When is the Starship orbital launch?

[manixFan]

Here's a great sideview of the chopstick catch. (Except for the dumb label on the video.) It shows how much lateral movement there is right at the end – obviously to keep the booster out over the water and away from infrastructure until the last possible moment. You can kinda get a sense of it in the tower cam videos, but this makes it a lot more obvious. The audio is also great – the crowd going nuts and then the sonic booms and motor roar washing over them. I'll probably never get tired of watching all the various replays of the catch.


Tony

 

[NTP2]

Here's a great sideview of the chopstick catch. (Except for the dumb label on the video.) It shows how much lateral movement there is right at the end – obviously to keep the booster out over the water and away from infrastructure until the last possible moment. You can kinda get a sense of it in the tower cam videos, but this makes it a lot more obvious. The audio is also great – the crowd going nuts and then the sonic booms and motor roar washing over them. I'll probably never get tired of watching all the various replays of the catch.


Tony

Wow it really looks just like the renders… the tower even has nav lights!

 

[Tyeeking]

Here's a great sideview of the chopstick catch. (Except for the dumb label on the video.) It shows how much lateral movement there is right at the end – obviously to keep the booster out over the water and away from infrastructure until the last possible moment. You can kinda get a sense of it in the tower cam videos, but this makes it a lot more obvious. The audio is also great – the crowd going nuts and then the sonic booms and motor roar washing over them. I'll probably never get tired of watching all the various replays of the catch.


Tony

That’s my favorite view so far. It gives a better sense of how fast it is traveling and then how quick the deceleration is. The sonic booms arriving at about the same time it gets to the tower is the cherry on top. Thanks for sharing. I’ll probably rewatch this particular video a 100 or so times.

 

[terryg]

I suspect that the rentry heating of the raptor engines might become a big issue to resolve.

 

[Sooner Boomer]

I suspect that the rentry heating of the raptor emgines might become a big issue to resolve.

The engine bells really got toasted! This is aerodynamic heating.

 

[Huxter]

The booster catch almost didn't happen!

SpaceX's Starship booster was '1 second away' from aborting epic launch-tower catch​

https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-super-heavy-chopsticks-catch-near-abort


SpaceX is very candid in this interview. Good read.

"We had a misconfigured spin gas abort that didn't have quite the right ramp-up time for bringing up spin pressure," he explains. "And we were one second away from that tripping and telling the rocket to abort and try to crash into the ground next to the tower instead of [landing at] the tower — like, erroneously tell a healthy rocket to not try that catch."

 

[Lord Rory Gin]

4:00 pm CST Monday November 18th is the next flight date being targeted. It should have a very similar flight profile as IFT-5 but with a flight de-orbit burn from Ship and fly higher angle of attack during descent to the earth. They plan additional stress tests and heat shield tests. That's right, that is an afternoon take off time to enable the ship to re-enter over the Indian Ocean in daylight, providing better conditions for visual observations.. IFT-7 and beyond will have gen 2 of the Ship and have a gazillion improvements.
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-6

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

It looks like this is now scheduled for Tuesday 11/19 at 4pm instead of Monday. I read the description of this test flight, and this caught my eye:

Several thermal protection experiments and operational changes will test the limits of Starship’s capabilities and generate flight data to inform plans for ship catch and reuse. The flight test will assess new secondary thermal protection materials and will have entire sections of heat shield tiles removed on either side of the ship in locations being studied for catch-enabling hardware on future vehicles.

Until now, I had never heard they might “catch” the Starship, only the booster. Is this a new idea? Has anyone heard of this? I thought ship was always planned for landing directly on a pad.

 

[BEC]

Yes, this (catching Ships, too) has been part of the idea for some time. As with catching the first stage, that leaves the mass for the landing gear on the ground, rather than schlepping it to orbit and back. Block 1 Ships don't have the catch points like the Super Heavy Booster, and the tiles have covered the likely locations (just below the forward flaps). The Ship on IFT-6 is said to have had the tiles removed in that area in order to evaluate if it could work. Though Block 2 Ships have the forward flaps relocated forward and leeward (relative to the heat shield side) so there will be more to learn.

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

Yes, this (catching Ships, too) has been part of the idea for some time. As with catching the first stage, that leaves the mass for the landing gear on the ground, rather than schlepping it to orbit and back. Block 1 Ships don't have the catch points like the Super Heavy Booster, and the tiles have covered the likely locations (just below the forward flaps). The Ship on IFT-6 is said to have had the tiles removed in that area in order to evaluate if it could work. Though Block 2 Ships have the forward flaps relocated forward and leeward (relative to the heat shield side) so there will be more to learn.

Interesting. I guess I missed that idea.

 

[Charles_McG]

Given their hopes and dreams, I would think a landable variant would be in the cards, somewhen.

But for tankers and other Earth to Orbit missions, leaving the landing hardware on the ground means you can haul more up.

 

[BEC]

Given their hopes and dreams, I would think a landable variant would be in the cards, somewhen.

