They said a few times that the reentry burn test was designed so that it would fall into the planned landing area, whether or not it worked.
When is the Starship orbital launch?
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MClark
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SpaceX propulsion guys,
"Motors worked"
When in orbit and the intermittent videos from inside the light and shadow it looked it was tumbling.
"Motors worked"
When in orbit and the intermittent videos from inside the light and shadow it looked it was tumbling.
The camera was on one of the flaps, so when the flap actuated, the perspective changed. To me it appeared the ship was under pretty active control. Maybe not perfect, but the bits worked!
MClark
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When in orbit stage it looked like small motors were being fired. ullage motors?
Or was it venting?
The upper stage probably needs ballast. A back up memory could be in a container that could free fall if airframe shreds and float on ocean to save data.
Or was it venting?
The upper stage probably needs ballast. A back up memory could be in a container that could free fall if airframe shreds and float on ocean to save data.
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All I know is that the biggest rocket ever made got into space and did half an orbit, as expected. To me, that's a success.
If they had filled it with supplies and went to the ISS, it would have been the biggest resupply mission ever done. And had it docked, it would have doubled the available interior space of the station (Not that there was life support in Starship, and it likely would have leaked like crazy because of that garage door for the satellites)... but whatever.
If they had filled it with supplies and went to the ISS, it would have been the biggest resupply mission ever done. And had it docked, it would have doubled the available interior space of the station (Not that there was life support in Starship, and it likely would have leaked like crazy because of that garage door for the satellites)... but whatever.
NTP2
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I wonder why the tiles broke, does anyone know why it happened on shuttle?
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I do know getting the tiles to stay on was one of the big problems during the construction of the shuttle orbiters.
NTP2
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I know that, I meant why not what
IIRC, it was just that finding an adhesive that would adhere well to both the aluminum skin of the shuttle orbiter and the glass-foam tile was difficult. They might have had to develop the adhesive themselves, I don't remember.I know that, I meant why not what
NTP2
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Maybe that high temp paint that was on the black bird would help.
Doubtful. The SR-71 flew at Mach 3. An orbital spacecraft re-enters at about Mach 25.
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Yes, but there might have been unexpected aero forces or control errors which put it off course. That would have triggered a self destruct. Or it simply broke up on its too-fast reentry without the planned burn.
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The little animated Starship down at the bottom was pretty busy, & I think it's telemetry-driven. Surely the big orientation changes in the last minute or two were a sign of something not going well?
NTP2
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It might help if you painted the steel with it then did the tiles it could help if a little plasma slipped in a crack…
Ps the SR 71 had a max temperature of 600 degrees fahrenheit.
There was some kind of filler material that was installed in the gaps between each of the tiles. I don't remember what it was though.
LOL. The surface of a re-entering orbital spacecraft is around 2500°F.
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Sooner Boomer
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For those of you (like me), that slept through the launch, here's SpaceX's replay
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-3
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-3
And I'm sure that Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut) and others are going to have lovely compilation videos of both the SpaceX feed and the cameras they all had in various places going up on YouTube in the next few days.
This one is another huge increment of accomplishments over the prior flight test.
It looks to me like the main thing to work on is attitude control, both for the booster and the ship, before IFT-4, as others here have noted.
And those live during-reentry views were just mind-blowing. Interesting to me that that video feed was from the Ship to Starlink, down to SpaceX, out over the internet and then back up to Starlink and down from there to the antenna on my roof and in to my computer....
Amazing morning, but getting up at 4:30 AM doesn't really agree with me and I feel a nap coming on....
This one is another huge increment of accomplishments over the prior flight test.
It looks to me like the main thing to work on is attitude control, both for the booster and the ship, before IFT-4, as others here have noted.
And those live during-reentry views were just mind-blowing. Interesting to me that that video feed was from the Ship to Starlink, down to SpaceX, out over the internet and then back up to Starlink and down from there to the antenna on my roof and in to my computer....
Amazing morning, but getting up at 4:30 AM doesn't really agree with me and I feel a nap coming on....
