Starship Flight 11 on for Monday. Stacking video below

[glhs837]

Start about 6134pm on the top clock. Best views we've really seen of the stack.

SpaceX Rolls and Stacks Starship 38 for Launch

Join us as SpaceX rolls out Starship Ship 38 to the Launch Site at Starbase, Boca Chica, Texas, for a LaunchShip 38 is the last Block 2 Starship and will be ...

www.youtube.com

Also amazing view of the heatshield. Missing sections on purpose to see what happens if you are missing tiles on reentry in the worst possible places. Click through to reddit, then click on the photo for a super res version.

 

[stgislander]

Last of the Flight 2 Starships and Indian Ocean splashes correct? I'm looking forward to the orbit and landing attempts at Boca Chica.

 

[glhs837]

Last of the Flight 2 Starships and Indian Ocean splashes correct? I'm looking forward to the orbit and landing attempts at Boca Chica.

Yes to the first, not sure of the second.b they have asked NASA and FAA for permission to come in over land, but I don't know that that's been granted and I don't know that they're willing to go there quite yet. Possibly the next two or three do go orbital and then end up in the so-called graveyard in the Pacific

 

[glhs837]

Last of the Flight 2 Starships and Indian Ocean splashes correct? I'm looking forward to the orbit and landing attempts at Boca Chica.

 

[stgislander]

Did it launch last evening?

 

[glhs837]

Did it launch last evening?

Oh buddy, did it....

1. That long booster hover...... called out as "representative of a V3 profile". I think to build confidence that this thing has the hang time to correct any issues or even head out over the water if the catch tower has a problem.

2. Starlink simulators all cleared with no issues. Mechanism seems to travel smoother.

3. Even with tiles removed from critical places like the ventral "spine" no issues. Flaps suffered no burn through.

4. Another perfect flip move and water landing. I cannot find the recap video that has the drone views, but you can see from the flap camera that they came down almost on top of the buoy.

 

[Kyle]

Wait… I thought the purpose of these things was to land cleanly on a surface so it could be reused?

This one looked like it was going to submerge and then it blew up. What the ****?

 

[glhs837]

Wait… I thought the purpose of these things was to land cleanly on a surface so it could be reused?

This one looked like it was going to submerge and then it blew up. What the ****?

So remember they are still in testing.

Booster catching, they have done twice flawlessly. Since they have 500 or so Falcon landings, they have a good bead on that process. These last four flights have focused on pushing the boosters limits, no point in doing that for a catch and risking "Stage Zero" as they call the ground equipment like the tower and mount. So its been water landings, but they also have a simultaneous sim running in both booster and tower to simulate a catch. Booster has a digital sim of the tower it is navigating towards, Tower is seeing the boosters actions and acting in coordination. So we can shut down engines to simulate failure and see if the booster can light up other engines and correct for the off center thrust. We can bring it back at a higher speed to make sure it can slow itself

Ship, they are doing similar water landings, but more of them. Remember, no craft in the history of rocketry has reeentered this way, and free fallen while guiding its course with flaps and then done a pitch over and propulsive landing. So they need more data in the books before attempting the catch. Higher risk with the Ship means more danger to Stage Zero. They are building a second tower and launch mount. So they can refit Tower One to catch the new Ships and a failure on landing wont shut down the whole program.

 

[glhs837]

Did it launch last evening?

Wait… I thought the purpose of these things was to land cleanly on a surface so it could be reused?

This one looked like it was going to submerge and then it blew up. What the ****?

Note the way it assumes a perfectly upright posture towards the end. That's the simulated catch. She looks rough, but keep in mind, they removed far more tiles in the worst places than they ever expect to loose so reentry was worst case.

 

[ontheriver]

Note the way it assumes a perfectly upright posture towards the end. That's the simulated catch. She looks rough, but keep in mind, they removed far more tiles in the worst places than they ever expect to loose so reentry was worst case.

That's amazing stuff right there. Really amazing.

 

[glhs837]

That's amazing stuff right there. Really amazing.

Ready for more amazing? This is a 200+ foot, over 200 ton rocket hovering precisely in space over an exact point. When people start fear mongering over the safety of the system, this footage shows what the rocket can do. Open in and view it full screen.

 

[glhs837]

One last bit for now. If you didn't watch closely, you might have missed the fact that during final parts of reentry the ship actually made some changes to its flight path. Somebody much smarter than me plotted those and overlaid them on what would be a nominal approach to Star base returning from an orbital mission. This move would allow it to avoid Brownsville and other populated areas. Of course you lose altitude for every change in trajectory, but they got lots of it to play with.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/s/UMkqrDnBZd

 

[stgislander]

Someone on NASA Spaceflight wondered out loud what the belly flop and flip maneuvers would feel like from the astronauts' perspective.

 

[glhs837]

Someone on NASA Spaceflight wondered out loud what the belly flop and flip maneuvers would feel like from the astronauts' perspective.

I'm going to guess there are amusement park thrill rides that exceed the Gs. But of course the knowledge that you're not on a thrill ride, but instead inside a tube packed with tons of explosive gases will make it feel a bit different

 

[glhs837]

So someone way smarter than me plotted the terminal maneuvers this one did. And overlaid it to show that it was a Return To Landing Site (RTLS) simulation for Boca, with a dogleg at the end to swerve around populated areas. A bit slow to get to the interesting part, but the last few minutes are pratty crazy. Watch the speed and altitude readings. And not how long the thing is effectively in free fall towards the end.

 

[stgislander]

Is the red/orange line a vector of some sort?

 

[glhs837]

Is the red/orange line a vector of some sort?

That's what it looks to be, although except not projecting expected path but showing the past path.

 

[DoWhat]

Ready for more amazing? This is a 200+ foot, over 200 ton rocket hovering precisely in space over an exact point. When people start fear mongering over the safety of the system, this footage shows what the rocket can do. Open in and view it full screen.

How many fishies did it kill?

 

[glhs837]

How many fishies did it kill?

That's why it hovered so long, to survey for fishes.