totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[Nuke]

3 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I kind of figured that out as I was typing the question - but you never know.

I've only ever seen "installing the FTS system".

(Fun fact - we used to juggle, make bunny rabbits of and burn C-4 to freak out younger Marines during training.)

i knew a vietnam vet who claimed they used it for cook fires. high explosives are really stable and usually require a high energy even to initiate, like a blasting cap (these probibly wont be installed until its on the pad).

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 minute ago, Nuke said:

i knew a vietnam vet who claimed they used it for cook fires. high explosives are really stable and usually require a high energy even to initiate, like a blasting cap (these probibly wont be installed until its on the pad).

You can light it on fire and heat up canned food.

You shouldn't hit it with a hammer.

[Nuke]

2 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

You can light it on fire and heat up canned food.

You shouldn't hit it with a hammer.

i hope they install it in a location that doesn't get scraped by the chopsticks on landing.

[Minmus Taster]

42 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

So - lets say they do decide to try for a catch of Ship back at Boca Chica... anyone got an idea what the descent plan looks like?

Not sure, how much battery power is on the ship? Would they need to adjust their trajectory with an in-orbit burn or wait for a day?

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

19 minutes ago, Minmus Taster said:

Not sure, how much battery power is on the ship? Would they need to adjust their trajectory with an in-orbit burn or wait for a day?

I'm expecting that if they're going for a catch - even if they don't do a full orbit - they'd have to effectively be in orbit to make it all the way around, plus account for rotation and then do a burn for descent. 

So to catch at Boca Chica, the burn has to start somewhere west (and likely north of Texas) and the descent will be over land for a period - it's just I don't have enough KSP time to guestimate what the in-atmosphere descent profile would look like as a line drawn over a map of the United States.

Is it fast enough that it's only in the atmosphere over Texas... or might they enter over Oregon?

Edited Monday at 12:45 AM by JoeSchmuckatelli

[tater]

 

[GuessingEveryDay]

1 hour ago, Nuke said:

i hope they install it in a location that doesn't get scraped by the chopsticks on landing.

I'd guess that they install it vertically, following the raceways, which rips up the sides nicely for the explosion.

[Ultimate Steve]

Typical for it to be delayed to the 28th immediately after we put in hotel reservations for the 26th and 27th.

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Typical for it to be delayed to the 28th immediately after we put in hotel reservations for the 26th and 27th.

Yep.  I was thrilled that I was going to be off that day.  Then they moved it to a day that I need to be on site.  Bleah

ITAR gray area

[magnemoe]

On 2/20/2025 at 3:58 AM, Ryaja said:

They usually reenter over the ocean, apparently this one malfunctioned on the reentry brun and did an uncontrolled reentry.

Agree, now did any falcon 9 upper stages failed the planned deorbit burn and came down over Europe.

[Flavio hc16]

10 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

So - lets say they do decide to try for a catch of Ship back at Boca Chica... anyone got an idea what the descent plan looks like?

This is an educated guestimate:

 

They will do a deorbit burn that will target 20/30 km out east  of the landing pad,  so that if anything goes bad, the heavier debris will fall into the Gulf of Mexico America, then do a direction reversal either aerodynamically or propulsively so to target the  landing pad, and IMHO we will see somewhat of an "lofted" trajectory, higher up in the middle phase, so that more debris will fall in the ocean in case of problems

(look at my mad Paint skilz)

 

 

 

Edited Monday at 09:56 AM by Flavio hc16

[AckSed]

11 hours ago, darthgently said:

Yep.  I was thrilled that I was going to be off that day.  Then they moved it to a day that I need to be on site.  Bleah

ITAR gray area

What am I looking at here? An inanimate carbon rod?

[zolotiyeruki]

Quote

NO WAY

I had to hold back a belly laugh when I saw that, so as not to alert my boss next door...

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, AckSed said:

What am I looking at here? An inanimate carbon rod?

That would be a KSP strut on a Starship if the theory is correct.  I’m filing it as a solid “maybe”

[Exoscientist]

[snip]

 SpaceX has announced Feb. 28th as the intended next flight of Starship. But after the explosion in flight during flight 7, the FAA required a mishap investigation of the Starship. Normally, the FAA requires the mishap report prior being granted permission for the next flight. But after this announcement the FAA has said nothing. Certainly the mishap report has not been delivered since those are always made public by the FAA.  

