing the same thing with robotaxis, people are going to die.
  - jmward01 2y ago
    I think there is an honest debate here for the tech side of the house and its implications/risks/etc, but my point is, I think, more broad than 'will we move too fast elsewhere'. I worry he will bring twitter like problems, 'free speech is important, if it is approved by me', to space and Mars. I can easily imagine a future where the Moon, Mars and space are accessible, so long as you are approved by Musk to be in space. That gets to my core point, do we want Musk to be that gatekeeper? Do we want him deciding who and what can go to space and where they can go.
    - ihumanable 2y ago
      I agree with this, especially when you consider that it is us, the taxpayer that is largely subsidizing musk to build out this toll booth. It is not crazy to believe that in the medium term that SpaceX will be one of the only viable ways for America to access space. In that position SpaceX will have a lot of leverage and ability to extract concessions from anyone wanting to go to space. Why my tax dollars should go to help the worlds richest man build a toll booth between earth and space is beyond me.
pomian 2y ago
App recommendation, there is a web site and an excellent app, (Apple and Google), I learned about on hn, called: next spaceflight. It lists all the upcoming space flights, launches, etc around the world, with times locations and links to watch. The app is very noninvasive, and for once has a useful notification system you can set to remind you, that a launch is imminent. Of course has other tabs, such as historical flights, etc.
silexia 2y ago
We all recognize Elon Musk is brilliant and big hearted person putting humanity first in many areas of life: business, programming, science, etc. Why is it so hard to recognize his brilliance and good heartedness in politics just because he is across the aisle?
MrSkelter 2y ago
There is so much hype here from people who don’t seem to understand that Space X is years behind schedule and over budget. Saturn V went to the moon with crew on its sixth flight. Space X have yet to complete a flight without an accident or lift any payload at all, putting aside their claimed capability. People seem so dazzled by the hype that they fail to see this system isn’t working. Each rocket costs the taxpayer billions and this far they are being destroyed. Even worse the cost per seat with Space X in Falcon is not cheaper than Soyuz in real terms despite the reusability. Wonder why the cost of refurbishing these rockets isn’t shared? This will be downvoted but it doesn’t make any of it untrue. Space X is failing in front of cheering crowds who think they are inventing what they have copied.
- jaredhallen 2y ago
  I'm not sure where you're getting the billions in taxpayer cost per rocket. It sounds like to date SpaceX has spent a few billion on the whole program. They did receive a ~$3B contract for Artemis, but as I understand it, that's a fixed rate for delivery of a functional spacecraft, regardless of how many they lose in development. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship It's also making meaningful progress with each launch. Comparing it to Saturn V seems like apples and oranges. This is a functional full flow liquid fueled rocket and booster at the current stage of development. They've also always been open about an iterative development approach (i.e. blow up more rockets). It's not Saturn V, so I'm not sure why we'd expect the same number of launches during development? Seems like a pretty arbitrary metric.

337 points by hnburnsy 2y ago

anticrymactic 2y ago

Last times catch was incredible, anything groundbreaking being attempted this time?