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I already read one story that said that IFT-1 and IFT-2 were abysmal failures and IFT-3 was a disaster, courteous of main stream media that thinks that anything short of perfection is a failure. I don't understand why these idiots haven't figured out what a TEST FLIGHT is all about.
This isn't so bad:
And AP is sounding upbeat:
Indeed. Kate Tice repeatedly said "remember this is a test flight" in the SpaceX stream...but of course those of us actually watching it already knew that. It looks like CNN and AP (see posts just above) are more on the right track for this.
ThirstyBarbarian
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And I'm sure that Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut) and others are going to have lovely compilation videos of both the SpaceX feed and the cameras they all had in various places going up on YouTube in the next few days.
This one is another huge increment of accomplishments over the prior flight test.
It looks to me like the main thing to work on is attitude control, both for the booster and the ship, before IFT-4, as others here have noted.
And those live during-reentry views were just mind-blowing. Interesting to me that that video feed was from the Ship to Starlink, down to SpaceX, out over the internet and then back up to Starlink and down from there to the antenna on my roof and in to my computer....
Amazing morning, but getting up at 4:30 AM doesn't really agree with me and I feel a nap coming on....
I agree, the 4:30am alarm was hard to take and may throw off my circadian rhythm for a few days. And also agree the reentry views were really interesting.
In addition to attitude control, I think SpaceX needs to address a few other issues before IFT4:
- More convenient launch window. No more 4am alarms!
- Better hold Muzak!
- Less distracting shade of nail polish for Kate!
NASASpaceflight.com has already put up a compilation of from-the-ground video from today's launch, including one tracking camera that followed it all the way to staging:
And to answer the original question: Felix Schlang (What About It) was speculating 4-6 weeks to IFT-4, Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut) was guessing it would happen before June. I guess we'll have to give it a few days to see.
The SpaceX fellow on their livestream who was at Starbase repeatedly mentioned that they have four boosters and four ships ready to stack and more than one streamer noted that Ship 29 has already been static fired. In my mind, as I mentioned before, it depends on what they have to do to control systems before they can go again. Some of that will certainly be "just software" but some may require hardware changes I would think.
And to answer the original question: Felix Schlang (What About It) was speculating 4-6 weeks to IFT-4, Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut) was guessing it would happen before June. I guess we'll have to give it a few days to see.
The SpaceX fellow on their livestream who was at Starbase repeatedly mentioned that they have four boosters and four ships ready to stack and more than one streamer noted that Ship 29 has already been static fired. In my mind, as I mentioned before, it depends on what they have to do to control systems before they can go again. Some of that will certainly be "just software" but some may require hardware changes I would think.
Agree on the first.
I was puzzled by the music this time. Maybe they had a falling out with Test Shot Starfish?
I honestly didn't notice Kate's nails. I guess I'll have to go back and look at some of the stream now, just for that.
Question for the brain trust - would the FAA require an incident report and investigation this time around? It seems that booster was mostly successful but with an incomplete engine landing burn (only 1 engine restarted), and Starship probably burned/broke up upon re-entry. No explosions this time around. If no incident report then SpaceX would be free to launch a little sooner?
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Muzak, nail polish, and "plasma crack"... this thread has taken quite a turn!
Still a good day though
Starship flopping around near the end - can you have low frequency sloshing, might this have been in play?
Still a good day though
Starship flopping around near the end - can you have low frequency sloshing, might this have been in play?
I've wondered about that. As far as I know, there was not flight termination system action on either the booster or the ship, so both of them stayed within the confines of their intended trajectories. I will be interested to learn the answer to this question myself.
boatgeek
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Handling the difference in thermal expansion between base metal and tile is also a hassle. Not insurmountable, but hard when you start having delta T's in the range of 3000C (from ~-270C in space to +2500C during reentry).
Indeed. I should have mentioned the obvious shedding of tiles as the Ship started to come back down. Now that I think of it, that might become the pacing problem to try to solve before IFT-4.
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