 If the FAA allows this launch without requiring the mishap report beforehand this would be highly unusual. 
[snip]

 This has made apparent that conflicts of interest are rife [snip]

 

  Bob Clark

Edited Monday at 06:30 PM by Vanamonde

[Terwin]

10 minutes ago, Exoscientist said:

 SpaceX has announced Feb. 28th as the intended next flight of Starship. But after the explosion in flight during flight 7, the FAA required a mishap investigation of the Starship. Normally, the FAA requires the mishap report prior being granted permission for the next flight. But after this announcement the FAA has said nothing. Certainly the mishap report has not been delivered since those are always made public by the FAA.  

Didn't the FAA issue a license for multiple launches including Flights 7 and 8?

Unless the license was violated, why would the FAA object to continuing use of that license?

It took multiple mishaps before the MAX jet got grounded, and those involved loss of life for example.

A New license might get delayed for a mishap, but I suspect that the bar is higher to stop/revoke an existing/ongoing license

[tater]

 

[Minmus Taster]

33 minutes ago, tater said:

 

[Flavio hc16]

50 minutes ago, Exoscientist said:

Elon Musk as head of DOGE is a conflict of interest towards the FAA.

 SpaceX has announced Feb. 28th as the intended next flight of Starship. But after the explosion in flight during flight 7, the FAA required a mishap investigation of the Starship. Normally, the FAA requires the mishap report prior being granted permission for the next flight. But after this announcement the FAA has said nothing. Certainly the mishap report has not been delivered since those are always made public by the FAA.  

 If the FAA allows this launch without requiring the mishap report beforehand this would be highly unusual. 
I’m suggesting the Elon Musk’s public announcements of firings of public employees has sent a chilling effect to the FAA. They are afraid to oppose him. Clearly though this would have an effect on public safety since SpaceX can now do anything they want and would not be subject to review by the FAA or any federal agency.  

 The same could be said in regards to SEC oversight of any of Elon’s companies. There have been very public disagreements between the SEC and Elon’s running of Tesla. As head of DOGE and control of federal employee firing, there can be a similar chilling effect on the SEC.  

 This has made apparent that conflicts of interest are rife with the arrangement of Elon as head of DOGE. Normally, as a government official, someone would be required to divest himself of any interest in for profit corporations or put his interests in trust so he has no input on the financial decisions on those companies. Clearly here though, there is no way Elon is going to divest himself of control of his companies. Then the present arrangement of him as head of DOGE is untenable.

 

  Bob Clark

or...instead of putting the cart before the horse, we could just wait the launch date? considering that for launch 2-3-4 we got the Mishap investigation and launch license a couple hours prior to the launch?

 

Also, the SEC had a single investigation  of Tesla ( 420 tweet) back in 2018

[tater]

 

[Vanamonde]

The recent blurring of the lines between private industry and government functionality are forcing the moderating team to make some judgement calls about what is allowable discussion on this forum. In some cases we're having to split hairs pretty finely. We don't like doing it and regret the necessity of avoiding political discussions for the sake of keeping this a friendly forum, but we have edited some recent comments for that reason. 

[Ultimate Steve]

Flight 7 failure summary is out:

https://www.spacex.com/updates/

Highlights:

Engine out during was an aborted startup due to a low power state on an igniter. So finallly, a failure that can be directly attributed to Raptor. The wording ("pre planned upgrade") suggests that they had already thought this might be an issue, and that they have already been working on fixing that for futute engine versions.

Ship failure was due to fires in the "attic" that happened because of leaks that happened because of vibrations several times stronger than expected, implied to affect the new raptor vacuum fuel feed lines. The recent long static fire was testing various fixes for this.

Ship did not go pop until the AFSS went off about three minutes after contact was lost.

[Superpluto126]

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-8

Flight 8!

Not much notable changes from Flight 7 beyond making sure what went wrong last time was fixed.

[Minmus Taster]

16 minutes ago, Superpluto126 said:

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-8

Flight 8!

Not much notable changes from Flight 7 beyond making sure what went wrong last time was fixed.

5:30 CT liftoff? Wonder if there's any major reason for the change.

[tater]

3 minutes ago, Minmus Taster said:

5:30 CT liftoff? Wonder if there's any major reason for the change.

Daylight in Ship landing zone.