bryanlarsen 2y ago
They're working off the same license they used for test 5, so they basically have to exactly the same thing they did for test 5. They did manage to add this: "An additional objective for this flight will be attempting an in-space burn using a single Raptor engine, further demonstrating the capabilities required to conduct a ship deorbit burn prior to orbital missions."
- modeless 2y ago
  I think that's the last thing they need to do before they can actually launch satellites. I'm surprised there was no attempt on the last launch. Glad to see it this time. The improved Starlink constellation that Starship will enable is going to be awesome.
  - cryptonector 2y ago
    That and flap sturdiness, if they want to be able to re-enter over land so they can catch the ship.
    - modeless 2y ago
      It's not required for launching satellites. But yeah, they need to figure out the heat shield for the flap hinges before they can recover the ship.
      - cwillu 2y ago
        The next block of starship has an altered geometry/location of the flaps for that reason; it's more or less a solved problem, but not worth scrapping the older ones they've already built. Iirc, the launch after this one will be SN7, which is block 2 with the new geometry.
        jltsiren 2y ago
        It's not a solved problem. Surviving the re-entry in a condition that makes reuse economical was always the biggest challenge for the Starship. It's far from certain that they can achieve it without a fundamental change in the concept. The feasibility of building big rockets was already demonstrated a long time ago. Given the reliability of the Falcon 9, it looked plausible that a big rocket could work with many engines. And SpaceX had already shown that they can reuse boosters economically. But reusing orbital spacecraft – the entire upper stage with engines, fuel tanks, and whatever – without expensive and time-consuming refits is something nobody has done before.
        Dylan16807 2y ago
        They're saying that one specific part burning off is a solved problem, not the entire reuse process.
        cryptonector 2y ago
        If that part burning off is a solve problem then returning the orbital ship to the launchpad is too given that they are able to gently put it down on the sea, and that they are able to gently catch the booster. This part is basically the only problem left that is ship-specific. However for reuse (or rapid reuse) they might need to rethink heat shielding to reduce refurbishment time and cost.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - mnau 2y ago
    I think they will want to deal with heatshield first. As of now, it hasn't survived deorbiting. SpaceX can launch satellites using Falcon9 and do it routinely. Starship needs to be developed and reach milestones, so they can get paid by NASA. Having a payload is a complication (unless it's a fun payload, remember the roadster car :D)
    - cwillu 2y ago
      The next block of starship has altered flap geometry that should largely fix that.
    - laverya 2y ago
      I think they can probably do both at once - heatshield testing and pez dispenser testing shouldn't interfere with each other, so might as well use whatever spare upmass you have! Yeah you might lose the payload, but SpaceX has the cheapest satellites in the business from what I understand.
    - 93po 2y ago
      i hope the next dummy payload is a giant 2 story tall anime figurine, knowing musk it's not out of the question
- cryptonector 2y ago
  And they need to demo that the flaps hold up through re-entry with nominal, minimal damage, otherwise a permit for a plan involving re-entry over land (which is needed to catch the ship) would obviously not issue.
  - bryanlarsen 2y ago
    They've addressed that in Block 2. Test 6 still flies block 1, so we won't see any substantive improvements on that until test 7.
- scotty79 2y ago
  That's cool PR move. If they managed to light one then it's great success. If they don't people will think they just got unlucky. But if they tried to light all and only one would work or none, or one would work but some other blew up whole rocket it would look terrible. That last eventuality is something they want to prevent by trying to light just one.
sebzim4500 2y ago
It's not groundbreaking but it's important. They are demonstrating in orbit relight capability of the raptor engines. This is an absolute requirement before they can put it fully into orbit because losing control of a Starship in low earth orbit would be catastrophic.
- lysace 2y ago
  > because losing control of a Starship in low earth orbit would be catastrophic Why? Remote detonation wouldn't work in that case?
  - perihelions 2y ago
    Remote termination is something they can do in the early boost phase, when there is a defined hazard zone over a depopulated patch of ocean. It doesn't cause the rocket to disappear; its effect is to disable the engines, end uncontrolled acceleration, and break the booster apart into small pieces—all of which will still fall to the ground (ocean) as debris. If you did this to a Starship in orbit, you'd likely have large chunks of steel reentering and reaching the ground intact.
    - lysace 2y ago
      If I understand you correctly: So you'd have to do it over unpopulated/depopulated areas, which is impossible to guarantee when you are zooming around the globe at very high speeds. Thanks for explaining.
    - mcswell 2y ago
      "...all of which will still fall to the ground (ocean) as debris..." After it's been flying in orbit for awhile, where it could in theory hit something else. As you say, the other part of it--and probably more important--is that if it's turned into orbiting pieces, there's no control over where it lands. Some of it could easily land on the ground rather than the ocean, who knows where. That of course has happened with other satellites and their final stage rockets in the past (notably by the Chinese), but Starship is bigger, and therefore the pieces that hit the ground could be bigger. By launching it sub-orbital for now, and turning off the engines so it lands in the middle of the Indian Ocean, the risks of both orbital debris and unknown ground landing points are avoided.
panick21_ 2y ago
Not to much mostly just a repeat. Just engine relight on the upper stage. The reason for this is that the next version is much improved and almost ready. That's the one they will really want to do the next steps with.

