So IFT 1-3 where successes, showing steady progress. This flight was an unexpected leap. The implications of Starship nailing reentry on the second try are profound.
I wouldn't be surprised if we had a naval force on patrol in the area so SpaceX could recover the booster and ship given the huge military interest in and applications for the starship program.
I don't know about recovery since it is has the FTS charge, various pressurized things, and some car sized battery packs onboard. But I could definitely see it getting a visual inspection before being used for target practice.
Doubtful. The US Navy has many more important things to do than monitor the reentry of a test spacecraft operated by a private company.
No doubt SpaceX hired a couple boats from some bloke in Australia with a Starlink antenna and some cameras as well as perhaps a small radar dish. That might have been standard equipment on the boat too. That isn't exactly a naval force though.
If a US Navy fleet was transiting the Indian Ocean, no doubt they would treat the event as an exercise for training. But they wouldn't go out of their way to be there.
You are forgetting about ITAR laws about high performance rocket engines. The most sensitive part of the whole Starship program is the details of how Raptor engine works and what it is made of. The USG does not want china or Russia getting ahold of the most efficient rocket engine ever made because they could reverse engineer it to develop a new wave of ICBMs or a new space capability.
The military doesn't care about SpaceX or Musk but they do care about national security secrets, of which raptor engine is likely one. I believe I learned they can't even have foreign-born engineers have access to the engine details.
ITAR is regulated by the US State Department. The DOD really doesn't care that much and the Navy won't bother sending a ship unless it is a Presidential order.
SpaceX itself is concerned and may very likely sink rockets themselves simply to keep those engines away from a primary competitor, namely the CNSA.
ITAR is a weird law and it will impact citizens of the USA in some odd ways. The primary restriction is that people who aren't US Citizens have severe restrictions on technical access, but even that can be granted in some circumstances. Naturalized citizens like Scott Manley have no problem though if he was to work for SpaceX.
If China or Russia got ahold of a Raptor engine, the worst would be a large fine against SpaceX and perhaps Elon Musk personally.. It isn't as if the DOD would sink a Chinese ship which somehow retrieved a Raptor engine.
Nah man, ânailed itâ is correct enough. These guys are just being contrarian for the sake of it. Sure, it could have been better. But for what this flight was expected to doâŠ. It *nailed it*.
The fact some heat tiles fell off doesnât remove the fact that it survived reentry which was the point of IFT4.
I feel like this flight was more successful than hoped though? Not only did they actually soft landing the booster and the ship in the ocean as they hoped, they also did it while having the flap melt in half and engines fail. They get the data on the actual critical temperatures and weak points of the ship/heat shielding, while still accomplishing their goal. They demonstrate how resilient the ship actually is.
I'd be much more comfortable flying on a rocket knowing that the flap can melt in half we still can land. Engines on the booster can fail and we still reach desired velocity/altitude. One engine relight can fail and the landing is still soft.
If the other 3 flaps were okay, id call it nailed. With a little work needed on the geometry, which should be already solved by the new v2 flaps moving away from the plasma.
Elon would know the conditions of the other flaps, so him brining up one damaged flap means the others are were likely fine.
also, front half to 2/3rds of the melting flap's joint was fine, if the entire hinge was problematic, why no melty everywhere?
it really does look like this was a localized tile failure spot that was caught on camera, Elon mentioning mentioning loss of multiple tiles reinforces the notion.
I'm so cynical but I was like wow, how lucky are we to have a camera on the only flap that is disintegrating! But then wait, how do we know unless we can see the others? I'm leaning towards the other forward flap enduring similar damage and wouldn't be surprised if the rear ones has some issues too. Would love to know if there were other camera angles!
It looks like we had 2 external cameras at first, one looking from the back towards the front flap and the one we saw the most right beside the front flap. I assume the rear camera died early because we never switched back to it after sparky time. I don't think we had a rear flap view or anything on the other side, at least not public for the stream.
I think one camera was pointing at the front right flap (that one survived), the other one at the aft left flap (probably mounted on the front left flap). You can see the different shape of the cover in front of the aft flap. The aft flap was mostly visible during the smooth plasma portion of the reentry.
>> It looks like we had 2 external cameras
> *u/unwantedaccount56:* I think one camera was pointing at the front right flap (that one survived), the other one at the aft left flap
IMO, we're seeing much less than half of the video feeds.
How would you design the camera setup? The engineers would likely go for one camera per flap, two showing the video we saw and the two others sending a few frames per minute. Possibly adding a couple of IR cameras inside the payload section and another in each fuel tank.
I read somewhere that they had a lot of cameras on the inside that they didn't show. But I don't know how many more outside cameras they had, apart from the 2 shown in the live stream.
> I read somewhere that they had a lot of cameras on the inside that they didn't show
One time there was mention of an inside tank view that was accidentally broadcast. They may fear ITAR leakage, so want to vet content before sharing. There was also chase-plane footage that took time to be released.
A good algorithm with dozens of cameras would be to relay the top ten fastest rising bit-rates, but maybe not directly in public, again for ITAR reasons.
if there were multiple flap failures, then Elon (who was in the control room looking at all the data) probably wouldn't of said:
"Despite loss of ***many tiles*** and ***a*** damaged flap"
If you listen carefully to the official broadcast, they did state before reentry that several tiles were DELIBERATELY left off, so as to assess their overall effectiveness.
I speculate that at least one other flap had burn through, the flap with the camera must've quit working during reentry otherwise I have no doubt they would've switched to it for landing and different reentry angles.
The other camera was on the flap itself. During early stages of entry you could see the whole picture moving with fin movements. It wouldn't have been in a protected window and would have dissolved into plasma bo matter what.
Crispy, and barely holding it, but for sure thought it was going to belly splash with a 1000km/h, but it seemed to at least get some engines relit, and slowed down to a sort of upright landing. I would call that a success, besides the damages along the way.
Really this was the first attempt at reentry. The last flight was uncontrolled before it even got to reentry; no one is going to survive an uncontrolled reentry(excluding passively stabilized capsule designs).
Honestly I'm a little disappointed with the heat shield. It may take weight to solve this issue. Certainly time.
Impressive landing yes, but IFT2-3 exposed smaller critical errors. IFT1 was bad with the engines, but luckily it was solved with newer engines.
Landing half burned up isn't exactly re-usable although it LOOKs cool.
Today was impressive, but we don't know how difficult it will be fixing this. And since they didn't do engine re-light in space you can't use it as a conventional rocket while testing yet either.
The burning flap is a localised issue, not a general heat shield problem. Elon previously mentioned that it's hard to stop plasma from entering at the hinge. They still have a lot to do, but this flight gave me a lot of optimism.
>but luckily it was solved with newer engines.Â
I feel like this is *slightly* underselling the engineering; I'm not sure "luck" is the motivating force here.
They purposefully removed tiles before launch in some places that should have been survivable to see how well it could handle unexpected heating, and well it did ! So no I'm pretty certain that's why it was such a crispy landing!
Ha, I love the fact that they removed 2 tiles in non critical areas just so they could say this on the webcast so people would write off any issues due to tiles failing :)
By removing tiles they have opened gaps which would make it much easier for other adjacent tiles to get ripped by air
However I do agree that we do not know which part of the crispiness was caused by their test, and which part just by the expected number of times falling off
I was too young to appreciate when the last Apollo missions were flown. But having obsessively followed all things space since the mid-70âs, this was easily the second* most impressive flight Iâve ever witnessed.
When the flap was disintegrating at 20k kph, it felt like the goal of a reusable second stage was still far away. But damn if that ship didnât hold together all the way down - so exciting and SpaceX must have learned a ton! Just an incredible engineering achievement by the SpaceX team!
* my top âwowâ moment was the successful first flight of the shuttle. Zero test flights with 2 crew will never be done again.
Elon just tweeted, "I think we should try to catch the booster with the mechazilla arms next flight!", so I guess they just might try a booster catch on IFT5.
