It was the same with the Space Shuttle. The first five flights were covered live on TV (no internet yet...), the next five were mentioned in the news and from there on only the accidents got some media coverage.

Anyone able to explain the significance of that banana cartoon?

​​​​​​​https://in.mashable.com/science/8518...e-sticker-mean

Starship Flight 6 test is scheduled to launch on Tuesday 19th Nov at 5 p.m. EST (2100 GMT), or 4 p.m. CST from SpaceX's Starbase facility near Boca Chica Beach in South Texas.

SpaceX has a 30-minute window in which to launch the Flight 5 mission. This means that Starship Flight 6 could lift off sometime between 5 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. EST (2130 GMT).

https://www.spacex.com/launches/miss...rship-flight-6

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....1dc453abc6.png

What is a raceway?

A raceway is the external ducting used to route plumbing and cabling between the top and bottom of a rocket.

They could be routed internally, but in most cases the skin of the rocket is also the skin of the a fuel tank, or there is limited space between the two. It also makes access to items such as the FTS far easier in the days before launch.
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You can see them working on the inside of one of the previous boosters before launch.

https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content...-2048x1167.jpg

SpaceX's Gwynne Shotwell: “I would not be surprised if we fly 400 Starship launches in the next four years."

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....b8ae8d5ae8.png
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Flight 6 full stack ready to go at T-minus 27 hrs and counting!


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....ef5aed42b8.png
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NEWS: Trump is rumored to be in Texas tomorrow to watch SpaceX's Starship launch in person.

Temporary flight restrictions for were issued today for "VIP Movement"

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....c00903608d.png
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The explosion of Booster 13 upon landing looked like a small nuke. So with this data point how can SpaceX ever be allowed to try and land the booster anywhere near a populated area or a protected wildlife refuge? Back to landing on a rig offshore.

A massive exaggeration. The only explosion was the engine nozzles making contact with cold sea water, which won’t happen on land. Two hours later the vast majority of the booster is still; afloat.

Decisionnto go for a water landing seems based on the tower in top of the launch tower having been knocked askew and nothing to do with the booster - a simple fix which shouldn’t delay the next launch.

Starship - stripped of heat tiles and given an aggressive re-entry profile it wasn’t expected to survive….. performed perfectly.

Future launches will use the Starship Mk2 with increased fuel and redesigned flaps. Future Boosters increase thrust/payload by 50% with Raptor 3s.

I don't know what nukes you've seen but that was nothing like one.
They have landed one already.
It looks like the comms tower on top of the launch tower got damaged which is why the booster landed out to sea.
The offshore rig idea is a dead duck. Can you imagine how much the top of the tower would move about in even a light swell. A catch would be impossible.

ORAC

At around 1:36:30 on this video you see a massive explosion well after the booster touched complete with mushroom cloud.


The point is that the booster has substantial stored explosive potential which can level a large area if they don”t catch the booster perfectly and there are no post landing fires.

The upper stage was always suppose to survive and land.

While they did accomplish significant technical achievements, they are still batting 0 on reusability.

Have you watched IFT5?

Yes I have. Note I said reusability, not survivability. Did you note the heat deformed engine nozzles on the booster? The problem is that non-running engines have no fuel cooling of the nozzle or engine core so are damaged due to reentry heating. Also the fire after landing at the base of the booster is not suppose to be the norm. Exposing hardware to these temperatures pretty well scraps them so no reusability.

As to the orbiter, 5’s orbiter violently exploded right after landing and 6 was last seen on fire so not ringing endorsements for reusability.

They have demonstrated repeatedly the ability to put the booster where they want it and have the FTS to fall back on if that's not working out for them.

Plus, considering they're catching it where they launched it a few minutes prior when it had 3400 tonnes in the tanks, I think the probability of damage if it did have a RUD on landing with a few 10s of tonnes left is probably already covered in their risk analysis.

Rockets do go boom from time to time, that's why the launch sites are where they are.

Musk - one more sea landing for Starship and then they will go for a catch.

Don’t know if that means off Australia again or if they’ll do an orbit and try and land it off the launch site. Since they’ll have to bring it back for a catch I think it probable as a dry run (sic)….

The 'fire' at the base of the booster wa a smal leak from the QD coupling, already fixed.
5's orbiter was destroyed by the FTS...
6's orbiter landed in water and fell over - you do realise in future it will be caught in the same way as the booster...?

An interesting part of the SpaceX commentary you may have missed was the job advert - they want engineers in various trades and welders to contact them for interviews as they want to recruit thousands of more workers for their Starship mega-factory just being finished.

The reason is so they can up production to be able to roll-out a completed Starship every 8 hours.

Yes - that’s right every 8 hours.

Using the same model as Falcon 9 booster and upper stage, there will only be a need for a smaller number of boosters - they are expected to be back on the ground after 10 minutes and turned round in a few hours to launch again.

Starships, however, will have a multiple number of versions with many with long trips, some never to return.