_m7ae 2y ago

[flagged]

geetee 2y ago
Sad
rkagerer 2y ago
Well they were 1 second away from the last one auto-aborting and smashing into the pad instead of catching it.
inglor_cz 2y ago
Don't let spite erode you from within. It is a destructive feeling.
- _m7ae 2y ago
  [flagged]

lupusreal 2y ago

Note that there will not be an official livestream on Youtube. Every time there are some people who fall for scammers pretending to be one and end up listening to an AI impersonation of Elon Musk try to sell them cryptocoins, missing the real launch. If you must watch on youtube, NSF or Everyday Astronaut typically have good (unofficial) livestreams.

djd3 2y ago
The Everyday Astronaut was ahead of the SpaceX curated one for Flight 5. It had the weird effect of showing the outcome before the sound of the cheering crowd going crazy when the booster got caught by the chopsticks (which was also audible in the same stream).
- gridspy 2y ago
  Each streamer adds a delay to their stream. This means that any stream forwarded to you by another streamer is going to be delayed. The delay was between SpaceX recording and uploading an event and Everyday astronaut decoding it at their mixing desk. Their own feeds from their cameras and microphones had less delay than the SpaceX stream did. Everyday astronaut then had another delay between when they encoded this result and you saw it. If you had opened up the SpaceX stream directly you would have found it was ahead of the stream shown inside Everyday Astronaut. BTW I was also watching EA's stream.
  - wmf 2y ago
    EA and NSF have their own cameras so they aren't just republishing SpaceX's Twitter stream. But things definitely get out of sync when there are multiple layers of streaming.
    - abulman 2y ago
      Some of the views their cameras get are fantastic - and the tracking on the last flight test would quite possibly make NASA envious. Cameras on the beach and also just next to StarHopper are in harms way too, they've lost a couple of them. I'm not sure what the cost of repair was after a chunk of concrete from what used to be the pad took out the back of a car!

waltbosz 2y ago

> the 30-minute launch window will open at 4:00 p.m. CT Is that correct? They're launching in the afternoon this time?

Always42 2y ago
They call out later launch on the page linked
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
sbuttgereit 2y ago
"Finally, adjusting the flight’s launch window to the late afternoon at Starbase will enable the ship to reenter over the Indian Ocean in daylight, providing better conditions for visual observations." From the linked article.
rkagerer 2y ago
Finally, adjusting the flight’s launch window to the late afternoon at Starbase will enable the ship to reenter over the Indian Ocean in daylight, providing better conditions for visual observations.
Nekhrimah 2y ago
It's explained further down the page that this launch time will facilitate the Indian Ocean landing in sunlight, for improved visual capture of that.
umeshunni 2y ago
For anyone else who was confused and thought this was happening today. It's actually in 12 days: The sixth flight test of Starship is targeted to launch as early as Monday, November 18. The 30-minute launch window will open at 4:00 p.m. CT

delabay 2y ago

[flagged]

roflyear 2y ago
Not sure he really cares about the country - but I guess you can be glad.
- sebzim4500 2y ago
  Does that matter?
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    I’m not American, but for me it would matter a lot. Not aligning with the country’s best interests is a yuge dealbreaker.
  - roflyear 2y ago
    Of course, I don't want super powerful people in the US to not have the country's best interests in mind.
- loceng 2y ago
  He cares about freedom and the spark of consciousness, of which he requires a foundation of a strong and free country; maybe you're being perfectionistic, e.g. The Selfish Gene?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - kwisatzh 2y ago
    Since when does he care about freedom? He was shadow banning content that he disliked on X, all the while boosting takes he approved of. Sure, he owns X and can do whatever he wants with it, but he doesn’t care about freedom.
  - chairhairair 2y ago

modeless 2y ago

SpaceX just posted this video of the last test. It's one of the most inspiring things I've ever seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI9HQfCAw64 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hI9HQfCAw64

paul7986 2y ago
Not into space things and while this is cool i wonder what the great significance of this is? I see lots signaling how great this is and it's lost on me.
- modeless 2y ago
  Totally reasonable question. This is the first rocket ever that will (assuming further success) land in its entirety back on the launch pad, refuel, and go back to orbit the same day. Imagine that every time an airliner landed its cockpit was destroyed and you had to build a new one. A fully reusable airplane would be a transformational improvement. That's the level of achievement we're talking about here.
  - nexus6 2y ago
    Is there such a need for a heavy launch rocket to launch routinely?
    - stetrain 2y ago
      If we want to establish long term bases on the Moon or Mars then yes, you need not only to send crew and habitation modules but ongoing supplies and equipment. Other use cases include launching and maintaining satellite constellations (Starling / Starshield), and launching singular large payloads like space telescopes. Even for smaller payloads, having both the first and second stages be reusable will reduce launch costs.
    - soperj 2y ago
      If satellites don't have to worry as much about weight constraints they can be made cheaper and quicker. Space missions can become more routine.

