Space Exploration,astronomy & Cosmology

Thought I would create a separate thread for it, but then decided to put it in here as it is related to the subject.

SpaceX completed their last static fire yesterday for their prototype Starship (SN8), following a few other tests and issues. It appears this was successful, Elon Musk has said the test flight up to 50,000 feet, with a flip and attempted landing will likely be next week now. If anyone is moderately interested in this kind of stuff, I strongly advise watching this if you can. The odds are it will be a spectacular failure (Musk has even hinted as such), but if they do this successfully either way it will be a good watch. If SN8 fails, then they have already put together SN9 ready for further testing/flights. The speed at which they are building and advancing these prototypes is really quite amazing to be honest.

 

You had me at starship.

 

It's amazing, truly nothing is going to stop us now.

 

If you want to see something huge and expensive crash and burn you don’t need to go much further than Wayne Rooney’s Derby County...

 

I suspect this could well happen in the next 48 hours or so. They have restrictions in the area from 8am CST today (so 2pm GMT) until 11pm GMT on 6th Dec, so it would strongly suggest they are going to give it a go in that window at some point.

https://www.spaceflightinsider.com/...5km-test-flight-approaching-for-starship-sn8/

 

Not according to Elon Musk.

 

Looking like this flight might happen in the next 15-30 mins. Their window closes at 11pm GMT.

 

Aborted 1 second before launch! Close but no cigar!

 

Damn you Elon Musk! *shakes fist*

 

5 - 10 minutes away now from attempt number 2....

 

10.40 now. Hopefully.

 

3rd time lucky! I'm not convinced!

 

It's incredible!

 

Kaboom! Just need to sort that landing out!

 

As parking manoeuvres go, I’ve seen worse.

 

I can't believe they almost landed that. Unbelievable.

 

Did they lose an engine on the ascent, wasn't sure. Would explain the hard landing. Well, that and its the first try.

 

I have a feeling they deliberately shut down an engine or two on the way up to help control it. I guess we'll hear more in the next hours/days. All in all that was a very successful and promising test!

 

Seems like the engines performed well, which is good as they are a new type designed by SpaceX. Elon Musk has said the issue with the landing was due to low pressure in a tank, not the engines.

That was a pretty exciting watch! Much better than watching Chalobah pass it backwards and sideways every weekend!

 

The sudden flip from vertical gliding mode to horizontal for landing looked ace.

 

Someone in Gloucestershire is going to be thinking we’ve nart used tha’ grain silo fur a while. Oi think we carn ‘ave som fun ‘ere.

 

Bit alarming if it had passengers. Would require something a bit smoother otherwise it would be like a bungee jump. Needs gimbals sorting.

 

I've had my gimbals sorted, not as bad as people make out.

 

SN9 rolled out to the pad yesterday after a slight mishap last week. Possibly ready for flight between Christmas and New Year if things go as planned.

 

SN9 finally flew a few minutes ago after numerous issues, most notably getting permission from the FAA to launch. Much like SN8, a successful ascent, flop and decent, but another very hard landing totally destroying the vehicle. Looks like one of the engines failed to reignite again. Never fear though, you may notice in the video SN10 is already on the pad ready for its test flight! It never slows down it seems.

 

It must be flippin' hard to land something that big. They'll nail it eventually I have no doubt.

 

Was amazing. Seems like it didn't get as vertical as SN8 but definitely an issue slowing the extra weight.

 

It seems to me that they started the deceleration too late.

They were flipping it around at an altitude of 1500m but it would have been descending at up to 60m/s. Using Newton's second law F=ma (I don't know it's mass but it would have been decreasing with the fuel used), but the force would be huge causing a destabilising effect on the craft that one thing going wrong would be catastrophic.

Decelerating from a higher altitude would have required more fuel, it's a fine balance.

 

Yea it looks like they de-flopped too late this time

 

Early indications and viewing the footage seem to suggest one of the two raptor engines that were supposed to relight didn’t. Therefore the thrust to swing and slow down the Starship just wouldn’t have been there.

You can see debris falling out the bottom of it too. My gut feeling is something has broken in there and hit and damaged the engine causing the issue, rather than there being a problem with the raptor engine itself. Anyway, more intelligent people than I will analyse and comment on the footage and come up with an answer I’m sure!

 

Same thing happened with 8 I think. They don't seem fussed as it's mainly the sub orbital fight that they care about from what they said on the commentary.

They'll get there I'm sure.

 

Watched SN9 live today .
Any news on when SN10 launches ?

 

Good question about SN10. They haven’t fitted the raptor engines to it yet and it’ll need to go through at least a couple static fires before a test flight. Plus they’ll need some time to investigate the issues with SN9’s landing (and clear up the mess on the landing pad). At least they seem to have got over the FAA problems though (fingers crossed).

My hunch if everything goes smoothly (and it didn’t with SN9), maybe we’ll see another test by the end of this month or early March.

 

That was fun watching - loved the ironic commentary “we’ll need to work on the last bit ..”


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SpaceX are always happy to chuckle at themselves, which I rather like.