CBase

Any ideas what caused the one raptor to fail ignite during boost back but allowed it to work on landing burn ? Acceleration was probably different during startup, so is it maybe just an ignition sequence problem ? But does that really matter thinking of all the pressure from the turbo pump ?

They did lost one center engine at T+7:41, next center one at T+8:02 and the vacuum inbetween previous at T+8:04. Now Methan tank is rapidly depleting. I doubt that many engines failed in this clustering, probably rather fuel feed. Most interesting is how long the ship kept going with this asymetric thrust. I would have expected FTS to trigger earlier.

And again count down delayed to T-32

Traditionally in the industry innovation rate was neglegtable in the past 50 years. Traditionally in the industry cost plus contracts rewarded effort not progress. SpaceX needed the test flights anyway to learn about ice slush effects during maneuvers. SpaceX needs the test flights anyway for heat shield verification. Test stands are great to some extend, but hardly substitude real tests.

NOTAM reads (all in UTC ): which translates to 1600 or 4pm CST (Boca Chica local time zone) on 10th for launch. Landing will occur on 11th local time in the morning (not sure if landing area is UTC+7 or +8, but something around this). But yes, I agree we should really give times in local time for events that span 13h time zone difference as it is too hard to convert UTC using google, siri, chatgpt or....

Actually the claim is only that booster reliability decreases when you add engines until it rises once you gain redundancy. The magic number of 9 comes from the fact that falcon 9 has proven single engine redundancy (~ 8:00), which actually depends on T/W, spare fuel etc.. Expendable rockets have different math as they don't carry extra fuel for landing. And for higher counts it would be unlikely that all failures happen right after lift off. But by time of flight you gain redundancy as loss of thrust can be compensated by longer burn duration. His reliabilty curves for 15+ clusters will hardly reflect SpaceX risk estimations.

Anyone knows how big payload mass simulator for flight 5 was ? Or did they not fully load it with fuel ?

Why not ? They are using some kind of control loop. If the control force is working at all and there is not too much oscillation, you get very high precision. These either fail miserable or hit the nail. This sounds like a academic discussion. Probably they report the difference of above control loop coordinates, so it is the difference between the desired location and internal determed location. Maybe the buoys for the water landing did not provide mm precise real world coordinates (as they moved), the one near landing tower will. Probably more that the empty SH can handle tension way better than compression. And a rocket standing is meta stable, while hanging is stable.

Or if you misuse de facto monopol to prevent competition to access supplied markets. Like Windows and online access, business suites, server systems, etc. some years ago. Or launch capabilites for space based business. So as long SpaceX is offering fair launch prices even to Starlink competitors, I don't see a misuse.

Elon might already regret it . I assume they did not forsee the current bureaucratic hassle and had it weigh up with any technical problems. However I suprised that they did not learn from all trouble in the past year and recruit more legal experts to plan ahead. I am pretty sure you are allowed to apply for a launch license and then decide not to use it. If the law mandates a public hearing phase of 60 days this should be on the critical path for a fast moving company like SpaceX.

Nominal orbital insertion Unfortunately there is no official mission timeline to reference here. Someone wrote on wikipedia something, but the link to a twitter press conference is not working anymore, so take it with care: ~ in 1 h: raise to 190 x 1400 km orbit on day 2: lower orbit to 190 x 750 km

Congrats. I miss the g-meter indication from my kerbals for human missions. Would be cool addition to the overlay.

According to https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/08/rocket-report-when-will-starship-launch-again-blue-origin-flies-six-to-space/ the FAA approval is on hold until the environmental problem with water disposal is cleared. Basically all FAA approvals base on the environmental assessment and if doubt of the facts rise it blocks further approvals. Unfortunately for SpaceX this probably affects not only booster catch but any launch license. Thats why they extend catch tests. It is the best they can do while solving the water disposal problem.

Maybe because private entrepreneurs like Elon and Isaac are more ambitious than NASA ? They keep pushing, but the steps are not that big and bold like Artemis. But easy to test previously on the ground, so it is likely something they are already comfortable with. I can not provide a source right now, but I remember to have read that the suits are only intermediate upgrades to IVA suits. They are not rated for extended durations, so might leak a bit more air than full EVA suits. Probably same for cooling, radiation, .... . Less challenging requirements make it faster to iterate from precessor and decrease risks during first mission.

You had a favorite Booster ?

however payload is fine but SpaceX is surprised as well and is investigating

Anyone knows why FAA Approval of Flight 5 is taking so long ? Is landing boosters not covered in general admissions of the launch site ?

Elon gives end of august or early september estimate in an video interview during teslaowner meeting: https://youtu.be/tEkRY8TG2BU?t=62

In the same interview he explained that they integrated a lot of pipes inside the walls of main parts, so complexitiy is there, just tightly integrated. This looks ready for mass production. I was once part of embedded device development and it looked much like this: First version has lots of standard parts even with wires around some connections and each iteration got much cleaner look until the final device had only few ICs (some custom) on a multilayer PCB. Creating these is a lot of effort, but drives manufactoring costs down by magnitudes.

Although starship is the most cost effective rocket ever build, any launch transport will be considerably more expensive than a sea transport. Unless they consider the worth of a maiden flight and therefore flight proven booster/ship higher, we will unfortunately not see air deliveries like from plane factories.

Suprising the part survived so long in a "best part is no part" company

SpaceX seems to expect to return this week to Falcon 9 launches: https://spaceflightnow.com/2024/07/16/spacex-requests-public-safety-determination-for-return-to-flight-for-its-falcon-9-rocket/

Scott Manley has a nice recap of the APU failure and why it was successful to show orbital capabilities while failing short on one important selling point