Certainly for the Human Landing System (for Artemis)....but that landing will be on the moon, so the legs and such would be (or at least could be) much lighter.

But for tankers and other Earth to Orbit missions, leaving the landing hardware on the ground means you can haul more up.

Indeed.

 

[Charles_McG]

Certainly for the Human Landing System (for Artemis)....but that landing will be on the moon, so the legs and such would be (or at least could be) much lighter.

Indeed.

A Mars landing would be under less gravity, too. But also less air to belly flop against.

But they've also proposed port to arbitrary point on Earth, too.

 

[BEC]

That point-to-point thing strikes me as a real far reach. I don't expect to see that one in my lifetime (I'm 69 and in pretty good health). But SpaceX has certainly turned things we once thought were pipe dreams into reality already, so I could certainly be wrong about that. They did their 369th booster landing earlier today and they're at least scheduled to do the 370th one in less than five hours from now.

 

[kuririn]

 

[Marc_G]

Counting down to the 5pm ET window!

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

I’m going to try to catch this one live. Looking forward to it!

What do you think is going to happen with the areas where they removed tiles? It’s going to get toasty.

Hopefully the engine relight works. I think that’s the main thing standing in the way of a full orbital test now.

 

[Marc_G]

Things I'm looking for in this flight:

1. Repeat of 33/33 engines on booster
2. Repeat of successful staging/boostback
3. Clearance to go for chopstick capture (I understand they almost ditched the booster due to some programming issues last time)
4. Actual chopstick capture (if they nail two in a row, just wow)
5. Starship relight
6. Heat resistance issues

I will miss about a half an hour from about 5:20-5:50 ET due to kid pickup so I'm hoping to be around for the most fun stuff.

 

[terryg]

One thing to add to the list, day light recover of the starship in the indian ocean (live video?).

 

[NTP2]

I will miss about a half an hour from about 5:20-5:50 ET due to kid pickup so I'm hoping to be around for the most fun stuff.

you could just leave them


but I'm most concerned about the heat problems as all the others have just worked or took one try to fix.

 

[Marc_G]

For the last splashdown, it looked like they had a camera on a droneboat and were able to speed it close to the ship for better views. Would be so much better in daylight.

 

[techrat]

Hopefully the engine relight works. I think that’s the main thing standing in the way of a full orbital test now.

I find it hilarious that they are so squeamish now. Anyone remember Falcon 1? Of course, that was a MUCH smaller rocket, but still, SpaceX's intention was to go orbital on flight 1, and they didn't make it until flight number 4 I believe.

 

[Marc_G]

you could just leave them


but I'm most concerned about the heat problems as all the others have just worked or took one try to fix.

He is 17 years old and I'm picking him up after debate practice... I could leave him at school for a while. He would survive.

"Dad, where r u"

"Watching SpaceX. Cool your damned heels. I will get there eventually."

 

[bad_idea]

I find it hilarious that they are so squeamish now. Anyone remember Falcon 1? Of course, that was a MUCH smaller rocket, but still, SpaceX's intention was to go orbital on flight 1, and they didn't make it until flight number 4 I believe.

The upper stages of the Falcon rockets are not designed to survive reentry and are made of aluminum which would not survive reentry in large chunks. They are also very small, though I can't find dry weights right now.

Starship is designed to survive reentry and is made out of stainless steel, so even out of control and disintegrating, very large chunks would likely make it to the ground, the largest ever for an uncontrolled reentry. It's also 100 tons. You want 100 tons of stainless steel raining on populated areas if SpaceX were to trust the untested in-space relight and get things wrong?

 

[NTP2]

He is 17 years old and I'm picking him up after debate practice... I could leave him at school for a while. He would survive.

"Dad, where r u"

"Watching SpaceX. Cool your damned heels. I will get there eventually."

"and if you cant wait, walk home up hill both ways"

 

[Marc_G]

Here's a great sideview of the chopstick catch. (Except for the dumb label on the video.) It shows how much lateral movement there is right at the end – obviously to keep the booster out over the water and away from infrastructure until the last possible moment. You can kinda get a sense of it in the tower cam videos, but this makes it a lot more obvious. The audio is also great – the crowd going nuts and then the sonic booms and motor roar washing over them. I'll probably never get tired of watching all the various replays of the catch.


Tony

Love that video (except for ridiculous location tag [seriously?]), and particularly the people yelling "COME ON!!" in the background.

 

[Marc_G]

Here's the Everyday Astronaut link; it's been live for a while and I listen in every now and then:

https://www.youtube.com/live/DjDFirLcQDM?si=Q_6ckseKIA7RdJs-

SpaceX feed is due to go live 4:15pm

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-6

I like having both going during the fun stuff.

 

[Huxter]

'A' banana for scale: (IFT 6 payload)

 

[Marc_G]

Everyday Astronaut is on a ~35 second delay relative to SpaceX feed. It's useful, so if there is something that happens and you want to see it again, switch from SpaceX to EA feed to see it.

 

[Marc_G]

Did I hear offshore divert?