totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[darthgently]

The booster wasn’t the only catch that day

 

[AVaughan]

23 minutes ago, GuessingEveryDay said:

They could request a retrograde orbit. Worst case scenario, suborbital Starship gets ripped up by low orbiting debris and lands somewhere in the Pacific. It's a good thing because that'll clear up that orbital path of any debris whatsoever, because Starship is already falling down anyways.

That just moves the issue from re-entry/bellyflop over populated areas to launching over populated areas.  Flight 7 should show that they aren't ready for that either.  (When has the US ever done a launch that went over a populated area other than far down-range, like Turks and Caicos on flight 7)?

[Deddly]

57 minutes ago, darthgently said:

The booster wasn’t the only catch that day

 

https://www.instagram.com/machooover/p/DE-k5GMvTm6/

 

[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 ?

[Nuke]

1 hour ago, AVaughan said:

That just moves the issue from re-entry/bellyflop over populated areas to launching over populated areas.  Flight 7 should show that they aren't ready for that either.  (When has the US ever done a launch that went over a populated area other than far down-range, like Turks and Caicos on flight 7)?

from a safety standpoint you are better off recovering on the west coast, good luck finding a location that isnt on the elon hate bandwagon. alaska is the only one i can think of, lots of starlink fans here, but thats kind of out of the orbital plane, nothing less than 51 degrees north (that would be adak). spinlaunch tried to locate in unalaska, which is a native village, and the only complaint was that they wouldn't have brought enough jobs (spacex would probibly do better in that regard). even then the logistics in either the aleutians or the panhandle are practically non existent, limited to barge traffic with no roads (archipelago life) or deep water ports that im aware of. i think its all moot in that i dont think the starship has much in cross range capability.

then you have the problem of shipping the ships around, and would probibly have to go through the panama canal or retrograde it for the reverse trip. have a base on the western coast of florida, then you have a lot better logistics. as much as having a starbase in my home state would be awesome, thats probibly the better option. otherwise you are potentially shotgunning debris across mexican airspace.  then again you are more likely to overshoot in the event of an engine failure coming down from orbit and a breakup undershoots usually.

Edited January 18 by Nuke

[tater]

5 hours ago, AVaughan said:

Yeah.  But from memory, Elon was talking about wanting to try a Ship catch for flight 8 or 9.  Personally I think they aren't ready to do a re-entry/approach to the catch location over land, unless they happen to have a corridor over an un-inhabited area.  (I guess that is possible, but I think finding an un-inhabited corridor is unlikely, with their current catch tower locations.  Build a new catch tower somewhere else, or switch to a drone ship or a landing pad somewhere else, and that could change).  

Yeah, I think they need to demonstrate an accurate reentry burn first—their suborbital trajectory, then EDL is clearly spot on, they landed next to a preplaced bouy.

[PakledHostage]

What about Barking Sands Missile test range on Kauai? It's on the northwest coast of that island and close to the trajectories currently in use for Starship tests. 

[AVaughan]

This whole discussion started with me pointing out that SpaceX does not have a catch tower in a good location for a ship catch after an orbital (or near orbital) launch, without needing to overfly land that is probably inhabited.  The West coast does not have a catch tower, nor have I heard any word of them starting to build one there.  (If they want to build a catch tower on the West coast, Vandenburg seems like an obvious location).   

My expectation is that Elon thinks he can get permission to do a catch at either Boca Chica or Florida.   Somehow I'm feeling that is pushing his luck, especially after flight 7. 

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, CBase said:

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 ?

Current smart consensus is flight computer got a sensor telling it engine wasn’t ready (prop slosh sensing or something?) and that it wasn’t needed for the boost back.  When braking burn came up engine was in a ready state.  This is definitely the rose colored glasses guesstimate but a fair one given the impressive engine out capability.

What makes me doubt this theory is why did its complimentary engine on the opposite side fire?  But the counter to this is that the decision may also consider if the other engine really needs to be left off given the available vectoring torque from the gimbaling engines.  I am really hungry for the day when all this stuff is common knowledge and is longer hush hush

1 hour ago, Nuke said:

from a safety standpoint you are better off recovering on the west coast

We need to lease a section of the Baja peninsula.  And build the Mexico Canal.