fasteddie31003 2y ago

[flagged]

k4rli 2y ago
Perhaps they will soon be able to reach the first step in their HLS timeline (initially scheduled to be done in 2022 by having an orbital launch test).
thimabi 2y ago
Thanks to the wonderful SpaceX engineers who are actually responsible for the company’s achievements. What they’ve been accomplishing recently never ceases to amaze me.
- inglor_cz 2y ago
  Talented people are everywhere. Unfortunately, most of them sit in boring jobs and wear out their brains thinking how to push even more ads on other people etc. As a result, their trace in the world isn't what it could be. Gathering many talents together, keeping them together and channeling their abilities towards a laudable goal is a huge feat.
  - simondotau 2y ago
    Were it not for Steve Jobs’ return to Apple, the brilliant engineers who made the iPod would not have made the iPod. Their talent would have been directed towards yet another Apple inkjet printer PCB, or yet another iteration of the Newton, or something. Great talent and bold leadership are a uniquely powerful combination.
- derekp7 2y ago
  The one big difference with the SpaceX organization is the willingness to "blow stuff up" while they are developing, which is enabled by the amount of sensor data they get on each test. That allows them to have a higher revision cadence that decreases development time. Compared to old space tech, where a rocket failure (even during early development) spells the end of the program (such as the X-10 -- it was looking good until a failed landing leg caused an impressive looking loss of vehicle, and then no more program).

unaut 2y ago

Seriously, who cares! There are far more interesting stuff in space exploration than this flight tests of a giant boiler that's been going on for years now.

hersko 2y ago
You must be joking
- shkkmo 2y ago
  I find the starship news exciting, but given the incremental nature of starship development, it really isn't the most exciting stuff happening today with space exploration as there is all kinds of other cool stuff happening and being discovered. One example off the top of my head: https://earthsky.org/space/final-parker-solar-probe-flyby-of-venus-nov-6-2024/ https://earthsky.org/space/final-parker-solar-probe-flyby-of...
  - rbanffy 2y ago
    Starship is an enabling technology. We can easily imagine the things it will make possible.
    - shkkmo 2y ago
      Which is why I find it exciting and am stoked every time I see progress made. Howevever, it's hard to view an announcement of the next launch with some minor additions to the experimental flight, as the most exciting space news today. Future launches, once they get the license updated, will he more exciting.
    - righthand 2y ago
      Please list them because right now it is a hugely costly project that has shown no significant capital advancement for society beyond propping up Elon Musk and a “someday the average man will walk on the moon” dream. If anything of capital gain comes from it, it will never actually benefit the financial bottom line of the middle and lower class.

mise_en_place 2y ago

Does anyone know how to witness these launch events live? Is it open to the public or only SpaceX employees + friends & family?

ganyu 2y ago
I believe they clear out the launch site within a few kilometres so nobody gets hit by random concrete debris or just melt away, literally. The control centre is probably invitational. But you can freely watch them live on Twitter. Just follow the official @SpaceX account.
llboston 2y ago
Yes it's open to everyone. South Padre Island would be your best bet.
- cryptonector 2y ago
  So is the Gulf, except in the areas closed by the notam.
rigrassm 2y ago
Isla Blanca Park on South Padre Island is the best public spot you can watch from (IIRC it's 3 or 4 miles from the launch pad) and it's an amazing experience, highly recommended to anyone who's able to make it out.

montagg 2y ago

I'm just going to choose peace today and say: the SpaceX engineers who've been at this forever and have shown that crazy stuff is actually possible are seriously amazing humans, and I do hope they are successful.

trompetenaccoun 2y ago
>I'm just going to choose peace today As an alternative to what? I don't understand how the first part of the comment is connected to the rest.
- grecy 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - facialwipe 2y ago
    Democracy?
    - p2detar 2y ago
      Idiocracy
    - canadianfella 2y ago
      Democracy happened in 1930s Germany as well.
      - thrw42A8N 2y ago
        It really didn't, it was an armed insurgency. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives
- steve_adams_86 2y ago
  I think they’re trying to maintain focus on the engineering rather than the politics surrounding Musk at the moment.

jimnotgym 2y ago

I imagine SpaceX is on for some pretty juicy government contracts now!

