today’s test was amazing… especially after yesterday’s abort at t-minus 1.3sec. my fave stream is from the passionate folks at nasaspaceflight.com. multiple cameras and tons of q&a over the 11 hour stream.
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And then the odd green exhaust you see briefly just before the landing attempt is TEB used to kickstart the engine for landing.
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It is very strange: right at the moment of impact (1 hr 54m 55s) there is a clear edit in the video. I am startled that no one else has mentioned it, it makes me question my sanity. Could someone check and see what they think? Maybe it’s just a change in camera but it looks deceptive.
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That makes sense. I couldn’t really tell what was leaking but it didn’t seem to be burning when it hit the flames from the engine and it looked like there was quite a lot of it!
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Starship doesn’t use TEB, has some sort of electronic igniter.
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You’re right, TEB was on the Merlin engines.
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None of the above. It was not expected to succeed. A successful landing would have been gravy, but not an essential part of the test.
This was a complicated mission. Three engines, high-altitude, running a typical mission profile, etc.
All the parts seemed to work, pretty much flawlessly.
That was the point of the mission: Integrating the parts of the whole.
Nailing the landing will be a relatively trifling aspect of it.
I was glad the thing didn’t explode at liftoff.
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Man…you rocket nerds are a seriously unfunny bunch.
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These comments are great! Fantastic post!
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Ah, now it couldn’t have been #3…
If it was sarcasm, it was subtle.
Serious sarcasm would have been like:
“Way to go, guys… better luck next time… if you’re still working here…”
But that wanders into the realm of Mockery, doesn’t it.
No offense meant, akbar.
That makes sense.
It did seem to be descending a bit too quickly. Propellant starvation would account for that. So would a software error somewhare.
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Such a half-full title. Seemed like a successful test to me. Maybe the flip to landing needs to be a bit earlier, but other than that so amazing.
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A leak would explain all of the off-axis smoke, which seemed strange to me.
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I hate phony names. I hate calling something ‘Starship’ that is incapable of interstellar voyaging. It’s like a “jumbo shrimp” or “compassionate conservative”. Yow.
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I remember…
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SpaceX is getting more out of a dollar than NASA ever did…and I think it is fair to say they have been making technical advancements. Don’t recall NASA ever “working out” the booster landing technique SpaceX uses, for instance. Reusability never had any real success under NASA, either. Ya, I guess in the end it’s all down to polishing Tsiolkovsky’s work, right? This venture, the “Starship”, is I believe funded by SpaceX without a NASA contract (I may be wrong, not really all that up on this stuff ).
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Absolutely normal (in the sense of this is meant to happen not that it has ever happened before). It would normally be used to dissipate velocity high in the atmosphere so as not to need a massive heat shield.
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The engines use electrical ignition so it’s not boron burning. Space-X has said there was a problem with fuel flow at the last moment, so it is more likely to be the copper components of the engine eating themselves in an oxygen-rich environment to produce a green flame.
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Um, it looked like there were serious problems on the way up.
The way the nozzles thrash before each engine flames out didn’t look healthy. (Process 1: Shutting down engine 1. Process 2: Holy shit! Lost engine 1, compensating!) I say flame-out rather than shutdown because the off engines were clearly still venting late-igniting propellant. And part of the structure burning was a clue too.
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Hopefully they get this fixed, and Musk’s funeral barge to Mars will be go.
I bet he has a clause in the corporation DNA that if he dies before there’s a Galt’s Gulch colony established, that his remains will be sent to Mars, so that he can be the first late man on Mars.
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