SpaceX building Starship in Texas (live videos of construction)

Biggest and most powerful rocket ever assembled.
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elite09 said:
No, suborbital flights are expected before trying to fly the booster.

Booster needs to do quite a lot fire testings before it's taken to the launch pad.
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While that was the initial plan, Some signs point to the next flight being orbital.

Booster 4 has no landing mechanism, its supposed to be caught by the tower, which isnt finished. They have no way to safely land the booster, and it does have the full engine compliment.
 
Roll Fizzlebeef said:
While that was the initial plan, Some signs point to the next flight being orbital.

Booster 4 has no landing mechanism, its supposed to be caught by the tower, which isnt finished. They have no way to safely land the booster, and it does have the full engine compliment.
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Isn't the suborbital hop ditching both booster and starship in the ocean? Booster in the Atlantic, and Starship off the coast of Hawaii? I don't think they're going to try landing either component, as I doubt they want to try landing the booster after a full burn, with no prior test hops. And starship will be going at pretty close to orbital speeds, so no guarantee yet that it can survive re-entry.
 
MastaKiiLA said:
Isn't the suborbital hop ditching both booster and starship in the ocean? Booster in the Atlantic, and Starship off the coast of Hawaii? I don't think they're going to try landing either component, as I doubt they want to try landing the booster after a full burn, with no prior test hops. And starship will be going at pretty close to orbital speeds, so no guarantee yet that it can survive re-entry.
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yes, some consider that to be orbital. myself included. Its doing everything but completing its orbital burn, its Cutting it short to come down near Hawaii. It might as well be orbital at that point :) And it will be fueled up as if it was an orbital flight lol

Maybe theyll complete the Circulation burn, and then do a planned de orbit. would be able to test even more that way lol
 
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Roll Fizzlebeef said:
While that was the initial plan, Some signs point to the next flight being orbital.

Booster 4 has no landing mechanism, its supposed to be caught by the tower, which isnt finished. They have no way to safely land the booster, and it does have the full engine compliment.
Click to expand...
I don't think they'll throw away dozens of Raptors which their combined cost is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Also the booster needs to be tested throughtly first, that full stack, fully fueled, has enough energy to badly damage the facilities if it explodes on the pad.
 
elite09 said:
I don't think they'll throw away dozens of Raptors which their combined cost is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Also the booster needs to be tested throughtly first, that full stack, fully fueled, has enough energy to badly damage the facilities if it explodes on the pad.
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From our understanding the current plan is to land B4 into the drink. The raptors will be destroyed, but They feel like will get enough data and the raptors are not production models yet.

There is no way to recover the booster right now, It has no legs and the catch mechanism has a long LONG way to go. This will be similar to early Falcon 9 launches where they practice soft touchdowns in the ocean, and blow it up if it stays in 1 piece
 
elite09 said:
I don't think they'll throw away dozens of Raptors which their combined cost is in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Also the booster needs to be tested throughtly first, that full stack, fully fueled, has enough energy to badly damage the facilities if it explodes on the pad.
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they have flat out said that they plan on expending the first several boosters and starships, there is a reason they are building a factory to mass produce raptors and are already developing revisions to simplify the design to make it cheaper to produce.

Even now, dozens of raptors do not cost hundreds of millions of dollars. They can't be anything close to that expensive given what we know about their production rate. Obviously still a significant cost, and their resources aren't unlimited, but they seem plenty willing to burn some cash to learn some things.

What you say about testing is obviously true and is probably the one outcome that would represent a significant setback to the starship program given the time and money invested in the launch infrastructure. I believe they are confident in avoiding that outcome, or they wouldn't be building all the launch infrastructure ahead of time and so close to the pad. I don't believe spacex has ever had a pad fallback and only the one pad test failure.
 
iamblades said:
they have flat out said that they plan on expending the first several boosters and starships, there is a reason they are building a factory to mass produce raptors and are already developing revisions to simplify the design to make it cheaper to produce.

