kerbiloid Posted February 9, 2020 Share Posted February 9, 2020 Short legs have their advantage. Spoiler The Starship can run across the Moon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted February 9, 2020 Share Posted February 9, 2020 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KSK Posted February 9, 2020 Share Posted February 9, 2020 Area 51 UFO Disassembly Room? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 10, 2020 Share Posted February 10, 2020 22 hours ago, Wjolcz said: Six tiny legs are still better than three tiny-ish legs. As long as it has its CoM low enough nothing serius should happen, but I agree. It would definitely look much safer with F9-like legs, but then that would create its own problems. Maybe the legs could have foldable "feet" of sorts. Basically this but longer and being on the ground: Another worry for me would be that the small travel distance from retracted to deployed means there is little ability to correct for any incline of the landing site. limiting Starship to perfectly flat areas or dedicated launch pads and very little margins for error. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wjolcz Posted February 10, 2020 Share Posted February 10, 2020 2 hours ago, Dale Christopher said: Another worry for me would be that the small travel distance from retracted to deployed means there is little ability to correct for any incline of the landing site. limiting Starship to perfectly flat areas or dedicated launch pads and very little margins for error. It's not like they will be picking steep hill sides as landing sites. There are plenty of flat areas on the Moon and Mars. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hannu2 Posted February 10, 2020 Share Posted February 10, 2020 3 hours ago, Wjolcz said: It's not like they will be picking steep hill sides as landing sites. There are plenty of flat areas on the Moon and Mars. Yes, in real life they use engineer workyears to take photographs and make detailed topographic models from every considered landing zone before trying actual landing. Those modern spacecrafts are intended to make pinpoint landings with accuracy of few meters or even less if they send navigation beacons beforehand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 10, 2020 Share Posted February 10, 2020 This seems inadequate hopefully there is more extension planned than what it appears, because that looks like it's bottoming out with only a couple degrees incline. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hannu2 Posted February 10, 2020 Share Posted February 10, 2020 13 minutes ago, Dale Christopher said: This seems inadequate hopefully there is more extension planned than what it appears, because that looks like it's bottoming out with only a couple degrees incline. It may also be, that those legs are planned for landing zones or ships. They intend to use Starships as heavy satellite launcher at beginning. At least I have not read any actual plans for sending probes or other stuff to Moon or Mars with Starships and there must probably be tens of succeeded flights before man rating and manned version. I think they will make heavier off road legs for later versions when they get contract to bring something beyond Earth orbit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnemoe Posted February 10, 2020 Share Posted February 10, 2020 16 minutes ago, Hannu2 said: Yes, in real life they use engineer workyears to take photographs and make detailed topographic models from every considered landing zone before trying actual landing. Those modern spacecrafts are intended to make pinpoint landings with accuracy of few meters or even less if they send navigation beacons beforehand. Unlike KSP yes, still I have often used scouting to find places to land bases. That I see as the main issue is horizontal velocity on touchdown. This is also an problem if landing on landing pads. Also could the short legs be an issue especially on takeoff on moon and mars because you could get exhaust or ejecta blown up towards the engines? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted February 10, 2020 Share Posted February 10, 2020 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KSK Posted February 10, 2020 Share Posted February 10, 2020 You can all feel free to come and laugh at me on this thread when Starship suffers a slow ignominious disassembly after landing on its stumpy-legs and falling over. However, for the moment, of all the many possible things that could go wrong with Starship, I'm not losing any sleep over the landing legs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted February 10, 2020 Share Posted February 10, 2020 It's not hyper concerning for terrestrial test flights, IMO, but on an unprepared lunar surface? Not a great idea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RealKerbal3x Posted February 10, 2020 Share Posted February 10, 2020 Just now, KSK said: You can all feel free to come and laugh at me on this thread when Starship suffers a slow ignominious disassembly after landing on its stumpy-legs and falling over. However, for the moment, of all the many possible things that could go wrong with Starship, I'm not losing any sleep over the landing legs. Just now, tater said: It's not hyper concerning for terrestrial test flights, IMO, but on an unprepared lunar surface? Not a great idea. I figure that the current legs are designed for flat, solid ground such as SpaceX's landing zones and that we'll see a more stable leg design once the ships actually get to landing on unimproved surfaces such as the Moon or Mars. I think Starship is going to be used as an uncrewed vehicle for some time until they've proved it's safe and worked out the initial kinks, so it'll only be landing on concrete pads for a while yet. As far as a more wide-based landing gear design goes, I think this is a good example that would probably fit inside those aerodynamic shrouds... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zolotiyeruki Posted February 10, 2020 Share Posted February 10, 2020 21 minutes ago, tater said: It's not hyper concerning for terrestrial test flights, IMO, but on an unprepared lunar surface? Not a great idea. Isn't "preparation of the landing surface" the purpose of the landing burn? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultimate Steve Posted February 11, 2020 Share Posted February 11, 2020 Sn1 hardware update, a bit more has likely been done in the last few hours since this was made. On the nsf thread they say that they may try mating one of the tanks within a few hours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegarrison Posted February 11, 2020 Share Posted February 11, 2020 7 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said: Sn1 hardware update, a bit more has likely been done in the last few hours since this was made. On the nsf thread they say that they may try mating one of the tanks within a few hours. With this talk of mating, did you actually mean "the nsfw thread"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xd the great Posted February 11, 2020 Share Posted February 11, 2020 14 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said: As far as a more wide-based landing gear design goes, I think this is a good example that would probably fit inside those aerodynamic shrouds... This would work better. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted February 11, 2020 Share Posted February 11, 2020 Bionical VTHL version. Spoiler Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wjolcz Posted February 11, 2020 Share Posted February 11, 2020 Didn't they already prepare the aft flaps too? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted February 11, 2020 Share Posted February 11, 2020 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted February 11, 2020 Share Posted February 11, 2020 That's pretty huge from a political standpoint. Really smart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sh1pman Posted February 11, 2020 Share Posted February 11, 2020 Even Rogozin is happy about it. Not often do we hear him complimenting SpaceX. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 11, 2020 Share Posted February 11, 2020 17 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said: Awesome! NASA’s loss SpaceX’s gain Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnemoe Posted February 11, 2020 Share Posted February 11, 2020 18 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said: As I understand he left or was denoted from NASA before SpaceX employed him. But yes it looks like he has experience but also connections. And they need experience, an manned starship will be more like an space station. Note that going to mars will be much harder than IIS. First you don't get resupplies underway and while you can evacuate to another ship if you launch an fleet but that will require docking in interplanetary space. On the IIS you can just jump into an Soyuz and deorbit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted February 11, 2020 Share Posted February 11, 2020 The thing is that he's very highly respected around the world. This instantly boosts SpaceX in the eyes of some customers, and among people that have to be wooed to support NASA projects that involve commercial providers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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