Timeline wise, if there's currently a delay between IFT5 & the debut of Starship V2 flight tests, then there might be enough time to refurb the tower/arms if there's a mishap. Or they might be cool with a multi-month delay if the damage is so bad that they have to complete tower #2.
The most important thing Elon brings to the table. A single guy who can say "yes" or "no".
Company invests untold millions in the world's largest composite assembly for a gigantic fuel tank.. guy makes a case that stainless steel would be better... Elon: "You're right, scrap the untold millions in investment, folks, we're going stainless steel!"
Just imagine that in any other company
One of my favorite public examples of this is told by NASA senior scientist Dr. Dan Rasky. Elon decided that SpaceX should make their own TPS material for the heatshield for Dragon instead of buying it after Dan explained the pros/cons in 3-4 minutes.
[https://youtu.be/P06X2TZUKZU?si=gKFFsgd0siGebuAg&t=190](https://youtu.be/P06X2TZUKZU?si=gKFFsgd0siGebuAg&t=190)
Honestly, that's exactly what a good Chief Engineer needs to do. Determine when to take what risks. I've worked under CEs who require studies upon studies for a decision that end up taking longer than actually taking the risk and fixing problems that would come up
Gets worse when budgets come in to play. Lots of money in the budget for simulations and studies, not so much for hardware. Lets move the budget is what an engineer would say. CFO would say, not on my watch, budgets for consulting with Board members family companies come first not hardware.
You need a leader who understands that a 3 month delay = 3 months of paying everyone's salaries, which is a lot more expensive than just doing the damn test.
Personally I would want 1-2 more ocean attempts to determine consistency and make sure we don't get repeat issues we thought were fixed or new issues. If the next 1-2 flights all land without any major issues and seem precise enough then we send it.
Eh I don't agree, everything they need aside from any special ground system localization would be tested. They get data on landing precision consistency and can refine the controls algorithms if needed. That goes directly into how well a tower catch can go. They would find any near surface level issues with the vehicle before risking the tower. That makes sure the tower catch isn't going to be ruined with another ice or filter issue that wasn't completely fixed.
1 single success at water landing isn't really validated without at least another attempt so we have at 2 flights to compare data against and plot a trend.
Depends on the objectives. With both SS and SH doing a pretty good job at soft water landing, I can imagine there's not much left to test for a similar flight. If that's the case they might as well just risk it and take the learnings into account for the 2nd tower.Â
Worst case they'd have to wait for the 2nd tower to complete before the next flight, but if they wait for it to be finished beforehand they'd be waiting just as long.
They'd probably also want at least one test of the new flap design and it's survivability before risking the tower. No reason to throw extra unknown variables at the situation when you're already doing something as insane as catching a flying tower with a building.
You know what I misread that. I was in a different thread and people were jumping around talking about getting ship ready to catch and I combined them. My bad.
Meh. People treat that button as a I like or don't like you button. I know I've been guilty of it at times too. I made a mistake I'm not going to sweat some imaginary internet points. It happens I'll just use it as a reminder to double check which thread I'm in next time.
The risk can be assessed in realtime by the computers. I think the ship will aim for a soft landing 500m out in the gulf, and if everything is working well at 2km altitude, the trajectory can be adjusted automatically to land in the arms. (spitballed numbers)
I believe the F9 landings use a variation on this approach.
I'm sure it can do all that, and that they are almost 100% certainly using the F9 or a slightly modified version of the landing software. (there's really no reason not to.)
My concern is two fold
1) I originally misread/crossed threads and was thinking people were talking about the Starship which will have a very very different set of landing parameters. IE comes in from the west, burns off a lot more speed, will cross US continental lands.
2) Even if they are reusing the Falcon landing software it's a new system with new quirks. That landing tower is expensive and they want to be as sure as they can be that they won't blow it up and set themselves back months.
So IMO landing the booster will almost certainly wait until they have a second tower, and while they wait for that back up, they'll probably keep testing in the gulf with more and more aggressive landing profiles to see what they can see with minimal risks.
Unless IFT5 takes a long time to happen I wouldn't expect them to have the second tower ready so I won't wager on them risking the landing. Because if they want 9 flights this year they need to make flight 5 happen ASAP. (Yes I know 9 is super aspirational doesn't negate the fact they are shooting high.)
So if all my suppositions hold IFT isn't likely to be the catch test. I'd wager 6 at the earliest. But more likely 7 if they really want to test all those changes they made on the interim prototypes.
I think it's more likely we'll see them testing Starlink launches before we see the landing test. I'd wager that's part of IFT6 with 5 testing the doors and the like when they do engine relights.
I was thinking about the Starship as well. In that respect, your point 1 is a good one, I hadn't considered the ground track when Starship RTLS. They may not want to, or even be allowed to reenter over land until the flaps are more reliable.
However, the booster returns from the east and already landed near Boca Chica in IFT4. Using the "last minute redirect", I feel the risk to the tower **may** be acceptably low. It also depends on whether the landing position and velocity were acceptably accurate today, which I don't think we know.
Well supposedly some people saw the tower doing close tests right as the booster was trying to land so it might well be the case they are virtual catching the booster with the tower to see how well it goes.
Depending on what they found maybe they'll have more confidence than I would. I'd rather run more tests and dump a few boosters than blow up my only functional launch pad and set me back months.
Remember though that here is barely any fuel left at landing, so it can't really blow anything up. And it doesn't have a lot of mass (compared to a loaded one LOL). So the only way it could cause a lot of damage is if it were moving way too fast, which the redirect thing should prevent. Granted, if the positioning or attitude was bad, it could probably break off one of the arms or something. And the job of cutting it up and removing the pieces would be big.
I think you're not appreciating just how much mass it still is even if it's not as much as it would be fully loaded. It's not about the redirect, it's about being even slightly off target for any reason or if the arms don't work as expected that's still tons and tons of mass collapsing at some kind of speed even a few kph with that much mass is a huge amount of potential energy.
Have that do an accidental power slide the wrong way and whoops there goes the launch tower. Even sheering off an arm would mean weeks if not months of delays. Clean up would be easy if it just crumpled into slag, but that's not likely to happen.
We saw what even a minimally loaded Starship looks like when it goes kaboom several times. There's a fire ball and things go to pieces with extreme vigor. Some of those bits going into a tower could mean major repair work if they hit something.
Again I'm not the engineers, but I've had to plan disaster recovery and worst case scenarios for jobs more than a few times. IME if the failures can results in months of delays and setbacks it's an unacceptable failure condition. Better to figure out how to mitigate it, or simply wait until the back up is ready.
But I'm also not in a cutting edge company that embraces break things and move fast.
You could totally be right. I'm not an engineer either. (Well not that kind).
Musk did tweet "I think we should try to catch the booster with the mechazilla arms next flight!", but that's obviously not a firm plan or anything.
In reply to a response to this tweet Elon said he thinks they should. Personally I hope they have another tower up by then! I Very ambitious but that's who they are.
Iâd wager the benefits of maybe catching the next booster outweigh the costs of maybe destroying a launch tower.
And not just for the bragging rights of saying, âWe caught one!â
Think of how much they will learn about the state of a booster and its engines after a complete launch-and-recovery cycle.
I think they need to prove inflight relight of raptor before they bring payload.
Iâm sure they have their reasons, but Iâm not sure why they didnât try that today.
My guess is they didn't want any potential issues from failed relight to effect testing heat shield reentry test. If a relight issue caused it to tumble then it may not reenter at proper orientation for heat shield.
I might be wrong but i think at this stage they can only relight once, so either inflight or landing burn. Same reason they werenât going to attempt ship belly flop landing in IFT-3. It has to do with the max amount of gas to spin up raptors that they can store.
If they make orbit and can't do the deorbit burn, it will come down **randomly** later. And it's a large object designed to survive reentry.
If they do make orbit, they need to make sure it will come down in the designated area.
It's not just 'space debris'.