Edited January 18 by darthgently

[darthgently]

33 minutes ago, Nuke said:

from a safety standpoint you are better off recovering on the west coast, good luck finding a location that isnt on the elon hate bandwagon. alaska is the only one i can think of, lots of starlink fans here, but thats kind of out of the orbital plane, nothing less than 51 degrees north (that would be adak). spinlaunch tried to locate in unalaska, which is a native village, and the only complaint was that they wouldn't have brought enough jobs (spacex would probibly do better in that regard). even then the logistics in either the aleutians or the panhandle are practically non existent, limited to barge traffic with no roads (archipelago life) or deep water ports that im aware of. i think its all moot in that i dont think the starship has much in cross range capability.

then you have the problem of shipping the ships around, and would probibly have to go through the panama canal or retrograde it for the reverse trip. have a base on the western coast of florida, then you have a lot better logistics. as much as having a starbase in my home state would be awesome, thats probibly the better option. otherwise you are potentially shotgunning debris across mexican airspace.  then again you are more likely to overshoot in the event of an engine failure coming down from orbit and a breakup undershoots usually.

Arizona could invade and liberate Catalina Island from California.  

[AVaughan]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

Yeah, I think they need to demonstrate an accurate reentry burn first—their suborbital trajectory, then EDL is clearly spot on, they landed next to a preplaced bouy.

I think they need to do at least 2-3 good missions with a simulated (or real) de-orbit burn plus a good EDL and on target landing with the updated design, and then they need to be very cautious with any subsequent changes to starship, since who knows what changes might lead to a (for example) fire that might damage the motors controlling the aft flaps.  And I really don't feel like they are close to finalising the ship design enough to stop making changes every launch.  

None of that matters if they are re-entering over water, but a re-entry/belly flop over populated areas should be a different kettle of fish. 

If they still had the sub-orbital pad, then they could have done a sub-orbital hop to belly flop to catch.

[Nuke]

another possibility, texas has a lot of abandoned off shore oil platforms. the type that anchor to the seafloor. maybe you can buy one of those.

[PakledHostage]

6 hours ago, darthgently said:

That is a good vid to watch.  I watch a few AV channels and that is how the ATC machine works and it works very well.  
Below is an image of the initial post break up declared debris zones.

I have my PPL and checking NOTAMs is something I have to do every time I go flying, but I have been having a heck of a time finding anything about this launch. Admittedly I don't ever fly in US airspace or in oceanic airspace, so maybe it would be easier to find for someone with different/more experience,  but this is the best I could find:

ATCSCC Advisory

ATCSCC ADVZY 065 DCC 01/16/2025 ZSU ZMA ZNY AIRPORT DEPARTURE DELAYS

MESSAGE: 

EVENT TIME: 16/2340 - 17/0100 USERS CAN EXPECT DEPARTURE DELAYS FROM WITHIN ZSU, ZMA, ZNY AIRPORTS TRAVERSING ZMA AND ZNY OCEANIC AIRSPACE OF UP TO 60 MINUTES DUE TO DEBRIS RESPONSE AREAS (DRA) 3 AND 4 ACTIVATION. UPDATES WILL FOLLOW IF NECESSARY. 

EFFECTIVE TIME: 

162347 - 170130

SIGNATURE: 

25/01/16 23:47 

I couldn't find where (or when) DRA 3  and DRA 4 were defined, but the text suggests that they were established in advance as contingency in the event of a launch problem, and then activated 23:47 UTC on Thursday. Presumably they are the two areas outlined in yellow in the maps above?

Also, the idea that debris wasn't a hazard to aircraft because anything that made it down to the flight levels would be light weight is silly. Apologists will downplay the hazard, but hitting even something light weight while flying at Mach 0.8 will cause damage. 

[darthgently]

44 minutes ago, PakledHostage said:

Also, the idea that debris wasn't a hazard to aircraft because anything that made it down to the flight levels would be light weight is silly. Apologists will downplay the hazard, but hitting even something light weight while flying at Mach 0.8 will cause damage. 

I probably wasn’t clear; I was assuming the aircraft cleared the area and was specifically talking about the debris that landed on the islands.  But I will note that an ATC controller in the video you posted at one point mentions something to the effect that they were being very cautious and the odds of encountering debris was nil.  He may have meant for that specific pilot he was talking to though

Edited January 18 by darthgently

[magnemoe]

23 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

No other way to really do it without losing IP to the competition.  Given that an explosion was always a possibility, even a likelihood, I'm not bothered this is an Internal investigation with reporting to the relevant agencies. 

