I actually thought it ws very sharp of them flogging 2H rockets to customers as "Flight Proven". Not sure it'll wash in Autotrader when I sell my 2016 Golf though :/

Split those figures up by program, Falcon or Starship, and the perspective changes.

He also had a lot of data from the Saturn1 and 1B program to work with.
Also...
In 1972, the cost of a Saturn IB including launch was US$55,000,000 (equivalent to $413,000,000 in 2024). 😳

Impressive mishap/reentry video of SS8 starting at the 9:30 mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl8p-9sX63E

Well done Spacex.

Can't find the article now, but there was some interesting comment regarding the hot spot on the RVac bell - Methane cooled so a failure/leak in that system could explain it.

I refer you back to the discussion in 994…..

Seems likely to be a vibration problem once ullage levels fall below a certain level leading to cavitation and pipe failure leading to erratic engine surges until the nozzle then complete engine blows.

Presumably they’ll have to find some way to damp the vibrations.

Interesting it didn’t happen to the earlier version of the Starship though - might be a simple reversion to the original methane pipe design.

I gather they've made big changes to the pipework in V2 with 3x RVAC methane downcomers vs just the one.

They lost a lot of F1 engines on the test stand (56 ???) due to issues including combustion instability at the injector plate. The RS25 engines have always achieved orbit, albeit by a very narrow margin at times.

I must have missed where the Starship was declared other than "Experimental".
SpaceX has made no secret that they expect failures of the Starship with their accelerated development techniques. Compare what they've accomplished so far with Starship (including successful recovery of the first stage) with what NASA has done with SLS (with way more money and time). Sure, they were unhappy with the results of the last two Starship launches. But they learned a lot that will be incorporated into future iterations. Right now, NASA doesn't even have plans to be able to fly SLS more than once a year or so.

The F1 engines were a huge step in technology and size relative to anything that existed previously (as in an order of magnitude in thrust). It was also designed when computers were in their infancy and slide-rules were state-of-the-art. And they eventually figured it out - no F1 engines failed during a launch (although 'pogo' remained an issue).

Interesting: SpaceX is looking to hire a Propulsion Systems Engineer, responsible for designing, analyzing, and building feedline system to feed Raptor engines on Starship.

https://boards.greenhouse.io/spacex/...jid=7607806002

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a318f453d9.png
​​​​​​​

Yes, 65 engine flights and no losses. The turbopump in one engine had more power than 2 full formula 1 grids, some 55,000 hp ! One pump moved 2,600 litres of propellant a second (1,000 litres of RP1, 1,600 litres of LOX) at a pressure greater than that in the combustion chamber.

The science and engineering involved is incredible.

Next flight 4-10th April.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....a5826bb0bd.png

I'm assuming this is from a fake X account. 😁
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....0a9c2a1d2b.jpg

Watching the spashdown took me back to watching the Gemini and Apollo splashdowns in the early days. Watching the lift the spacecraft aboard the recovery ship took me back to watching the Thunderbirds years earlier! Very cool!

Spaceflight! We who dare traverse the troposphere, or, with sufficient funding, the lower stratosphere are fully rewarded for the joy of it all. To Fly! To Dream! Mr. Musk and his companions have earned my highest admiration and camaraderie!

- Ed

Elon Musk: We are honing in on the V3 Starship design.

@SpaceX is tracking to a Starship launch rate of once a week in ~12 months. That will yield ~100 tons to @Starlink orbit with full reusability.

​​​​​​​Profound breakthrough.

Amazing goal which I hope SpaceX is able to reach. First, the problem of "unscheduled rapid disassembly" needs to be solved.

- Ed

News: SpaceX is reportedly planning NOT to catch Booster 14-1 on Starship Flight 9. The booster will perform a water landing in the Gulf of America.

Booster 14 previously flew on Flight 7, making Flight 9 its second mission and the first time a booster is being reused.

They will skip the catch, but not for the reasons you think. They can catch it, but they want to test a higher angle of attack*, and the safest way to do that is with a water landing.

​​​​​​​[* more horizontal re-entry to lose more speed and need less fuel for landing so more available during ascent. Means the grid flaps will be less effective and may need cold reaction jets for control]

Interesting, perhaps they need a pair of grid fins close to the base so they have greater rotational control to vary the pitch and for the final pitch up manoeuvre. The fuel in the tanks will need to slosh to the bottom of those tanks so the engines are not chewing on vapour at the re-light, otherwise, it gets very exciting very quickly and very briefly.