Why can't the test happen on the same flight? Pick a starlink shell that aligns with boca chica AND a safe ballistic landing splashdown site. If the re-light fails, ship goes into the ocean. If the re-light succeeds, proceed to starlink deployment altitude.Â
The Booster throws Starship in the air with just enough flight time to do it's burn and reach orbit. They must burn for orbit after separating from the booster.
What you're suggesting wouldn't be representative anyway, so it wouldn't be an interesting test.
I don't know what you're talking about. Just like today, the ship would burn to orbital velocity. It would shut down engines while on a ballistically safe path, then attempt the re-light. If re-light fails, it would reenter just like today. If the re-light succeeds, raise altitude and deploy sats because now they have proven they can re-light and are thus safe to go to orbit.Â
The problem with that is that there's a chance of failure midway through the circularization burn. The thing would then end up in a short lived orbit which would decay in a random spot.
What? No. That's wrong. Rockets routinely go to an elliptical orbit, coast, then re-light to circularize. In this case the ellipse would be eccentric enough that it intersects the atmosphere, just like today's launch achieved orbital velocity and altitude but still intersected the atmosphere.Â
You need two relights, though - one to circularize for deploying starlink satellites, and then another for a deorbit burn? If the second relight fails you now have a starship orbiting in a starlink orbit.
Rockets don't have to prove every capability before they use it. Look at other new rockets, they don't test the inflight termination systems on every rocket. They determine their safety by analysis. Â
The relight test is to prove the design approach, not a requirement that every single thing that happens on the rocket must be tested suborbital before it goes orbital. I think that's the mistake that people are making. Â
A rocket that has non-working flight termination system could be an incredible danger, yet they regularly launch new rockets without that having been tested on a live rocket. You don't need 100% test coverage of every possible failure mode. You need to have good analysis, and you need to prove the analysis. If you can relight once at zero g, then you have proven that your design for relighting in zero g is good. You've proven the design. Once the design is proven there's no reason to assume a thied light will be somehow different than the second.Â
It buys them the ability to controllably de-orbit a 100 ton stainless steel spacecraft, most of which would survive a re-entry and potentially cause significant damage on the ground.
The flight path today always put it back in the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean. A full orbit to deploy satellites could see it fall to the ground anywhere.
No, not anywhere. There are lots of trajectories that are ballistically safe and would align with a starlink shell.Â
That spot in the Indian ocean isn't the only safe place to splash down.Â
Not really. Once the thing is in orbit but unable to diva controlled deorbit, it will fall anyway between N and S latitudes equal to the Starlink deployment orbit inclination.
I must be explaining this poorly. My apologies.
There are ballistically safe trajectories that also align with starlink orbital inclinations
You don't go to starlink deployment altitude until you've proven you can re-light. Once you've proven you can re-light then you no longer need a ballistically safe trajectory, since you've proven you can safely deorbit.Â
Evidently a LOT more. The damage suffered by starship on reentry would have doomed any other spacecraft. Not only did starship lose a lot more than 2 tiles, but it also lost half of the forward flap. If anything this âfailureâ is better than a perfect success for the simple reason that it shows how resilient Starship is
Yes, ,kind of like watching IFT-1 do 2 complete flips AFTER the FTS was triggered... whereas any OTHER rocket would have folded up and exploded as soon as it got out of alignment.
Agreed. I think it really proves the strategy of using stainless steel. We've all known in theory that stainless steel has structural advantages over aluminum at high temperatures but nothing quite demonstrates that like having major structural components burn through and the craft still landing successfully.
And it also says that in the future even if there are occasional failures of the TPS it will likely mean a repair and refurbishment, not an entirely new vehicle.
Yeah I think at the belly it stream isn't concentrated and therefore not as hot. But men, around the flap hinges it was very much concentrated, at some point you could even see the skin glowing between the cracks of the tiles.
CNN has a very favorable article up right now about it, they didn't try to spin anything and actually accurately described SpaceX's design philosphy. I was shocked.
Or they were afraid of getting body slammed as soon as anyone saw the videos on the evening news, kind of like Snopes was when they initially rated it as "plausible" that a Starlink communications breakdown caused the Oceangate implosion.
I'm sure that they will mention that one out of 33 engines failed to ignite and a flap was damaged, but those facts are too boring to be a headline.
The successful landing of both the booster and ship is just too impressive. I am pretty sure it's a historical first, and anyone can see it in glorious hi def.
Well youâve already started the doom and gloom so⊠ever thought about just avoiding random peoples ramblings? There just the weirdo at the end of your road and youâre now thinking they not just idiots???
"...loss of many tiles and a damaged flap.." Is Elon referring to tiles lost from that damaged flap, or from the stainless steel hull of S29 or both? Regardless, IFT-4 doesn't sound good for the tiles.
From what I saw in the video, it looks like it lost a tile or two at the "seal area" and they started slowly zippering off, after which there was significant burn through of the flap itself.
Everything else looks like it survived nicely on the main hull.
When that zipper started, I fully expected that they'd lose the flap almost immediately. Then it melted through and I said "It's happening!" It is really incredibly robust. Granted they were halfway through the reentry, so it didn't get all of the heating on just the stainless steel.
> Is Elon referring to tiles lost from that damaged flap, or from the stainless steel hull of S29 or both?
I think it's safe to assume that the hull didn't lose any tiles, given how quickly the flap started disintegrating once it lost its tiles.
Gives a good idea of how quickly and completely the plasma would burn through any unprotected steel, if it lost a tile at the maximum heat part of reentry it would probably be only a matter of seconds before the plasma burned through the tanks and caused an explosion. Pretty impressive how long Columbia lasted with a massive hole in a wing made out of aluminum.
For reference compared to [this image](https://preview.redd.it/780dtztmky4d1.jpeg?auto=webp&s=05aebe57de31990a8df5478ea2b86fa3a418054d), Space Shuttle Columbia broke up at roughly 55 kilometers altitude while going roughly 22,000 km/h.
Most tiles have backing from a refractory mineral wool. It's not a strong material but it would likely hold for a while.
But there's an exception to that: tiles around tighter curves like flap root covers don't have such backing layer, the are just thicker. If such a tile falls, there's nothing but exposed skin (and silicon glue residue).
Starship proves again the correctness in the decision of using stainless steel for the hull. It can take some abuse and still come through.
Looks like the front and rear control hinge flap area needs work. Could look at NASA's Alloy GRX-810 for the hinge area. It allows you to 3d print the hinge to best match the protective heat tile pattern or gasket above. It has high heat and high durability factors.
Space Shuttle was investigating use of ALON for windows.
Space X could explore the use of replaceable ALON ferule lens over the existing digital cameras to protect them. ALON is transparent lens material, has 1200 f higher melting temperature than Stainless Steel. Able to withstand the force of a 5O caliber bullet. It may be able to be used in very high heat, high damage prone places in and around Starship.
What is the alternative, more of a lifting-body oval cross-section? Even more like Thunderbird 2? Trading lift-off drag for descent survival.
Does that optimise down to an arc cross-section, with just 1 curved side on an otherwise-triangular (or hexagonal) tank stack to impact the plasma?
Rounded shapes like the cylinder used for Starship have less stress points. The heat is more spread out. I think the trouble with the space shuttle was it got cooked and needed the heat sheild refurbed every time.
Its a tricky problem. How do you make a control surface that's also part of the hull... no weak attachment points? I think they need a solid flap with a way of allowing the gas through it when they need it and blocking it when they dont.
Probably won't work for Starship.
> X-65 will use active flow control using bursts of air rather than moving flight surfaces
Starship already has RCS and they weren't enough to control attitude, and almost certainly aren't as mass-efficient as a contantly-present surface.
Until I found that detail about air bursts, I wondered if that X-65 was using [aeroelasticity like the X-53](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-53_Active_Aeroelastic_Wing). Probably equally unviable in a hypersonic regime.
Yeah, this flight demonstrated yet again that starship has a ton of opportunities for mass savings. The fact it survived is great, but clearly those flaps are overbuilt if they can survive that. Thereâs hope yet. So much optimization. Nowhere near peak performance
I believe the physics of high speed plasma interface are only partially/not well understood. So they likely errored on the side of caution for control surfaces and were going to rely on real world data to refine the design.