Had something unforseen or injuries to a third party - I'd agree with you 

More so its specialist knowledge. Even company level special knowledge. You will need to be good in all sort of rockets, RP1, methanol, hydrogen and solid fuel. And this is only the engines. Materials, building techniques and controls. 
FAA expertise is planes who is pretty mature with lots of rules for good reasons. But is an unmanned B3 bomber crashing doing an low level penetration test during heavy jamming an FAA case , I say no.
Not only is  these test classified but they are also very far from standard aircraft operations. 
 

[darthgently]

On 1/17/2025 at 12:15 PM, Codraroll said:

How many total times must you havee explained that your probably-pathological fixation on Raptor reliability hinges on absolute bunk, before it sinks in? Each and every one of those arguments have been refuted dozens of times, yet you still appear come back in the earnest belief that repeating them enough times makes them true, and that the counterarguments stop being valid if you never acknowledge them.

I’m convinced he’s purely trying to drive traffic to his blog via search engine web crawler seeding. At the blog he has devotees in the comments lapping up any thing anti-SpaceX and hang on his every word as gospel

[Exoscientist]

19 minutes ago, darthgently said:

I’m convinced he’s purely trying to drive traffic to his blog via search engine web crawler seeding. At the blog he has devotees in the comments lapping up any thing anti-SpaceX and hang on his every word as gospel

 

  Bob Clark

[tater]

3 hours ago, AVaughan said:

My expectation is that Elon thinks he can get permission to do a catch at either Boca Chica or Florida.   Somehow I'm feeling that is pushing his luck, especially after flight 7. 

Nah, it's not the same as ascent.

They can do a reentry burn placing the ship safely in the Gulf (even were it to blow up). After crossing land—high enough that there is a 0% chance of debris on land because of momentum, it initiates a "boostback" burn of short duration reshaping the trajectory close to the beach. Then it lands like the booster. Yes, this will take a lot more props than if they had a west coast pad.

3 hours ago, Nuke said:

another possibility, texas has a lot of abandoned off shore oil platforms. the type that anchor to the seafloor. maybe you can buy one of those.

They bought 2 a few years ago, then abandoned doing that.

[tater]

I want that old SS hop video angle (that last buoy shot was close).

[Pthigrivi]

6 hours ago, Nuke said:

from a safety standpoint you are better off recovering on the west coast, good luck finding a location that isnt on the elon hate bandwagon.

Fortunately for SpaceX it doesn’t matter who does or doesn’t like you if you’ve purchased your own regulators. Come February a starship could careen down in lower Manhattan and the FFA wouldn’t wring its hands for more than a week. 

Edited January 19 by Pthigrivi

[Brotoro]

Nonsense.

[Pthigrivi]

32 minutes ago, Brotoro said:

Nonsense.

I suppose we’ll see. Doesn’t seem like the off chance of an errant heat tile plowing through a commercial airliner or some hut in Africa matters very much, certainly not when compared to shareholder returns and the kickbacks they buy. Chances of killing a bunch of people for money are very low after all. I mean only a handful of people die from salmonella and botulism each year. There can’t be much harm putting Perdue and Tyson in charge of the FDA, right?

Edited January 19 by Pthigrivi

[Nuke]

3 hours ago, tater said:

Nah, it's not the same as ascent.

They can do a reentry burn placing the ship safely in the Gulf (even were it to blow up). After crossing land—high enough that there is a 0% chance of debris on land because of momentum, it initiates a "boostback" burn of short duration reshaping the trajectory close to the beach. Then it lands like the booster. Yes, this will take a lot more props than if they had a west coast pad.

They bought 2 a few years ago, then abandoned doing that.

i seem to recall what they bought were exploration rigs, the floating type.

23 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

I suppose we’ll see. Doesn’t seem like the off chance of an errant heat tile plowing through a commercial airliner or some hut in Africa matters very much, certainly not when compared to shareholder returns and the kickbacks they buy. Chances of killing a bunch of people for money are very low after all. I mean only a handful of people die from salmonella and botulism each year. There can’t be much harm putting Perdue and Tyson in charge of the FDA, right?

nasa has killed what, 17 people. how many has elon killed? im not buying the whole government good rich guy bad narrative.

[Pthigrivi]

6 minutes ago, Nuke said:

im not buying the whole government good rich guy bad narrative.

Thats because you think there’s a difference. 

[Nuke]

10 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Thats because you think there’s a difference. 

how many people has boeing killed recently? why do they get a pass? i really dont get the elon hate.