RealKerbal3x

Their issues have always been with Starship landing gear. Super Heavy landing gear has always been fairly straightforward, just stick some big fixed ones on there. This is more about undesigning those legs and moving the shock absorbers out of the booster itself to save mass.

It does look a little small, yes, Cybertruck has a width of approximately 2m and Dragon is 3.7m diameter. It could just be perspective though.

*crosses fingers*

Welcome to the forums @Buenasfx! Do you mean rocket motors (engines) or robotic motors from the Breaking Ground expansion?

Elon mentioned that significant changes would be coming around SN15. We don't know what that will entail, but maybe it'll get a payload-deploying nose (as Elon also said a while back that the mid-teens would be the first to orbit) and/or RVacs.

SN10 is broadly similar to SN8, but there are probably a few changes here and there. SN9 and SN10 are very similar to SN8 but while some components of SN8 still used the old stainless steel alloy (301), SN9 and 10 are fully built from the new alloy (304L). SN10 began construction before SN8 flew so there probably aren't any major physical changes.

Wow, if SN9 lands successfully...

Well done everyone!

I want to do a Jool-5 mission by the end of the year, but real life may prevent me. We'll see.

Elon said they were going to grab the booster with the fins, it's not my idea:

Video on the full process of F9 recovery:

It seems a lot less complicated than landing on the launch mount to me. They don't need to have a precision of millimetres with this method, if they design it right they should be able to land within a few metres and still reach the target. And the grid fins are already extremely toughly mounted as the 200t booster is literally hanging from them during its 5g reentry, so beefing them up a little more to take the load of the almost empty vehicle is going to be more mass-efficient than adding dedicated legs. And SpaceX (well, maybe just Elon) wants Super Heavy to be able to fly again an hour after launch, making landing on a separate structure - even if it's movable - out of the question. (also, congrats on 10,000 posts )

I'm almost 20 minutes late. But happy new year!

This whole 'catching the booster' thing sounds silly but this is the same company that has done the impossible several times. They'll figure out the best way to do it, and none of us will have predicted it

I think @cubinator's idea would have the best structural stability but unless I'm misinterpreting the scale of his diagram I doubt there's enough space around the launch structure currently under construction for it to fit. And now that I think of it, two retractable arms that can swing into place around the booster (like those on the F9 and Electron strongbacks) is better than the ring design I suggested as Super Heavy doesn't have to 'thread the needle', so to speak.

I just copy everything in the mod's GameData folder to the main GameData.

I don't think it'll need to be particularly fast-moving. Here's my idea of what it'll look like: Essentially, Super Heavy could be caught using a large ring-shaped crane structure which would have freedom of motion in all axes. This would allow the booster to land with a couple of metres of error and then be lowered precisely back into the launch mount. This crane would run on a track attached to the vertical launch tower, allowing it to place the booster on the launch mount and then move to the bottom of the tower to allow the grid fins to retract and another launch to take place. It really seems like SpaceX wants Super Heavy to be an extension of the launch pad, boosting Starships part of the way into orbit before returning for almost immediate reuse.

Indeed, as long as they can get precision down to a couple of metres (shouldn't be problematic considering how precisely they can already land F9) it shouldn't be a problem.

That sounds crazy, but so did the bellyflop maneuver. Also, update on the CH4 header pressure issue:

In what way is the bug tracker terrible? I've never had issues with it, it's fairly straightforward to report a bug. In fact, I think the main problem is that many people don't know it exists, as shown by the bug reports scattered throughout this thread.

Why did you report a stock bug on a mod's github? You should report it on the official tracker here: http://bugs.kerbalspaceprogram.com

Try pressing Z to throttle up, my French is bad but it looks like the engine is activated.

Frost forming on SN9.