SpaceX Tuesday...

[GTO-3R]

Incredible

Shame it was a dull day so we couldn't see it properly though.

[annodomini2]

Still detanking, fire looks to be out, yes!

[Beati Dogu]

Elon is happy “Starship landing nominal!”

I don’t think he’s actually there though. He’s in New York for his Saturday Night Live hosting.

[Buzz84]

F20CN16 said:

2 engines were running very close to the ground there. Earlier flights were one 1 engine by then. Interesting.

Bacause of that the whole landing looked slower andmuch more controlled resulting in a nice gentle touch down.

(Though I have to confess I keep loading up one of the feeds to check it's still there!)

[anonymous-user]

The Boston Dynamics dogs are out there checking it now. The future is now etc etc

[Beati Dogu]

Yes it really did look like a step up from previous flights. Quite heartening.

[Ian974]

Great being able to watch this things live, well live-ish!
Really impressive development pace, and looking more healthy in terms of the raptors running.
It's looking that bit closer to being operational with each test.

[Dog Star]

Buzz84 said:

F20CN16 said:

2 engines were running very close to the ground there. Earlier flights were one 1 engine by then. Interesting.

Bacause of that the whole landing looked slower andmuch more controlled resulting in a nice gentle touch down.

(Though I have to confess I keep loading up one of the feeds to check it's still there!)

That was - or looked - absolutely by the numbers perfect. That landing was on another level compared to any of the others. Smooooooth.

Just remember that 13 years ago this guy was going bankrupt and couldn’t get a little single engined rocket to orbit - indeed look at the first few pages of this very thread. What an achievement.

Hopefully SpaceX will release their recorded footage, such a shame their live stuff dropped out so badly.

A bit late now for the vintage champagne I’d been saving - I’ll have that tomorrow and a martini now.

Cheers!

[Beati Dogu]

It’s SpaceX’s 19th birthday today. Founded 6th May 2002

[kuro]

Fantastic to watch, well done Spacex.

[Beati Dogu]

They went back to autogenous pressurisation of the tanks with this one, so no helium it seems.

Also landing on two engines was new. So they must be able to throttle them back further than before.

[fiatpower]

Great to see. I was a bit worried when I saw the fire after landing.

Any idea what’s next ?

[welshjon81]

fiatpower said:

Great to see. I was a bit worried when I saw the fire after landing.

Any idea what’s next ?

A few more of these "hops" maybe at a higher altitude and hopefully orbit by SN20.

[Eric Mc]

Can a Starship achieve orbit on its own? I thought it needed to be bolted to the much more powerful 1st stage (the Super Heavy).

[anonymous-user]

Eric Mc said:

Can a Starship achieve orbit on its own? I thought it needed to be bolted to the much more powerful 1st stage (the Super Heavy).

Which planet’s orbit? or indeed moon!

But from earth, I believe that’s a no.

[CraigyMc]

F20CN16 said:

Eric Mc said:

Can a Starship achieve orbit on its own? I thought it needed to be bolted to the much more powerful 1st stage (the Super Heavy).

Which planet’s orbit? or indeed moon!

But from earth, I believe that’s a no.

In the early phases of starship design (back when it was called BFR) the idea was that the upper stage could get to LEO itself with no payload.
Likewise, superheavy (the booster section) is supposed to be able to do this too, with no payload.

As an aside, Musk has confirmed on twitter a while ago that an F9 booster has the performance to get to LEO as an SSTO with no payload.

[rxe]

Beati Dogu said:

The engines during the flight looked a very good. No random fires on them this time.

The fire on landing seems to be out now and they’re venting the tanks to safe the rocket.

The whole thing seems a bit “crisper”, or maybe that is wilful thinking over a ropey video link. No fires on ascent, seemed to be less shaking and weird noises. There were some sharp bangs when it was burning on the pad at the end, not sure of that was some pressure relief popping out.

Quite apart from the achievement (‘which is amazing, and one day I want to see it do that live on a cloudless day), it’s the pace that is extraordinary. In the space of a fortnight, they’ve launched crew to the ISS, they’ve brought back crew from the ISS, they’ve launched 60 satellites, and flown a Starship. That’s a better cadence that all of the worlds space agencies combined. Amazing.

[CrutyRammers]

Beati Dogu said:

They went back to autogenous pressurisation of the tanks with this one, so no helium it seems.

Also landing on two engines was new. So they must be able to throttle them back further than before.

First thing I noticed as well. They had to solve that redundancy problem I think, probably lucky in the long run that it hit them at the beginning, rather than later on.

[anonymous-user]

rxe said:

In the space of a fortnight, they’ve launched crew to the ISS, they’ve brought back crew from the ISS, they’ve launched 60 satellites, and flown a Starship. That’s a better cadence that all of the worlds space agencies combined. Amazing.

Incredible what they’ve achieved.

[anonymous-user]

CraigyMc said:

F20CN16 said:

Eric Mc said:

Can a Starship achieve orbit on its own? I thought it needed to be bolted to the much more powerful 1st stage (the Super Heavy).

Which planet’s orbit? or indeed moon!

But from earth, I believe that’s a no.

In the early phases of starship design (back when it was called BFR) the idea was that the upper stage could get to LEO itself with no payload.
Likewise, superheavy (the booster section) is supposed to be able to do this too, with no payload.

As an aside, Musk has confirmed on twitter a while ago that an F9 booster has the performance to get to LEO as an SSTO with no payload.

Without vacuum nozzles? Wow.