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1 hour ago, tater said:

 

Anyone in FL might have some interesting views:

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It took me a while until i noticed that the second part is going over the horizon, not straigt back into florida :blush:

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3 hours ago, Elthy said:

It took me a while until i noticed that the second part is going over the horizon, not straigt back into florida :blush:

Eh, I guess that would be an option too, if something malfunctioned on the second stage - presumably including the self-destruct mechanism.

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Observers think first part of the catch mechanism has been installed on the launch tower. It's a super-heavy duty winch, very much excessive for an elevator.

The crane winch for lifting Superheavy/Starship onto the pad is expected to be in the crane up top. Due to rotation of the crane beam it'd be seriously unusual to try and articulate cables through that rotating joint. Therefore this isn't that.

I'm not sure I agree that the arms will be used to stack Superheavy and Starship on the launch pad. That'd be a very much more complicated mechanism than a linear catch with rotation to the pad performed by a crane on the top of the tower.

 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

what’s gonna happen to superheavy if it misses the tower, like that’s a real possibility. Falcon 9 can at least splash down but superheavy is surrounded with concrete not water.

It would likely land on the ground, crush the engines and explode, fragging the tower if it comes down too close. If it knows sufficiently in advance that it is off target, it will probably be programmed to perform a soft landing and splash down off the coast. 

Or it might be able to hover and translate using its hot-gas RCS system. 

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4 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

what’s gonna happen to superheavy if it misses the tower, like that’s a real possibility. Falcon 9 can at least splash down but superheavy is surrounded with concrete not water.

This is how the orbital launch tower is currently:
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Of course they will never attempt a catching until they have done enough tests to be reasonably sure they are as controllable as they want them, but with how it is now imo they will target the terrain behind the tower and when the engines are on retarget to the launchpad, like the falcon 9 does. Plus, remember that Falcon 9 also does RTLS if the fuel margin permits it

3 minutes ago, Deddly said:

Or it might be able to hover and translate using its hot-gas RCS system. 

Yeah, we know at least it is capable of hovering with the raptors' throttiling capability and it's been confirmed from the first orbital flight it will have hot-gas RCS thrusters so it seems possible

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19 minutes ago, RealKerbal3x said:

Looks like the forward dome sleeve is already getting hot gas thrusters!

How can you tell that it's hot gas and not cold gas thrusters? It is because of the shape of them and the fact that there are two pipes going in to each thruster?

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3 hours ago, RCgothic said:

Observers think first part of the catch mechanism has been installed on the launch tower. It's a super-heavy duty winch, very much excessive for an elevator.

The crane winch for lifting Superheavy/Starship onto the pad is expected to be in the crane up top. Due to rotation of the crane beam it'd be seriously unusual to try and articulate cables through that rotating joint. Therefore this isn't that.

I'm not sure I agree that the arms will be used to stack Superheavy and Starship on the launch pad. That'd be a very much more complicated mechanism than a linear catch with rotation to the pad performed by a crane on the top of the tower.

 

Agree lets the arms catch the booster, then have the crane lift it to the launch mounts or to an mover if you need service on it. 
Crane will also lift superhevy from transport and stack starship  

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5 minutes ago, Deddly said:

How can you tell that it's hot gas and not cold gas thrusters? It is because of the shape of them and the fact that there are two pipes going in to each thruster?

Compared to the cold-gas thrusters we've previously seen, these seem to be bigger. So far it looks like they've used surplus Falcon 9 cold-gas thrusters, which are quite small compared to the 9m diameter of Starship.

The fact that there are two pipes to each thruster is also evidence to support them being of the hot gas variety.

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57 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

How many sections does it need to be the highest structure in South Texas?

Think it already will count as that. "South Texas" being a pretty fluid term, it basically has to be taller than anything in Corpus Christie (125m).

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The whole coast is "South Texas" to a Texan. IDK how others might see it. An equally common division is to call nearly the entire coast the "Gulf Coast", or something similar, but that almost universally includes Corpus Christi.

Edited by SOXBLOX
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18 minutes ago, SOXBLOX said:

The whole coast is "South Texas" to a Texan. IDK how others might see it. An equally common division is to call nearly the entire coast the "Gulf Coast", or something similar, but that almost universally includes Corpus Christi.

Except that Lubbock is in the Panhandle.... and that part of Texas looks nothing like a pan handle.  It's only claim to fame is that it's near the Panhandle of Oklahoma - which, lets face it, does look like a pan handle above Lubbock.

Here's the real question: when you're in West Texas - which I think of as the real Texas... how do you stand people in Dallas claiming to be Texan?

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