So yes, I would expect there is more optimization to be had here.
It will just be interesting to see how they mitigate the plasma getting in between the flap hinge and the hull.
The fuel was depleted so we are talking big empty cylinder. If it didnât break on impact it may be floating at the ocean (like the previous falcon9 which landed into ocean). Not just that - it is probably still communicating via Starlink.
I would be not surprised to see this one being pulled by the boat soon.
> it is probably still communicating via Starlink
It was. Cameras showed water line over the glass.
> like the previous falcon9 which landed into ocean
It's possible Starship didn't sink. But then the plan would be the same as it was with the Falcon 9 that didn't sink: the Navy is supposed to shoot it down.
Itâs funny this guy was gloating âhe was rightâ five days ago when in retrospect if they listened to him they would have over designed the ship.
https://x.com/drchriscombs/status/1796914534118023578
https://x.com/drchriscombs/status/1796915432634433856
to be fair, "anywhere on the fuel tanks" would count as "in most places", as that would be easily over 60% of the tiled surface.
The heat burned through the exposed steel with ease. Had the heat shield breach occurred on the tank, the thing would've probably RUD'd rather quickly. Here we were just lucky that it just happened to take out an impressively large, but nonessential chunck of a flap hinge.
Then again, the geometry probably makes a heat shield breach over the tank way less likely.
because the video shows what happens to unprotected steel in reentry conditions. if this were to happen to a fuel tank, it would probably blow up. that made me assume that the fuel tank didnt get its tiles blown off. because it didnt blow up.Â
of course, there could be other things at play here.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[AFTS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7og0xe "Last usage")|Autonomous Flight Termination System, see FTS|
|[CNSA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l8c6baz "Last usage")|Chinese National Space Administration|
|CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules|
| |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)|
|[FAA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7fmtk4 "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration|
|[FTS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7oztoh "Last usage")|Flight Termination System|
|[ICBM](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l8augtu "Last usage")|Intercontinental Ballistic Missile|
|[ITAR](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l8c6baz "Last usage")|(US) International Traffic in Arms Regulations|
|[ITS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7dqxos "Last usage")|Interplanetary Transport System (2016 oversized edition) (see MCT)|
| |[Integrated Truss Structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Truss_Structure)|
|MCT|Mars Colonial Transporter (see ITS)|
|[RCS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7fimp0 "Last usage")|Reaction Control System|
|[RSD](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7e5foo "Last usage")|Rapid Scheduled Disassembly (explosive bolts/charges)|
|[RTLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7fid70 "Last usage")|Return to Launch Site|
|[RUD](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7foxiq "Last usage")|Rapid Unplanned Disassembly|
| |Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly|
| |Rapid Unintended Disassembly|
|[TPS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7hxsfa "Last usage")|Thermal Protection System for a spacecraft (on the Falcon 9 first stage, the engine "Dance floor")|
|[ULA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7e9fvf "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|[Raptor](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l8c6baz "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX|
|[Starliner](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7escjt "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)|
|[Starlink](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l84ai85 "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation|
|[ablative](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7fci8e "Last usage")|Material which is intentionally destroyed in use (for example, heatshields which burn away to dissipate heat)|
|[granularity](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7oztoh "Last usage")|(In re: rocket engines) Allowing for engine-out capability when determining minimum engine count|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
----------------
^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj)
^(18 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro)^( has 16 acronyms.)
^([Thread #12860 for this sub, first seen 6th Jun 2024, 15:07])
^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceXLounge) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
Was still in communication via Starlink after splashdown, my uneducated guess is they triggered the FTS and hope that that means the whole thing sinks.
Yeah, I figured that too. My concern is the stresses the thing went through and the water touch down. Wasn't sure if that would create some difficulty for them to do so remotely.
Is the explosive attached to the shell of starship or inside?
I hope this isn't too over-the-top, but I must claim substantial responsibility for yesterdays successful flight. After Starship's explosive 3rd flight, I tweeted a solution to the overheating problem to Elon.
Like most great ideas, it was simple: use genuine Gorilla GlueÂź to hold the tiles on.
It's clear from yesterday's successful flight that Elon/SpaceX took my advice. I'm over-joyed to be a part of this great achievement. Please share this moment with me!
Incredible moment in the history of space exploration. đ€©
Just another day at Boca Chica
So IFT 1-3 where successes, showing steady progress. This flight was an unexpected leap. The implications of Starship nailing reentry on the second try are profound.
Technically, this is the first non-RUD IFT.
It's was a GUD - Gradual Unscheduled Disassembly
Only a partial GUD, followed by a RSD (rapid scheduled disassembly) after hitting the water
Kind of looked like it was floating, and according to a tweet its still transmitting. So no RSD. Unless your talking about wave action, or sinking.
It's got to have been destroyed by now. We can't let other nations reverse engineer our flap technology.
ITAR needs to step in, cant be dropping indestructible flap technology in the indian ocean.
I would say nuke it from orbit, but I think that flap would laugh at a mere fusion bomb.
then we must use the only other opponent that could challenge the strength of a flap. *Another flap*
I wouldn't be surprised if we had a naval force on patrol in the area so SpaceX could recover the booster and ship given the huge military interest in and applications for the starship program.
I don't know about recovery since it is has the FTS charge, various pressurized things, and some car sized battery packs onboard. But I could definitely see it getting a visual inspection before being used for target practice.
Doubtful. The US Navy has many more important things to do than monitor the reentry of a test spacecraft operated by a private company. No doubt SpaceX hired a couple boats from some bloke in Australia with a Starlink antenna and some cameras as well as perhaps a small radar dish. That might have been standard equipment on the boat too. That isn't exactly a naval force though. If a US Navy fleet was transiting the Indian Ocean, no doubt they would treat the event as an exercise for training. But they wouldn't go out of their way to be there.
You are forgetting about ITAR laws about high performance rocket engines. The most sensitive part of the whole Starship program is the details of how Raptor engine works and what it is made of. The USG does not want china or Russia getting ahold of the most efficient rocket engine ever made because they could reverse engineer it to develop a new wave of ICBMs or a new space capability. The military doesn't care about SpaceX or Musk but they do care about national security secrets, of which raptor engine is likely one. I believe I learned they can't even have foreign-born engineers have access to the engine details.
ITAR is regulated by the US State Department. The DOD really doesn't care that much and the Navy won't bother sending a ship unless it is a Presidential order. SpaceX itself is concerned and may very likely sink rockets themselves simply to keep those engines away from a primary competitor, namely the CNSA. ITAR is a weird law and it will impact citizens of the USA in some odd ways. The primary restriction is that people who aren't US Citizens have severe restrictions on technical access, but even that can be granted in some circumstances. Naturalized citizens like Scott Manley have no problem though if he was to work for SpaceX. If China or Russia got ahold of a Raptor engine, the worst would be a large fine against SpaceX and perhaps Elon Musk personally.. It isn't as if the DOD would sink a Chinese ship which somehow retrieved a Raptor engine.
I'd love to see North Korea try. Seriously!
partial, or mostly GUD?
I'd consider it more of a PUD - a Partial Unscheduled Disassembly. I love a good PUD.
it survived it, I wouldn't say it quite nailed it just yet
Oh well, not a native speaker, I just meant to say it made it
Its okay boss
Your pfp is golden
Nah man, ânailed itâ is correct enough. These guys are just being contrarian for the sake of it. Sure, it could have been better. But for what this flight was expected to doâŠ. It *nailed it*. The fact some heat tiles fell off doesnât remove the fact that it survived reentry which was the point of IFT4.
honestly i would say that this ship nailed its test goals, nailing the operational reuse will come later
I feel like this flight was more successful than hoped though? Not only did they actually soft landing the booster and the ship in the ocean as they hoped, they also did it while having the flap melt in half and engines fail. They get the data on the actual critical temperatures and weak points of the ship/heat shielding, while still accomplishing their goal. They demonstrate how resilient the ship actually is. I'd be much more comfortable flying on a rocket knowing that the flap can melt in half we still can land. Engines on the booster can fail and we still reach desired velocity/altitude. One engine relight can fail and the landing is still soft.
oh for sure, a wild success, no doubt
Let's rephrase - the goals of IFT4 were reached.