Not necessarily - at least if the vapor is 'designed for'. The early Saturn V's had so-called 'ullage motors' to get the fuel to the tank fuel outlets for staging and in-flight restarts. However they gradually discovered the ullage motors were not really needed and got rid of them.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....c397b4f8e9.png

Video74 days after it left the launch site, following its successful return from space, Starship B14 rolled back to Orbital Pad A, for what we expect to be the start of its testing campaign ahead of its second trip to space & back on flight 9.

"You can see that they kept most of the 13 centre engines from flight 7. Looks like they replaced a couple on the left or maybe it's just the lighting. I wonder if 314 is still there?"

Just astounding to me, who was glued to the television coverage of Alan Shepard's launch atop a Mercury-Redstone rocket! One of the rewards of old age: I have witnessed our species' conquest of low Earth orbit and voyages to the Moon. What shall our children and grandchildren see? Will they be as transfixed as we?

- Ed

VideoThe first static fire test of a flight proven Superheavy booster!
​​​​​​​

Video of test firingSpaceX has just static fired Booster 14-2, a flight-proven booster.

It previously flew on Flight 7 and is now expected to fly on Flight 9. This is a major step towards booster reusability.

From what I'm hearing, all 33 engines fired. 28 engines are reused from the previous flight of this booster, only 5 are new.

​​​​​​​Great work by the Booster team!

Confirmation from SpaceX. Booster 14 will be the booster for upcoming Starship test flight 9. Let's Go!

Gives a real impression of the size of the booster that they already launched,caughht, and are about to launch again.....

News: SpaceX will reportedly use only 2 engines during the final phase of the Booster landing in Starship Flight 9 to simulate an engine-out scenario. It will be a crucial test of landing reliability and engine redundancy.

Another reason why they are going for a water landing….

VideoThe first of the two flame deflector halves rolling to the launch complex tonight for installation into the new tower 2 flame trench.
​​​​​​​

You are referring to the second stage which was full of fuel at the point of ignition. The S-IVB stage needed ullage for the TLI re-light, using the APS motors. Re-lighting Musk's rather large rocket with only a few percent fuel will require a means of getting what little fuel there is to the bottom of the rather cavernous tanks.

S-IVB - Wikipedia

I thought the Starship had a seperate tank in the nose section to overcome that problem.

It does via header tanks in the nose, the first stage IIRC does not. The first stage as I understand it will now spend longer in the horizontal position before translating to the vertical. It will be interesting to see how they cope with the required pitch authority and getting the remaining fuel to the bottom of the tanks. I presume the tanks will be considerably warmer having absorbed more of the thermal energy on the way down, which will also make the fuel more of a challenge. I would not be surprised to see more venting to avoid over-pressure issues. They will have worked it all out but I do wonder if they have added a few more holes to the Swiss cheese. The turbopumps don't respond well to cavitation.

Booster V2 aft tank test item. Speculation the large holes are receptacles for more central rear grid fins, which would give the additional control required for a landing flip from a horizontal descent profile. Note the integral staging ring.

VideoTest Tank Aft (fan-named TT17, but is a next gen Booster Test Article) is making an appearance outside at the Production Site.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....b57626b3d7.png

I'm not so sure those holes are for grid fins i.e. would they not be perpendicular to the sidewall? They also look rather large such as exhaust ports, possibly intended to use tank venting to give additional pitch / roll authority.

Exciting times.

Can't see how you'd have grid fins down there unless they're losing the common dome inside - the actuators would be in the cryogenics!

Alternate theory - ​​​​​​​
This is Test Tank Aft (TT16) being moved back in February, note absence of holes.


Video

BREAKING: Documentation from the @FAANews indicates the @SpaceX Starbase Giga Bay has been proposed.

Height is 117.3m (385ft), which is 5ft taller than the Florida Giga Bay determination (115.8m / 380ft).

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....5f9cadc8bd.png
​​​​​​​

Higher resolution snap of the @SpaceX v3 Raptor Vacuum!

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....c7b50ec0f4.png
​​​​​​​