mjamesaustin 2y ago
Yes, considering they're achieving far better results at much lower cost than the SLS and other launch providers.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
  That remains to be seen. It ain't finished yet!
  - indoordin0saur 2y ago
    They're already the best and cheapest launch provider with Falcon 9.
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
      Falcon 9 and SLS are not in the same class.
      - mpweiher 2y ago
        This is true. SLS is around $ 37000 / kg to Orbit Falcon 9 is around $ 2700 / kg to Orbit So in excess of an order of magnitude difference. Starship build cost is currently estimated at $90 million [1]. Let's call it $100 million to make the calculations simple. So even if they can't reuse anything and the payload is at the low-end of what they expect, so 100t from the 100-150t range, that would be $1 million per ton or $1000 per kilo. So 1/37th of SLS even when fully expendable. With full reuse, the cost should come down to around $10/kg. [1] https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/rocket-report-a-new-estimate-of-starship-costs-japan-launches-spy-satellite/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/rocket-report-a-new-es...

bnastic 2y ago

Thread devolved into petty politics quicker than expected.

oittaa 2y ago
I tried to search faq how to block people but couldn't find any info. How do I do that? If it's not possible, I'm pretty sure this site is breaking the EU social media laws.
- JacobThreeThree 2y ago
  There's no "block user" requirement in the EU DSA.
- akvadrako 2y ago
  The site doesn't need to follow the laws of every country on earth. If they had paid advertisers from EU it would be different.
- mise_en_place 2y ago
  HN is a pretty high trust site, I'd hope the community is still mature enough to self-moderate. Then again I was here when Terry would post his (admittedly) entertaining rants, the epic Michael O'Church essays, and flamewars between idlewords and pg. Maybe it always allowed for a little bit of funposting, in moderation.
- shkkmo 2y ago
  Which EU laws do you think mandate a 'block' feaure on HN?
- AnonMO 2y ago
  A brilliant idea some startup accelerator in the EU can create a platform that conforms to EU laws. It can't be that hard, given that the UI hasn't changed much in a decade or more. I can already see it "Hacker news, but hosted in the EU with Swiss privacy and is GDPR compliant".
- tantalor 2y ago

chairmanwow1 2y ago

Well, I started planning a road trip down Austin as soon as I saw this post. Crew of friends is coming together to watch! Thanks for posting. I'm so excited to witness this in person.

adamm255 2y ago

Can someone give me sources for how to debunk this? https://youtu.be/75a49S4RTRU?si=dcGFgcIWNz3nDwxw https://youtu.be/75a49S4RTRU?si=dcGFgcIWNz3nDwxw For me, it’s compelling but I’m no expert. Anyone got any background that can prove this guy is wrong?

ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
TF has had terminal Musk derangement syndrome for a while now. You can safely ignore him.
cryptonector 2y ago
TF seems to have an axe to grind with all things Musk.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
  What did he say that was wrong?
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
I’ve liked some of his other videos and made it in twenty minutes. He has three arguments: SpaceX is late and over budget on HLS, booster recapture is the easiest part of Starship’s technical risks and Starship is bad value for money. On the first two he’s right. Starship was, per SpaceX’s proposal to NASA, supposed to be almost ready by now. It’s not. But neither is any other leg of Artemis, and there is no unforgivable delay in the timeline. (To the degree there are stupid delays, it’s because the FAA was playing water cop.) Recapture is the easiest technical challenge of the programme. Partly because SpaceX already demonstrated most of the tech with Falcon 9. Partly because in-orbit refuelling is unprecedented. The lunar lander was one of the easiest parts of the Apollo programme, by similar measure—that doesn’t make it unimpressive. The last—bad bang for the buck—is a value judgement. Do we want a heavy lift booster or more Mars rovers? If we want sustainable access to space, we need cheaper launch. If one doesn’t care about that, rovers are better spend, but at that point I can start arguing for feeding the hungry with those bucks. I stopped watching when the criticism of Falcon 9’s price came up. Why should SpaceX, a private company, undercut itself? It’s already the cheapest (PSLV gives it a run for some orbits), most reliable and most frequent launch provider in the world. It makes sense to capture the delta as profit, in part to fund things like Starship. (There is also no inflation adjustment.) In summary, the technical criticisms are accurate but out of context. The value judgement is subjective. If you don’t value cheap, frequent space launch of course Starship won’t make sense for any amount of money. EDIT: Kept watching. The energy math on second-stage reëntry is okay as a first estimate. But we don’t have final numbers for anything. And there are a lot of unknowns, e.g. final dry weight, how much energy the heat tiles can store and dissipate, if transpiration cooling could work, how plasma could dissipate energy, whether compression heat could be redirected away from the craft, whether firing mid-descent could reduce heat, et cetera. We certainly don’t have enough data to reject it ex ante. And the second stage being unreadable doesn’t tank Starship, though it probably does Artemis.

