SpaceX (Vol. 2)

[fiatpower]

Superb view of take off from the tower's perspective (hope this isn't CGI...)

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1726425687299358872?...

[98elise]

fiatpower said:

Superb view of take off from the tower's perspective (hope this isn't CGI...)

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1726425687299358872?...

I doubt it's CGI. They were showing shots from that camera during the live stream (before the launch).

[dxg]

Interesting that the grid fins were out. Were they playing a role during takeoff? Or are they permanently folded down? If not, imagine the forces they would have to deal with unfolding...

Many questions.

[Beati Dogu]

The grid fins are permanently extended. They appear to have calculated that the drag penalty is better than having the added mass and complexity of a system to fold them, like Falcon 9.

[Hill92]

fiatpower said:

Superb view of take off from the tower's perspective (hope this isn't CGI...)

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1726425687299358872?...

And with the slow-mo removed https://twitter.com/ryanhansenspace/status/1726433...

dxg said:

Interesting that the grid fins were out. Were they playing a role during takeoff? Or are they permanently folded down? If not, imagine the forces they would have to deal with unfolding...

Many questions.

Unlike F9 they don't fold (since about BN4). Combination of the 'best part is no part' for reliability, size/weight/material differences and the different flight profiles of the boosters.

[Beati Dogu]

LivLL said:

Anyone know what the final destination of the Starship was? Did it just burn up to nothing or will there be large chunks in the Ocean somewhere that may be recoverable to analyse failure?

It’s spread out over a long watery debris field north of Puerto Rico. As seen in the weather radar image of the break up



Puerto Rico is in the bottom left, then the British Virgin Islands and Anguilla to the right.

The water looks to be pretty deep there. About 2,000 ft. Good luck to the Chinese sub trying to steal that.

[louiechevy]

Elon has said three to four weeks and they would be ready for test three! I'm guessing that's dependent on approval. It would be astonishing if they could though

[Flooble]

louiechevy said:

Elon has said three to four weeks and they would be ready for test three! I'm guessing that's dependent on approval. It would be astonishing if they could though

He said the vehicle would be ready - which is an unusually careful choice of words! Mind, he said the same about this test flight. So February/March it is then!

[louiechevy]

Even February or March compared to the NASA method of spending a year or more doing reports and re design and more ground tests is amazing

[Dog Star]

louiechevy said:

Even February or March compared to the NASA method of spending a year or more doing reports and re design and more ground tests is amazing

<cough> Starliner.

I could do with digging around and finding what Starliner has cost so far vs Starship (including stage zero).

[CraigyMc]

Dog Star said:

louiechevy said:

Even February or March compared to the NASA method of spending a year or more doing reports and re design and more ground tests is amazing

<cough> Starliner.

I could do with digging around and finding what Starliner has cost so far vs Starship (including stage zero).

That's really Boeing. That's why it's not going.

[Flooble]

Dog Star said:

louiechevy said:

Even February or March compared to the NASA method of spending a year or more doing reports and re design and more ground tests is amazing

<cough> Starliner.

I could do with digging around and finding what Starliner has cost so far vs Starship (including stage zero).

SpaceX accounts aren't available as it's largely funding Starship itself, so we only have pronouncements which may or may not have any veracity. I imagine it might be possible to get a range, based on the price of Falcon 9 missions and the "Starlink is profitable" announcement - but there are so many ways to play with accounts I can't see it being a particularly useful number - might as well just take the "official" figure as anything.

https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-super-heavy....

$2 to $10 billion

So about the same as Starliner will have cost by the time they are done

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/26/boeing-has-lost-1p...

I am not entirely sure how to read this. $1.5 billion of overrun on a $5 billion programme would perhaps suggest $6.5 billion total but I thnk that's a naive reading of it.

Even so, seems comparable.

[CraigyMc]

Flooble said:

Even so, seems comparable.

Yeah, in cost. But one is a Zodiac and the other is an ocean liner.

