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Very clean flight, almost all the way through, despite the intentional missing tiles and new flight pattern. No flap burn through, no issues with simulated Star

Very clean flight, almost all the way through, despite the intentional missing tiles and new flight pattern. No flap burn through, no issues with simulated Starlink deploy, I don't think they even lost any engines. They're clearly almost ready to scale this thing, if the next block version doesn't add a ton of problems back on. I'm not sure they're quite at the point of rapid reuse looking feasible, since tiles did come loose near the end of flight; not a problem for stage return, but definitely bad enough to warrant a meaningful correction before a (counterfactual) reflight. Overall they've clearly proven the recipe works.

Polizeiposaune 1y ago
The boostback burn of the booster was short 1 engine (12 of 13 were running), though the one middle-ring engine that didn't light during the boostback burn did light during the first phase of the landing burn.
dzhiurgis 1y ago
Starship re-use is what this entire thing hinges on and we are still few years away from validating this.
- elteto 1y ago
  The booster and most engines were reused in this test flight.
  - dzhiurgis 1y ago
    Yep but ship is where this is very difficult and far from validated.
- Veedrac 1y ago
  The hard part of reuse is getting the thing back in flying shape. The booster part is actually just demonstrated, and this flight got us a fully-intact upper stage back, sans a few tiles lost to the wind and the landing being simulated. I can see room for skepticism on their rapid reuse plans, but skepticism on practicable reuse alone just seems discordant with the demonstrated success.
  - sbuttgereit 1y ago
    > The booster part is actually just demonstrated For the second time.
  - dzhiurgis 1y ago
    They demonstrated tiles withstand single landing - thats far from rapid re-use. Somehow steel, high temps and ceramics reminds me apple crumble, not re-useable spaceship, but I wouldn’t bet against Elon here.
Veedrac 1y ago
Correction: There was flap burn through, just not all the way to the back. https://bsky.app/profile/dutchspace.bsky.social/post/3m37ofbyxsk2e https://bsky.app/profile/dutchspace.bsky.social/post/3m37ofb... The damage I'd noticed before today was all correlated with where tiles were removed, but the top half of this flap had all its tiles at flight start and still ended up a mess.

Polizeiposaune 1y ago

The boostback burn of the booster was short 1 engine (12 of 13 were running), though the one middle-ring engine that didn't light during the boostback burn did light during the first phase of the landing burn.

dzhiurgis 1y ago

Starship re-use is what this entire thing hinges on and we are still few years away from validating this.

elteto 1y ago
The booster and most engines were reused in this test flight.
- dzhiurgis 1y ago
  Yep but ship is where this is very difficult and far from validated.
Veedrac 1y ago
The hard part of reuse is getting the thing back in flying shape. The booster part is actually just demonstrated, and this flight got us a fully-intact upper stage back, sans a few tiles lost to the wind and the landing being simulated. I can see room for skepticism on their rapid reuse plans, but skepticism on practicable reuse alone just seems discordant with the demonstrated success.
- sbuttgereit 1y ago
  > The booster part is actually just demonstrated For the second time.
- dzhiurgis 1y ago
  They demonstrated tiles withstand single landing - thats far from rapid re-use. Somehow steel, high temps and ceramics reminds me apple crumble, not re-useable spaceship, but I wouldn’t bet against Elon here.

Veedrac 1y ago

Correction: There was flap burn through, just not all the way to the back. https://bsky.app/profile/dutchspace.bsky.social/post/3m37ofbyxsk2e https://bsky.app/profile/dutchspace.bsky.social/post/3m37ofb... The damage I'd noticed before today was all correlated with where tiles were removed, but the top half of this flap had all its tiles at flight start and still ended up a mess.