dzannetandreevn 2y ago

[dead]

WalterBright 2y ago

Science fiction becomes reality! Love the diamonds in the exhaust!

cwillu 2y ago
Just in case you weren't aware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_diamond https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_diamond

486sx33 2y ago

Completely amazing.

jmward01 2y ago

I am a fan of space. I love the things that have happened with SpaceX and breaking the space industry out of a multi-decade rut, but is it possible to dsiconect the political ambitions of Musk from the technical achievements? Or, to put it more clearly, should the discussion be less about 'look how cool this tech is!' and more about 'This tech will be the gateway to space and Mars, shouldn't we be talking about the gatekeeper?'

rob74 2y ago
I don't think we should. SpaceX has successfully applied the "move fast and break things" approach to rockets, but that's not something you can do everywhere. If Musk, as Trump's "efficiency secretary", will reduce regulations that "hinder" Tesla from doing the same thing with robotaxis, people are going to die.
- jmward01 2y ago
  I think there is an honest debate here for the tech side of the house and its implications/risks/etc, but my point is, I think, more broad than 'will we move too fast elsewhere'. I worry he will bring twitter like problems, 'free speech is important, if it is approved by me', to space and Mars. I can easily imagine a future where the Moon, Mars and space are accessible, so long as you are approved by Musk to be in space. That gets to my core point, do we want Musk to be that gatekeeper? Do we want him deciding who and what can go to space and where they can go.
  - ihumanable 2y ago
    I agree with this, especially when you consider that it is us, the taxpayer that is largely subsidizing musk to build out this toll booth. It is not crazy to believe that in the medium term that SpaceX will be one of the only viable ways for America to access space. In that position SpaceX will have a lot of leverage and ability to extract concessions from anyone wanting to go to space. Why my tax dollars should go to help the worlds richest man build a toll booth between earth and space is beyond me.

pomian 2y ago

App recommendation, there is a web site and an excellent app, (Apple and Google), I learned about on hn, called: next spaceflight. It lists all the upcoming space flights, launches, etc around the world, with times locations and links to watch. The app is very noninvasive, and for once has a useful notification system you can set to remind you, that a launch is imminent. Of course has other tabs, such as historical flights, etc.

silexia 2y ago

We all recognize Elon Musk is brilliant and big hearted person putting humanity first in many areas of life: business, programming, science, etc. Why is it so hard to recognize his brilliance and good heartedness in politics just because he is across the aisle?

MrSkelter 2y ago

There is so much hype here from people who don’t seem to understand that Space X is years behind schedule and over budget. Saturn V went to the moon with crew on its sixth flight. Space X have yet to complete a flight without an accident or lift any payload at all, putting aside their claimed capability. People seem so dazzled by the hype that they fail to see this system isn’t working. Each rocket costs the taxpayer billions and this far they are being destroyed. Even worse the cost per seat with Space X in Falcon is not cheaper than Soyuz in real terms despite the reusability. Wonder why the cost of refurbishing these rockets isn’t shared? This will be downvoted but it doesn’t make any of it untrue. Space X is failing in front of cheering crowds who think they are inventing what they have copied.

jaredhallen 2y ago
I'm not sure where you're getting the billions in taxpayer cost per rocket. It sounds like to date SpaceX has spent a few billion on the whole program. They did receive a ~$3B contract for Artemis, but as I understand it, that's a fixed rate for delivery of a functional spacecraft, regardless of how many they lose in development. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship It's also making meaningful progress with each launch. Comparing it to Saturn V seems like apples and oranges. This is a functional full flow liquid fueled rocket and booster at the current stage of development. They've also always been open about an iterative development approach (i.e. blow up more rockets). It's not Saturn V, so I'm not sure why we'd expect the same number of launches during development? Seems like a pretty arbitrary metric.