If the other 3 flaps were okay, id call it nailed. With a little work needed on the geometry, which should be already solved by the new v2 flaps moving away from the plasma.
Elon would know the conditions of the other flaps, so him brining up one damaged flap means the others are were likely fine. also, front half to 2/3rds of the melting flap's joint was fine, if the entire hinge was problematic, why no melty everywhere? it really does look like this was a localized tile failure spot that was caught on camera, Elon mentioning mentioning loss of multiple tiles reinforces the notion.
I'm so cynical but I was like wow, how lucky are we to have a camera on the only flap that is disintegrating! But then wait, how do we know unless we can see the others? I'm leaning towards the other forward flap enduring similar damage and wouldn't be surprised if the rear ones has some issues too. Would love to know if there were other camera angles!
It looks like we had 2 external cameras at first, one looking from the back towards the front flap and the one we saw the most right beside the front flap. I assume the rear camera died early because we never switched back to it after sparky time. I don't think we had a rear flap view or anything on the other side, at least not public for the stream.
I think one camera was pointing at the front right flap (that one survived), the other one at the aft left flap (probably mounted on the front left flap). You can see the different shape of the cover in front of the aft flap. The aft flap was mostly visible during the smooth plasma portion of the reentry.
>> It looks like we had 2 external cameras > *u/unwantedaccount56:* I think one camera was pointing at the front right flap (that one survived), the other one at the aft left flap IMO, we're seeing much less than half of the video feeds. How would you design the camera setup? The engineers would likely go for one camera per flap, two showing the video we saw and the two others sending a few frames per minute. Possibly adding a couple of IR cameras inside the payload section and another in each fuel tank.
I read somewhere that they had a lot of cameras on the inside that they didn't show. But I don't know how many more outside cameras they had, apart from the 2 shown in the live stream.
> I read somewhere that they had a lot of cameras on the inside that they didn't show One time there was mention of an inside tank view that was accidentally broadcast. They may fear ITAR leakage, so want to vet content before sharing. There was also chase-plane footage that took time to be released. A good algorithm with dozens of cameras would be to relay the top ten fastest rising bit-rates, but maybe not directly in public, again for ITAR reasons.
if there were multiple flap failures, then Elon (who was in the control room looking at all the data) probably wouldn't of said: "Despite loss of ***many tiles*** and ***a*** damaged flap"
If you listen carefully to the official broadcast, they did state before reentry that several tiles were DELIBERATELY left off, so as to assess their overall effectiveness.
They left tiles off on unimportant areas in order to add sensors. Those werenât anywhere near the flaps (as I recall)
Correct, it was only two on the bottom engine skirt.
Three with one of the locations covered with a prototype backup to the tiles.
The left off tiles were all on the engine bay.
Kind of irrelevant to my comment but yes I did hear that part.
There were two tiles left off down on the bottom. Below the lower tank.
So why was the other side ok? Should have similar heat load due to symmetry. Perhaps they lost a tile there.
it really does look like this was a localized tile failure.
I speculate that at least one other flap had burn through, the flap with the camera must've quit working during reentry otherwise I have no doubt they would've switched to it for landing and different reentry angles.
The other camera was on the flap itself. During early stages of entry you could see the whole picture moving with fin movements. It wouldn't have been in a protected window and would have dissolved into plasma bo matter what.
Crispy, and barely holding it, but for sure thought it was going to belly splash with a 1000km/h, but it seemed to at least get some engines relit, and slowed down to a sort of upright landing. I would call that a success, besides the damages along the way.
Really this was the first attempt at reentry. The last flight was uncontrolled before it even got to reentry; no one is going to survive an uncontrolled reentry(excluding passively stabilized capsule designs).
Honestly I'm a little disappointed with the heat shield. It may take weight to solve this issue. Certainly time. Impressive landing yes, but IFT2-3 exposed smaller critical errors. IFT1 was bad with the engines, but luckily it was solved with newer engines. Landing half burned up isn't exactly re-usable although it LOOKs cool. Today was impressive, but we don't know how difficult it will be fixing this. And since they didn't do engine re-light in space you can't use it as a conventional rocket while testing yet either.
The burning flap is a localised issue, not a general heat shield problem. Elon previously mentioned that it's hard to stop plasma from entering at the hinge. They still have a lot to do, but this flight gave me a lot of optimism.
>but luckily it was solved with newer engines. I feel like this is *slightly* underselling the engineering; I'm not sure "luck" is the motivating force here.
They purposefully removed tiles before launch in some places that should have been survivable to see how well it could handle unexpected heating, and well it did ! So no I'm pretty certain that's why it was such a crispy landing!
Ha, I love the fact that they removed 2 tiles in non critical areas just so they could say this on the webcast so people would write off any issues due to tiles failing :)
By removing tiles they have opened gaps which would make it much easier for other adjacent tiles to get ripped by air However I do agree that we do not know which part of the crispiness was caused by their test, and which part just by the expected number of times falling off
I was too young to appreciate when the last Apollo missions were flown. But having obsessively followed all things space since the mid-70âs, this was easily the second* most impressive flight Iâve ever witnessed. When the flap was disintegrating at 20k kph, it felt like the goal of a reusable second stage was still far away. But damn if that ship didnât hold together all the way down - so exciting and SpaceX must have learned a ton! Just an incredible engineering achievement by the SpaceX team! * my top âwowâ moment was the successful first flight of the shuttle. Zero test flights with 2 crew will never be done again.
Ehh, the first crewed shuttle mission succeeded by the skin of its teeth, they almost lost it a few times during that mission.
Itâs incredible that they cleared the launch tower with the payload mass of their gargantuan balls.
⊠*looks at starliner test flight with 2 crew*
⊠looks at reading comprehension. There were 100+ Atlas launches and 2 Starliner test flights before yesterdayâs crewed mission.
for even more confirmation
This kinda implies the three others were fine. Good lordy this was a nail biter!
Booster catch for ift-5?
I think they want two towers before the first catch. So they probably get 2 or 3 IFTs in before the catch tower is ready.
I'd imagine they want a few successful virtual catches before risking a tower.
Elon just tweeted, "I think we should try to catch the booster with the mechazilla arms next flight!", so I guess they just might try a booster catch on IFT5. Timeline wise, if there's currently a delay between IFT5 & the debut of Starship V2 flight tests, then there might be enough time to refurb the tower/arms if there's a mishap. Or they might be cool with a multi-month delay if the damage is so bad that they have to complete tower #2.
There are some times I love elons "fuck it, we're doing it live people!" approach
The most important thing Elon brings to the table. A single guy who can say "yes" or "no". Company invests untold millions in the world's largest composite assembly for a gigantic fuel tank.. guy makes a case that stainless steel would be better... Elon: "You're right, scrap the untold millions in investment, folks, we're going stainless steel!" Just imagine that in any other company
Not being public has its advantages.
One of my favorite public examples of this is told by NASA senior scientist Dr. Dan Rasky. Elon decided that SpaceX should make their own TPS material for the heatshield for Dragon instead of buying it after Dan explained the pros/cons in 3-4 minutes. [https://youtu.be/P06X2TZUKZU?si=gKFFsgd0siGebuAg&t=190](https://youtu.be/P06X2TZUKZU?si=gKFFsgd0siGebuAg&t=190)
Honestly, that's exactly what a good Chief Engineer needs to do. Determine when to take what risks. I've worked under CEs who require studies upon studies for a decision that end up taking longer than actually taking the risk and fixing problems that would come up
Gets worse when budgets come in to play. Lots of money in the budget for simulations and studies, not so much for hardware. Lets move the budget is what an engineer would say. CFO would say, not on my watch, budgets for consulting with Board members family companies come first not hardware.