Even now, dozens of raptors do not cost hundreds of millions of dollars. They can't be anything close to that expensive given what we know about their production rate. Obviously still a significant cost, and their resources aren't unlimited, but they seem plenty willing to burn some cash to learn some things.

What you say about testing is obviously true and is probably the one outcome that would represent a significant setback to the starship program given the time and money invested in the launch infrastructure. I believe they are confident in avoiding that outcome, or they wouldn't be building all the launch infrastructure ahead of time and so close to the pad. I don't believe spacex has ever had a pad fallback and only the one pad test failure.
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I'm curious to know if they'll do 150m hope with the booster, in order to practice catches, rather than testing that mechanism after a full-burn. They should be able to replicate landing speeds with short hops. It would definitely cut down on the cost of replacing engines.

Also, while they are ditching in the ocean, I thought the goal was to recover the boosters. Can they refurbish engines after they've been exposed to saltwater, or is it just too corrosive?
 
MastaKiiLA said:
I'm curious to know if they'll do 150m hope with the booster, in order to practice catches, rather than testing that mechanism after a full-burn. They should be able to replicate landing speeds with short hops. It would definitely cut down on the cost of replacing engines.

Also, while they are ditching in the ocean, I thought the goal was to recover the boosters. Can they refurbish engines after they've been exposed to saltwater, or is it just too corrosive?
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Way to corrosive. I was thinking they may try to recover it to do a full teardown, but the NSF team that streams keep saying spacex will sink it if it lands in 1 piece
 
MastaKiiLA said:
I'm curious to know if they'll do 150m hope with the booster, in order to practice catches, rather than testing that mechanism after a full-burn. They should be able to replicate landing speeds with short hops. It would definitely cut down on the cost of replacing engines.

Also, while they are ditching in the ocean, I thought the goal was to recover the boosters. Can they refurbish engines after they've been exposed to saltwater, or is it just too corrosive?
Click to expand...

No plans to do hop tests with the full stack booster, the plan is to test it all up to demonstrate controllability and accuracy before they attempt to catch one. Once they get data on how the thing flies i will be interested to see if they go in straight to trying to catch a full stack booster or if they build something smaller to test the catch arms ideally with less propellant residuals for the first time, or if they just YOLO it and test the catch arms all up as well.

The sea water is a problem, but bigger than that are simply the physics of trying to recover something that size from the ocean(safer to pop it and let it sink if they don't have to recover it for data) and the damage that the energy of 100+ tons of structure(plus propellant residuals) dropping on the engines will cause. Even if they manage to hover 1m off the surface before cutting the power, that's going to be one hell of an impact directly on the engines. Then there is the thermal shock from being quenched a second after a full hover burn. There is plenty of stuff going on to make sure those engines will be thoroughly trashed.
 
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Tim's 3 part series with Elon was really good. I can't believe he got that kind of access. The 3rd part is short, but you get to listen to an interesting conversation between Elon and the launch pad foreman. How can you not root for this company to succeed? They're creating a new generation of space enthusiasts by allowing this kind of coverage. Changing hearts and minds was at the basis of the original space race. It's what got the country to tune in and support the effort. SpaceX wants people to be enthusiastic about what's happening, and by being this open about what they're doing, and letting us watch them grow and evolve, they're building a strong fanbase that will help to promote and support their efforts for years to come. Even if we have the tech, building a colony on Mars will take the support of the people, and they're doing an admirable job of fostering that kind of support. If I was graduating high school now, I would definitely pursue an aerospace degree. That's what I originally wanted to do before switching to computers. But in the 90s, computers had a stronger future than the space program. Nowadays, it has to be really exciting to work in the space industry.
 
a little side note as we wait for more from Starbase

this stuff is really hard we take it for granted watching SpaceX


girl yall did not get close to maxQ

what went wrong



spacex also had a launch
 
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