When is the Starship orbital launch?

[ThirstyBarbarian]

Very cool so far. I’m surprised how much venting there is off Starship. Everyday Astronaut thinks the payload bay door is stuck open.

EDIT: Sounds like he is wrong about the door.

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

Raptor relight attempt is next.

 

[Marc_G]

Skipping the in-space relight demo.

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

Oops. They skipped the relight.

 

[techrat]

Sounds like they completed the propellant transfer (from what little I can hear (I'm at work)), so, success!! They hit the NASA milestone.

 

[kuririn]

Looks like Starship may be tumbling, judging from the video.
Edit: camera is on the end of a flap, never mind.

 

[kuririn]

Great view of the heat of reentry and the plasma field.

 

[Marc_G]

Amazing how much video they were getting through the plasma

 

[CalebJ]

Nerve wracking not seeing telemetry updates after the first bit of re-entry.

 

[ReynoldsSlumber]

Looks like Starship may be tumbling, judging from the video.
Edit: camera is on the end of a flap, never mind.

Nah, you were right, pretty clearly looked like it was tumbling, more so as heating started in earnest.
Early in re-entry saw what looked like foam bits flying off.

 

[CalebJ]

Nah, you were right, pretty clearly looked like it was tumbling, more so as heating started in earnest.
Early in re-entry saw what looked like foam bits flying off.

I was wondering about that, but there's no foam at all on the vehicle IIRC. So - what... didn't look like heat tiles. Wouldn't be ice by then, right?

 

[techrat]

A lot of tiles came off, but the ship is stainless, so likely survived.... the camera melted. Oh wait, they lost telemetry

 

[techrat]

The reentry video was stunning. WOW.

 

[techrat]

LOS from re-entry??? I hope it didn't break up yet...

 

[Antares JS]

It's probably too late at this point to get telemetry back. It either disintegrated on reentry at this point or has already hit the ocean.

 

[NTP2]

Well it sounds like I missed a good one!

 

[cerving]

LOS at 65 km and 25K kph... I'd be surprised if it didn't burn up on re-entry.

 

[jderimig]

Like our hobby stuff, Up part is easier.

 

[Marc_G]

Both telemetry feeds cut at the same moment; they speculate lost of ship at that point. Great flight though!

 

[kuririn]

Yeah, looks like it broke up upon reentry.
Wonder if there was some hardware damage from the hot staging again?
That would explain the venting and tumbling.

 

[NTP2]

LOS at 65 km and 25K kph... I'd be surprised if it didn't burn up on re-entry.

I think spaceX will have to figure out how to attach tiles without them coming off, a difficult job in those conditions.

 

[roc_boy]

Flight clock is still ticking...

 

[techrat]

They just announced the ship is 'lost', so it broke up very likely, but freaking cool and amazing flight.

 

[roc_boy]

Yep. Significant progress beyond FT2, congrats to the SpaceX team

 

[Marc_G]

Counting down to news reports of "failed SpaceX test flight" by hacks that don't understand squat.

 

[ThirstyBarbarian]

Can we start arguing about whether this test was a success or failure now? I’m going to brew an extra cup of coffee so I can pour one out for our homie who couldn’t be here, George Gassaway.

 

[Marc_G]

CNN has had upbeat coverage about progress despite loss of ship.

Hell, those videos were worth the whole flight!

 

[rockladen]

I did notice that as Starship was re-entering the atmosphere and just before telemetry was lost, that there were several large chunks of material being expelled. I' guessing those may have been chunks of the heat tiles.

 

[Lord Rory Gin]

I did notice that as Starship was re-entering the atmosphere and just before telemetry was lost, that there were several large chunks of material being expelled. I' guessing those may have been chunks of the heat tiles.

Not sure if they were tiles themselves or the ceramic backup material from already lost tiles. It can't be frost material since there is no air or water vapour in space. Still - it all looked very white.

Which reminds me, white = meringue = pie. Its PI Day. I need to partake; I going to head out to my local bakery right now.

Edit: I'm back. I got the Saskatoon Berry pie instead of Lemon Meringue to celebrate. Yummy!

 

[jsdemar]

Since the relight test didn't work, it's likely they couldn't rely on any reentry burns. To keep within the designated safe zone, I'm assuming there was a self-destruct. Without the reentry burn, it exceeded the speed of the tiles and the structure after that.