What do you mean you want the company to make money? I want to make money!
You need a leader who understands that a 3 month delay = 3 months of paying everyone's salaries, which is a lot more expensive than just doing the damn test.
Personally I would want 1-2 more ocean attempts to determine consistency and make sure we don't get repeat issues we thought were fixed or new issues. If the next 1-2 flights all land without any major issues and seem precise enough then we send it.
Your way gets good at water landings. Thats not useful. Blowing up the mechzilla - thats worth watching !
Eh I don't agree, everything they need aside from any special ground system localization would be tested. They get data on landing precision consistency and can refine the controls algorithms if needed. That goes directly into how well a tower catch can go. They would find any near surface level issues with the vehicle before risking the tower. That makes sure the tower catch isn't going to be ruined with another ice or filter issue that wasn't completely fixed. 1 single success at water landing isn't really validated without at least another attempt so we have at 2 flights to compare data against and plot a trend.
If the booster hits the tank farm đ€·
They already said they will attempt a tower catch after a successful booster soft landing in the ocean
Depends on the objectives. With both SS and SH doing a pretty good job at soft water landing, I can imagine there's not much left to test for a similar flight. If that's the case they might as well just risk it and take the learnings into account for the 2nd tower. Worst case they'd have to wait for the 2nd tower to complete before the next flight, but if they wait for it to be finished beforehand they'd be waiting just as long.
Ol' Musky tweeted that's the plan, guess we'll see how reliable that ends up being.
They'd probably also want at least one test of the new flap design and it's survivability before risking the tower. No reason to throw extra unknown variables at the situation when you're already doing something as insane as catching a flying tower with a building.
They are talking about catching the booster, not the ship. No flaps involved.
You know what I misread that. I was in a different thread and people were jumping around talking about getting ship ready to catch and I combined them. My bad.
Meh, just because you were wrong or mixed up, doesn't mean you should be down voted. I guess that's reddit for you.
Meh. People treat that button as a I like or don't like you button. I know I've been guilty of it at times too. I made a mistake I'm not going to sweat some imaginary internet points. It happens I'll just use it as a reminder to double check which thread I'm in next time.
The risk can be assessed in realtime by the computers. I think the ship will aim for a soft landing 500m out in the gulf, and if everything is working well at 2km altitude, the trajectory can be adjusted automatically to land in the arms. (spitballed numbers) I believe the F9 landings use a variation on this approach.
I'm sure it can do all that, and that they are almost 100% certainly using the F9 or a slightly modified version of the landing software. (there's really no reason not to.) My concern is two fold 1) I originally misread/crossed threads and was thinking people were talking about the Starship which will have a very very different set of landing parameters. IE comes in from the west, burns off a lot more speed, will cross US continental lands. 2) Even if they are reusing the Falcon landing software it's a new system with new quirks. That landing tower is expensive and they want to be as sure as they can be that they won't blow it up and set themselves back months. So IMO landing the booster will almost certainly wait until they have a second tower, and while they wait for that back up, they'll probably keep testing in the gulf with more and more aggressive landing profiles to see what they can see with minimal risks. Unless IFT5 takes a long time to happen I wouldn't expect them to have the second tower ready so I won't wager on them risking the landing. Because if they want 9 flights this year they need to make flight 5 happen ASAP. (Yes I know 9 is super aspirational doesn't negate the fact they are shooting high.) So if all my suppositions hold IFT isn't likely to be the catch test. I'd wager 6 at the earliest. But more likely 7 if they really want to test all those changes they made on the interim prototypes. I think it's more likely we'll see them testing Starlink launches before we see the landing test. I'd wager that's part of IFT6 with 5 testing the doors and the like when they do engine relights.
I was thinking about the Starship as well. In that respect, your point 1 is a good one, I hadn't considered the ground track when Starship RTLS. They may not want to, or even be allowed to reenter over land until the flaps are more reliable. However, the booster returns from the east and already landed near Boca Chica in IFT4. Using the "last minute redirect", I feel the risk to the tower **may** be acceptably low. It also depends on whether the landing position and velocity were acceptably accurate today, which I don't think we know.
Well supposedly some people saw the tower doing close tests right as the booster was trying to land so it might well be the case they are virtual catching the booster with the tower to see how well it goes. Depending on what they found maybe they'll have more confidence than I would. I'd rather run more tests and dump a few boosters than blow up my only functional launch pad and set me back months.
Remember though that here is barely any fuel left at landing, so it can't really blow anything up. And it doesn't have a lot of mass (compared to a loaded one LOL). So the only way it could cause a lot of damage is if it were moving way too fast, which the redirect thing should prevent. Granted, if the positioning or attitude was bad, it could probably break off one of the arms or something. And the job of cutting it up and removing the pieces would be big.
I think you're not appreciating just how much mass it still is even if it's not as much as it would be fully loaded. It's not about the redirect, it's about being even slightly off target for any reason or if the arms don't work as expected that's still tons and tons of mass collapsing at some kind of speed even a few kph with that much mass is a huge amount of potential energy. Have that do an accidental power slide the wrong way and whoops there goes the launch tower. Even sheering off an arm would mean weeks if not months of delays. Clean up would be easy if it just crumpled into slag, but that's not likely to happen. We saw what even a minimally loaded Starship looks like when it goes kaboom several times. There's a fire ball and things go to pieces with extreme vigor. Some of those bits going into a tower could mean major repair work if they hit something. Again I'm not the engineers, but I've had to plan disaster recovery and worst case scenarios for jobs more than a few times. IME if the failures can results in months of delays and setbacks it's an unacceptable failure condition. Better to figure out how to mitigate it, or simply wait until the back up is ready. But I'm also not in a cutting edge company that embraces break things and move fast.
You could totally be right. I'm not an engineer either. (Well not that kind). Musk did tweet "I think we should try to catch the booster with the mechazilla arms next flight!", but that's obviously not a firm plan or anything.
In reply to a response to this tweet Elon said he thinks they should. Personally I hope they have another tower up by then! I Very ambitious but that's who they are.
Iâd wager the benefits of maybe catching the next booster outweigh the costs of maybe destroying a launch tower. And not just for the bragging rights of saying, âWe caught one!â Think of how much they will learn about the state of a booster and its engines after a complete launch-and-recovery cycle.
Early next year was the general idea from a different thread I was reading
Will they include payload next time?
I think they need to prove inflight relight of raptor before they bring payload. Iâm sure they have their reasons, but Iâm not sure why they didnât try that today.
My guess is they didn't want any potential issues from failed relight to effect testing heat shield reentry test. If a relight issue caused it to tumble then it may not reenter at proper orientation for heat shield.
I might be wrong but i think at this stage they can only relight once, so either inflight or landing burn. Same reason they werenât going to attempt ship belly flop landing in IFT-3. It has to do with the max amount of gas to spin up raptors that they can store.
One relight is simply insufficient. They need deorbit and then landing. Is that addressed in V2?
This is a very astute obervation/guess. Im pretty sure most of us didnt thought about this.
I don't know what that would buy them. If it becomes space debris, it does not matter if there are satellites onboard
If they make orbit and can't do the deorbit burn, it will come down **randomly** later. And it's a large object designed to survive reentry. If they do make orbit, they need to make sure it will come down in the designated area. It's not just 'space debris'.
Why can't the test happen on the same flight? Pick a starlink shell that aligns with boca chica AND a safe ballistic landing splashdown site. If the re-light fails, ship goes into the ocean. If the re-light succeeds, proceed to starlink deployment altitude.Â
The Booster throws Starship in the air with just enough flight time to do it's burn and reach orbit. They must burn for orbit after separating from the booster. What you're suggesting wouldn't be representative anyway, so it wouldn't be an interesting test.