Throw always will be tankers - which might, possibly, be reused in orbit.. Others will be lunar landers which may be left on the surface for bases or used as earth-moon shuttles. Later many will head to Mars never to return carrying machinery, supplies and personnel to land and provide the core parts of the buildings for a colony.

Those that do land to be reused will replace Falcon 9 for uses such as launching Starlink satellites - but much larger ones and in their hundreds per trip rather than 60-66, working towards the planned constellations of over 40,000.

Do you understand that these are iterative test articles, not finished production types.
The deformed engine nozzles are a problem, I'm not sure how they are going to fix that, but fix it they will.
The cause of the fire at the base is known and fixed.
The Falcon 9 is exposed to similar temperatures regularly and is reusable. So far over 20 times per booster. Super Heavy will be even better.
Both Starships from IFT 5 & 6 soft landed in the designated spot exactly as planned, then fell over, exactly as expected. I would be more surprised if it didn't blow up. The Starships are being designed to be caught in the same way as the boosters not in the sea! Other versions will land on the moon and Mars. They have to learn how to walk before running. They can't have an untested vehicle of this size barreling in over California, New Mexico etc if they are not 100% certain it can be controlled with pinpoint accuracy. Besides that they only have one operational tower at the moment.

Interesting though. Makes a lot of sense to get as much of the flight plan done as possible before going for the catch. They'd need to give a bit more of a kick to get around the globe for starters, might need a de-orbit burn too. Either way, that'll need the FAA to uplift their licence...
Suspect they'll bin the booster at sea vs getting Tower 2 up and running in some capacity with those timelines.

...anyway - where's the really important footage of the dynamics of the banana on re-entry and splashdown? Be fascinating to see if there was any heating / burn through in there!

During the return of booster from T+05:40 or so we can see what appears to be flame coming from the engines some time before the landing burn - or at least, the nozzles certainlty aren't dark. What is this?

Not much more of a kick, this launch was only just short of orbital speed deliberately - because they had to test the Raptor relight in order to be able to do a de-orbit burn next time.

Onece in orbit they can delay de-orbit for a day or more in order to clear the booster from the chopsticks and stand prior to attempting the starship catch - so essential need for a second stand.

Be interested what the endurance of this version is. AFAIA they're all on Tesla(ish) batteries vs fuel cells or something with a bit more longevity.

The FAA has released a Revised Draft Tiered Environmental Assessment for Starbase. This includes:

Up to 25 annual launches of Starship,

Up to 25 annual landings of Starship,

Up to 25 annual landings of Super Heavy,

Catches can only happen during the daytime,

And three water landings are allowed per year.

Full document: https://www.faa.gov/media/87646

I thinks it's the precooling gases from the engines themselves spilling out into the airflow.

Step in the right direction, but as they ramp up production, they'll be launching a damn site more than 25 a year to prevent the rocket garden becoming a rocket jungle; even if they do shift some to LC39a+

SpaceX video of landing.

Starship landing burn and splashdown in the Indian Ocean.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....66cf0d15c7.png
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Amazing, how did they get that? Is someone remotely controlling the camera or is it automatic?

Volunteer in a raft with a handheld camera? 😉

It’s most likely a 360 degree cam.

Why would it be a 360' cam? They are able to place returning rockets within centimeters so they're able to place boo-ees (aka rafts/boats) carrying a camera with similar accuracy. And given the wide angle of the lens that camera was very close to the landing spot indeed, far closer than it looks.

Looks like the sank booster Q3 with heavy calibre fire - it had been drifting since landing and was in Mexican waters.

Covers bases in case something goes wrong - cost difference negligible, so why not? Spherical deformation on bits of the video looks very much like it was a 360.

To my eye, there's some definite signs of thermal stress on the side there where the heat shield finishes. Hardly surprising, but shows the difference making it out of steel vs ally / composite makes to things.

Well, it is the last of the Mk 1s and they stripped off over 2000 heat tiles as well as programming a more extreme re-entry profile just to gather data - they didn’t expect it to survive.

The fact it did, and made a precise touchdown, shows the strength of the construction and over-engineering.

Every ton they can strip out of the design means another ton of payload to orbit.

V2 has a planned payload weight of 100 tons.

V3, has a planned payload weight of 200-250 tons.

Interesting - another sub-orbital trip into the Indian Ocean.

Means that, if a catch is intended for IFR8, it will be combined with the first full orbit and de-orbit burn.

Put 11 Jan in your diaries.

NASA has filed a document to the FAA requesting to fly their Gulfstream V to capture pictures and videos of Starship Flight 7's re-entry in the Indian Ocean.

The document also states that Starship Flight 7 is NET January 11th, 2025.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....6829979dba.png

Starship S31's debris have returned to Australia!

All sorts of items, ranging from tiles, COPV tanks, and other components from the Starship upper stage have been brought back to shore for further analysis 🧵

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1...aign=topunroll