[louiechevy]

For me it's not so much the money it's the speed they go at, what is about ten years ago they started trying to land the first stage. How many have the launched and landed this year. I can just about remember the last manned moon landings and now there's a spacex launch every week or so.
For me that's the amazing thing the sheer speed they are moving forward at.

[Flooble]

CraigyMc said:

Flooble said:

Even so, seems comparable.

Yeah, in cost. But one is a Zodiac and the other is an ocean liner.

I think that's kind of the point. Boeing have (to a greater or lesser extent, and I know some will argue it's a lot more than that) built a new Apollo capsule while for the same money SpaceX have built a new type of engine running on a new type of fuel, the most powerful booster ever, and a spaceship big enough to swallow several of the Starliner capsules whole, which also has a completely new approach to landing.

Although, to be fair, SpaceX themselves spent a couple of billion on their Crew Dragon capsule, so if anything it highlights just how cheap the whole Starship system is in comparison to the old way of doing things.

[CraigyMc]

louiechevy said:

For me it's not so much the money it's the speed they go at, what is about ten years ago they started trying to land the first stage. How many have the launched and landed this year. I can just about remember the last manned moon landings and now there's a spacex launch every week or so.
For me that's the amazing thing the sheer speed they are moving forward at.

Engineering. It's cheaper to go faster. Delays literally are where the money goes, when things run late.

[annodomini2]

louiechevy said:

For me it's not so much the money it's the speed they go at, what is about ten years ago they started trying to land the first stage. How many have the launched and landed this year. I can just about remember the last manned moon landings and now there's a spacex launch every week or so.
For me that's the amazing thing the sheer speed they are moving forward at.

They're averaging just under 2 per week

[annodomini2]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iv5AMNYGql4&li...

See above, in some of the slow mo shots the Booster can be seen outgassing a lot around the engine section prior to the engine start attempt, then FTS detonation.

Also interesting how many tiles are lost from the ship.

[MartG]

Flooble said:

Although, to be fair, SpaceX themselves spent a couple of billion on their Crew Dragon capsule

A lot of which was spent jumping through hoops to get NASA certification

[Hill92]

louiechevy said:

For me it's not so much the money it's the speed they go at, what is about ten years ago they started trying to land the first stage. How many have the launched and landed this year. I can just about remember the last manned moon landings and now there's a spacex launch every week or so.
For me that's the amazing thing the sheer speed they are moving forward at.

Someone on r/SpaceXLounge summarised it well:

Reddit said:

I rewatched the original ITS presentation from September 2016, a lot has changed in the design since then but a lot is still the same. I remember going to work the next day and telling coworkers about it who laughed it was ridiculous and would never get built.

But look at where SpaceX were at the time. In September 2016 they had made less than 30 launches, they'd just had the AMOS-6 mission explode on the pad, CRS-7 had exploded in flight the year before, no crew launches, no Falcon Heavy, no reused Dragon capsules, only six successful landings alongside just as many failed landings and zero attempts at booster reuse. SpaceX was just a baby at the time, barely getting its feet wet and testing the waters. It makes sense that only die-hard fans believed SpaceX given where they were at the time. No one had reused a first stage booster before and SpaceX want to make one wider than a bus is long, taller and fatter than Saturn V but it's going to land on the launch pad to fly again? Absurd!

If the ITS presentation had included stats about SpaceX's Falcon 9 performance from 2023 people would think it equally ridiculous. 100 rocket launches in one year, 300 launches total, 250 successful launches in a row? More mass to orbit in one year than the rest of the world combined? A total of 42 people brought to space with fully reusable crew capsules that have already surpassed the time in orbit for all Shuttle missions combined? America's only route to get humans into space, including flights by space tourists? Deploying over 5,000 satellites to provide internet to anywhere in the world? Landing first stage boosters vertically 250 times, with some individual boosters being flown 18 times? That's beyond absurd and ridiculous, that's utterly unbelievable. No rocket company could accomplish all that. And if they DID accomplish even half of that, there's no way they'd have time or money left over to make some insane giant Saturn V replacement to go to Mars.