I don't know what you're talking about. Just like today, the ship would burn to orbital velocity. It would shut down engines while on a ballistically safe path, then attempt the re-light. If re-light fails, it would reenter just like today. If the re-light succeeds, raise altitude and deploy sats because now they have proven they can re-light and are thus safe to go to orbit.Â
The problem with that is that there's a chance of failure midway through the circularization burn. The thing would then end up in a short lived orbit which would decay in a random spot.
That will always be a risk. If that's a showstopper then starship can never be allowed to go to orbit.Â
You're proposing that for a test flight. On operational flights this would be OK, except pretty pointless.
They must burn all the way to orbit or not at all.
What? No. That's wrong. Rockets routinely go to an elliptical orbit, coast, then re-light to circularize. In this case the ellipse would be eccentric enough that it intersects the atmosphere, just like today's launch achieved orbital velocity and altitude but still intersected the atmosphere.Â
You need two relights, though - one to circularize for deploying starlink satellites, and then another for a deorbit burn? If the second relight fails you now have a starship orbiting in a starlink orbit.
Rockets don't have to prove every capability before they use it. Look at other new rockets, they don't test the inflight termination systems on every rocket. They determine their safety by analysis.  The relight test is to prove the design approach, not a requirement that every single thing that happens on the rocket must be tested suborbital before it goes orbital. I think that's the mistake that people are making.  A rocket that has non-working flight termination system could be an incredible danger, yet they regularly launch new rockets without that having been tested on a live rocket. You don't need 100% test coverage of every possible failure mode. You need to have good analysis, and you need to prove the analysis. If you can relight once at zero g, then you have proven that your design for relighting in zero g is good. You've proven the design. Once the design is proven there's no reason to assume a thied light will be somehow different than the second.Â
It buys them the ability to controllably de-orbit a 100 ton stainless steel spacecraft, most of which would survive a re-entry and potentially cause significant damage on the ground. The flight path today always put it back in the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean. A full orbit to deploy satellites could see it fall to the ground anywhere.
No, not anywhere. There are lots of trajectories that are ballistically safe and would align with a starlink shell. That spot in the Indian ocean isn't the only safe place to splash down.Â
Not really. Once the thing is in orbit but unable to diva controlled deorbit, it will fall anyway between N and S latitudes equal to the Starlink deployment orbit inclination.
I must be explaining this poorly. My apologies. There are ballistically safe trajectories that also align with starlink orbital inclinations You don't go to starlink deployment altitude until you've proven you can re-light. Once you've proven you can re-light then you no longer need a ballistically safe trajectory, since you've proven you can safely deorbit.Â
Tim Dodd.
Should be a Tesla Semi this time.
Remember when we thought having 2 missing tiles for a test meant doom.... Evidently it can take more than that...
Evidently a LOT more. The damage suffered by starship on reentry would have doomed any other spacecraft. Not only did starship lose a lot more than 2 tiles, but it also lost half of the forward flap. If anything this âfailureâ is better than a perfect success for the simple reason that it shows how resilient Starship is
Yes, ,kind of like watching IFT-1 do 2 complete flips AFTER the FTS was triggered... whereas any OTHER rocket would have folded up and exploded as soon as it got out of alignment.
Agreed. I think it really proves the strategy of using stainless steel. We've all known in theory that stainless steel has structural advantages over aluminum at high temperatures but nothing quite demonstrates that like having major structural components burn through and the craft still landing successfully. And it also says that in the future even if there are occasional failures of the TPS it will likely mean a repair and refurbishment, not an entirely new vehicle.
Starship is made out of steel, which if exposed to such a plasma torch does take some time before failure. If it was made out of aluminum đŹ
You donât have to imagine, just look at the Space Shuttle Columbia. Columbia was aluminum and had a similar failure and we all know how that ended
Yeah I think at the belly it stream isn't concentrated and therefore not as hot. But men, around the flap hinges it was very much concentrated, at some point you could even see the skin glowing between the cracks of the tiles.
I am very curious how the media will spin this flight into a failure this time.
CNN has a very favorable article up right now about it, they didn't try to spin anything and actually accurately described SpaceX's design philosphy. I was shocked.
guess this was too good to do negative click bait.
Or they were afraid of getting body slammed as soon as anyone saw the videos on the evening news, kind of like Snopes was when they initially rated it as "plausible" that a Starlink communications breakdown caused the Oceangate implosion.
Bezos fan club must have run out of money, or some congressmen need to sign off on some pork bill to fund space something or other.
"Musk's Starship rocket makes breakthrough ocean landing" - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp66ye6ep63o
Pretty favourable article.
Most of the articles have been. CNN was surprisingly effusive.
Elon's Rocket Melts as it Meets Another Fiery End.
After an engine loss the doomed ship started shedding parts over the Indian ocean.....some BS like that lol
So far Iâm seeing positive headlines, which feelsâŠodd
I'm sure that they will mention that one out of 33 engines failed to ignite and a flap was damaged, but those facts are too boring to be a headline. The successful landing of both the booster and ship is just too impressive. I am pretty sure it's a historical first, and anyone can see it in glorious hi def.
2032 - Starship flies an additional civil engineers, scientists, and civilians to moon. Flight at half capacity - wastes resources
>SpaceX successfully lands starship That was the CNN banner a few minutes ago. Or something to that effect.
SpaceX no longer recovering boosters for reuse is the company going backwards?
Elon Musk's pet rocket drowns.
Well youâve already started the doom and gloom so⊠ever thought about just avoiding random peoples ramblings? There just the weirdo at the end of your road and youâre now thinking they not just idiots???
A day after boings successful flight, Musks rocket can't handle the heat
That's quite a burn towards spacex
No, my bs media says just its succesful landing lol its a good sign from that corner
USA Today at least didnât spin it badly. https://apple.news/AoH3FIa7lTgKS5hWegWojUQ
"...loss of many tiles and a damaged flap.." Is Elon referring to tiles lost from that damaged flap, or from the stainless steel hull of S29 or both? Regardless, IFT-4 doesn't sound good for the tiles.
From what I saw in the video, it looks like it lost a tile or two at the "seal area" and they started slowly zippering off, after which there was significant burn through of the flap itself. Everything else looks like it survived nicely on the main hull.
When that zipper started, I fully expected that they'd lose the flap almost immediately. Then it melted through and I said "It's happening!" It is really incredibly robust. Granted they were halfway through the reentry, so it didn't get all of the heating on just the stainless steel.
> Is Elon referring to tiles lost from that damaged flap, or from the stainless steel hull of S29 or both? I think it's safe to assume that the hull didn't lose any tiles, given how quickly the flap started disintegrating once it lost its tiles. Gives a good idea of how quickly and completely the plasma would burn through any unprotected steel, if it lost a tile at the maximum heat part of reentry it would probably be only a matter of seconds before the plasma burned through the tanks and caused an explosion. Pretty impressive how long Columbia lasted with a massive hole in a wing made out of aluminum. For reference compared to [this image](https://preview.redd.it/780dtztmky4d1.jpeg?auto=webp&s=05aebe57de31990a8df5478ea2b86fa3a418054d), Space Shuttle Columbia broke up at roughly 55 kilometers altitude while going roughly 22,000 km/h.
Most tiles have backing from a refractory mineral wool. It's not a strong material but it would likely hold for a while. But there's an exception to that: tiles around tighter curves like flap root covers don't have such backing layer, the are just thicker. If such a tile falls, there's nothing but exposed skin (and silicon glue residue).
ÂŻ\\\_(ă)_/ÂŻ
Starship proves again the correctness in the decision of using stainless steel for the hull. It can take some abuse and still come through. Looks like the front and rear control hinge flap area needs work. Could look at NASA's Alloy GRX-810 for the hinge area. It allows you to 3d print the hinge to best match the protective heat tile pattern or gasket above. It has high heat and high durability factors. Space Shuttle was investigating use of ALON for windows. Space X could explore the use of replaceable ALON ferule lens over the existing digital cameras to protect them. ALON is transparent lens material, has 1200 f higher melting temperature than Stainless Steel. Able to withstand the force of a 5O caliber bullet. It may be able to be used in very high heat, high damage prone places in and around Starship.
How do you know that are not already using sapphire lens covers ?
Do we even need flaps?
What is the alternative, more of a lifting-body oval cross-section? Even more like Thunderbird 2? Trading lift-off drag for descent survival. Does that optimise down to an arc cross-section, with just 1 curved side on an otherwise-triangular (or hexagonal) tank stack to impact the plasma?
Shape it like the space shuttle but still land vertically?Â
I'd say the Orbiter was even more flappy/wingy yet, which would impede the flip.
Rounded shapes like the cylinder used for Starship have less stress points. The heat is more spread out. I think the trouble with the space shuttle was it got cooked and needed the heat sheild refurbed every time. Its a tricky problem. How do you make a control surface that's also part of the hull... no weak attachment points? I think they need a solid flap with a way of allowing the gas through it when they need it and blocking it when they dont.
[active flow control ](https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/10/revolutionary-darpa-x-65-plane-with-no-moving-parts.html)
Probably won't work for Starship. > X-65 will use active flow control using bursts of air rather than moving flight surfaces Starship already has RCS and they weren't enough to control attitude, and almost certainly aren't as mass-efficient as a contantly-present surface. Until I found that detail about air bursts, I wondered if that X-65 was using [aeroelasticity like the X-53](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_X-53_Active_Aeroelastic_Wing). Probably equally unviable in a hypersonic regime.
Space elevator?
[Move over sci-fi, welcome to the sky-hook](https://youtu.be/dqwpQarrDwk?t=74).
[More in-depth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlpFzn_Y-F0)
very much, imagine if its starting to rotate along its longitudinal axis. would be very hard to stop spinning using just thrusters
Probably, but the question now is do they need flaps that big if they still have control after losing 25%
Yeah, this flight demonstrated yet again that starship has a ton of opportunities for mass savings. The fact it survived is great, but clearly those flaps are overbuilt if they can survive that. Thereâs hope yet. So much optimization. Nowhere near peak performance
you also have to take into account that the "production" version will be heavier, so it will need more control authority than this one.
You might not like it, but this is what peak spacecraft performance looks like. (just in case anyone is confused, this is based on a meme lol)
You'll need a lot of control authority to account for variations in payload and setup.
I believe the physics of high speed plasma interface are only partially/not well understood. So they likely errored on the side of caution for control surfaces and were going to rely on real world data to refine the design. So yes, I would expect there is more optimization to be had here. It will just be interesting to see how they mitigate the plasma getting in between the flap hinge and the hull.
That depends if they keep the ablative flaps. Maybe reusable flaps could be smaller.
Bring back the space orca! ITS had no flaps.
best flap is no flap?!
The fuel was depleted so we are talking big empty cylinder. If it didnât break on impact it may be floating at the ocean (like the previous falcon9 which landed into ocean). Not just that - it is probably still communicating via Starlink. I would be not surprised to see this one being pulled by the boat soon.
The chinese are en-route No doubt
> it is probably still communicating via Starlink It was. Cameras showed water line over the glass. > like the previous falcon9 which landed into ocean It's possible Starship didn't sink. But then the plan would be the same as it was with the Falcon 9 that didn't sink: the Navy is supposed to shoot it down.
ULA is pissed off rn
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH
Itâs funny this guy was gloating âhe was rightâ five days ago when in retrospect if they listened to him they would have over designed the ship. https://x.com/drchriscombs/status/1796914534118023578 https://x.com/drchriscombs/status/1796915432634433856
to be fair, "anywhere on the fuel tanks" would count as "in most places", as that would be easily over 60% of the tiled surface. The heat burned through the exposed steel with ease. Had the heat shield breach occurred on the tank, the thing would've probably RUD'd rather quickly. Here we were just lucky that it just happened to take out an impressively large, but nonessential chunck of a flap hinge. Then again, the geometry probably makes a heat shield breach over the tank way less likely.
Why would you assume it âonlyâ lost tiles by the flaps? Without this video youâd probably be assuming that no tiles were lost at all.
because the video shows what happens to unprotected steel in reentry conditions. if this were to happen to a fuel tank, it would probably blow up. that made me assume that the fuel tank didnt get its tiles blown off. because it didnt blow up. of course, there could be other things at play here.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[AFTS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7og0xe "Last usage")|Autonomous Flight Termination System, see FTS| |[CNSA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l8c6baz "Last usage")|Chinese National Space Administration| |CST|(Boeing) Crew Space Transportation capsules| | |Central Standard Time (UTC-6)| |[FAA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7fmtk4 "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration| |[FTS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7oztoh "Last usage")|Flight Termination System| |[ICBM](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l8augtu "Last usage")|Intercontinental Ballistic Missile| |[ITAR](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l8c6baz "Last usage")|(US) International Traffic in Arms Regulations| |[ITS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7dqxos "Last usage")|Interplanetary Transport System (2016 oversized edition) (see MCT)| | |[Integrated Truss Structure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Truss_Structure)| |MCT|Mars Colonial Transporter (see ITS)| |[RCS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7fimp0 "Last usage")|Reaction Control System| |[RSD](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7e5foo "Last usage")|Rapid Scheduled Disassembly (explosive bolts/charges)| |[RTLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7fid70 "Last usage")|Return to Launch Site| |[RUD](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7foxiq "Last usage")|Rapid Unplanned Disassembly| | |Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly| | |Rapid Unintended Disassembly| |[TPS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7hxsfa "Last usage")|Thermal Protection System for a spacecraft (on the Falcon 9 first stage, the engine "Dance floor")| |[ULA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7e9fvf "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[Raptor](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l8c6baz "Last usage")|[Methane-fueled rocket engine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_\(rocket_engine_family\)) under development by SpaceX| |[Starliner](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7escjt "Last usage")|Boeing commercial crew capsule [CST-100](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_CST-100_Starliner)| |[Starlink](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l84ai85 "Last usage")|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation| |[ablative](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7fci8e "Last usage")|Material which is intentionally destroyed in use (for example, heatshields which burn away to dissipate heat)| |[granularity](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1d9j3g5/stub/l7oztoh "Last usage")|(In re: rocket engines) Allowing for engine-out capability when determining minimum engine count| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj) ^(18 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1dlm9ro)^( has 16 acronyms.) ^([Thread #12860 for this sub, first seen 6th Jun 2024, 15:07]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceXLounge) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
So, do they even need a failure investigation report before flight 5?
They will have one but the FAA will grant the IFT5 license as soon as SpaceX is ready. They almost certainly maintained all the safety criteria.
No mishap investigation afaik, no vehicles were lost.
Will Australia recover the Starship? Seems unwise to leave it, and its alien technology, for the CCP.
Was still in communication via Starlink after splashdown, my uneducated guess is they triggered the FTS and hope that that means the whole thing sinks.
Starship's virtual landing D-Day was on the sixth day of the sixth month at launch plus sixty-six minutes and 6 seconds.
I mean if they did plan to recover both (having a drone ship near where the targeted landing was). How would they deal with the self destruct charges?
The same way they deal with Falcon 9's. They can remotely reset the safeties and then they deactivate them as soon as the droneship gets to port.
Yeah, I figured that too. My concern is the stresses the thing went through and the water touch down. Wasn't sure if that would create some difficulty for them to do so remotely. Is the explosive attached to the shell of starship or inside?
"Many Tiles" is a bit surprising to hear even if it could mean anything from like 10 to dozens.
I hope this isn't too over-the-top, but I must claim substantial responsibility for yesterdays successful flight. After Starship's explosive 3rd flight, I tweeted a solution to the overheating problem to Elon. Like most great ideas, it was simple: use genuine Gorilla GlueÂź to hold the tiles on. It's clear from yesterday's successful flight that Elon/SpaceX took my advice. I'm over-joyed to be a part of this great achievement. Please share this moment with me!
Gorilla Glue: SERVICE TEMPERATURE â-40° to 200° F. Better to just spit on that thing to hold it together.