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SpaceX Starship

Damn. I'm pretty bummed that I didn't have a huge interest in space until the very end of the shuttle program, such incredible (but admittedly risky) vehicles.

Booster 7 took a stroll back to the production site



And some pretty awesome super slow-mo footage of the static fire the other day

 
I'm curious about the section depth of that road considering it looks like its all on sand, and that's a heavy AF rocket. bet that wasn't cheap per mile.
 
surpip said:
I'm curious about the section depth of that road considering it looks like its all on sand, and that's a heavy AF rocket. bet that wasn't cheap per mile.
Click to expand...
That shit matters a lot less for transient loads as long as your ground pressure isn't enough to destroy the pavement. Just don't street park it overnight and you won't have problems. :laughing:
 
That's a good question. I know they've made improvements, but I think that road was there before SpaceX (beach access for locals). IIRC I've heard that these early boosters are in the like 220-250 ton range, then the added weight of the SPMTs, that's definitely some mass rolling down the road. A lot of points of contact though, hmm.

Alright a little bit of news before putting the welding helmet on this morning

NASA officially declared SLS's tanking test a few days ago as a success, meaning the Sept 27th launch window is on the table if they get the waiver signed for the extended life of the FTS (Flight Termination System) batteries by the FAA (I think?). Buuut, the latest predicted paths of the incoming tropical storm are looking like they will not only interfere with that launch date, but may force NASA to roll the rocket back to the VAB for protection. If that ends up happening, the murmurs are saying end of October or November for the next realistic launch dates



And I don't recall if I posted this but Relativity has been ramping their test campaign, and have now completed a 57 second static fire. Full duration is next, these guys have been kicking ass



And this engine view they've been offering is just incredible

 
The last of these huge Delta 4 Heavy launch from the west coast, super bummed I didn't end up catching one of these. The East coast has another one or two before they're retired though

Stream is live now, launch was going to be in about 15 minutes, but has a new launch time of 3:25pm



 
Weeeeeell, they waited as long as they could to make the decision, but this morning they decided to roll the SLS back to the VAB for protection from tropical storm (hurricane?) Ian. From what I've gathered they've been pretty hesitant to roll back preemptively not only because of the time implications, but the miles of travel and vibrations while it rides the crawler are something they don't like from a fatigue perspective.



And some awesome super slo mo footage of the Delta 4 heavy launch, gotta love that hydrogen fireball on startup



And as you may have seen in the Dart specific thread, we're intentionally crashing into an asteroid today!

 
Firefly kicked some ass with their Alpha rocket last night (this morning). After weather scrubs and one technical scrub (helium pressure?) they finally got their Alpha rocket ready to launch one more time yesterday morning at 12:07 AM. They got all the way down to engine ignition but had an auto-abort from the computer based on the sensors from one of the engines. They reviewed the date and were happy with what they saw, and got ready for a 12:01 AM launch attempt this morning. Flight took off right at the top of the launch window at 12:01 exactly, and went off without a hitch. They got to orbit, did a secondary engine burn to raise the orbit further, and deployed the 3 tiny payloads (as a demonstration flight they didn't fly any high risk or expensive stuff, just a few small cubesats).

Fuck yeah. This company has looked really promising, it's exciting to see the flight go so well for them.







 
Starlink launch from Vandenberg in 2 hours and change



Relativity Space is getting ready to finish integrating their 3d printed rocket for a full static fire, and launching soon hopefully. These folks are another super impressive group that look like they're going to do good things



SLS survived the hurricane (and a fire that happened in the VAB soon after it got tucked back in there, electrical panel on a wall caught fire). They're targeting mid-November launch window at this point. There's a small chance that Starship may beat it to orbit at this point :stirthepot: (which is a fun poll that people have been conducting for months)



and Tory Bruno (ULA CEO) is getting excited about the BE-4 engines he's finally about to get for the otherwise fully completed inaugural Vulcan rocket



Then there's a ULA Atlas 5 launch tomorrow (I'll have to get a link), and SpaceX's Crew 5 launch to the ISS in two days

 
Completely agreed, it's awesome to see how it interacts with the dust kicked up by the concussion, how it pulls a vacuum on the environment all around it haha.

Last nights SpaceX flight was delayed until I believe this evening, but they may give the crew launch tomorrow priority, and opt to launch this payload after that is done.

But we've got the Atlas 5 launch in an hour

 
That Atlas 5 flight went off without a hitch, and there were some great launch photos I'll try to grab later.

But I don't want to take away from todays excitement, we've got a crewed launch to the ISS in an hour! The crew are already in their seats, and the hatch is closed.

SpaceX live feed (my preferred):



NASASpaceflight (non-govt journalists), same guys that follow Starship:



Waving before hatch closing:



Cool infographic:



Hatch closure (they had to close it twice, there was a piece of hair in the seal on the first closing):

 
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Hahaha


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Real talk though, great launch. I find it extremely amusing that SpaceX provides all of their streams in 1440p, but had this one at 720p because NASA doesn't stream in HD and they're sharing footage between the two live feeds :lmao:.

And an impressive figure, SpaceX has now launched 30 people to space, since only May of 2020

 
And SpaceX is sending another rocket up this afternoon with starlink satellites, and another tomorrow with a couple of commercial satellites. The pace is crazy!

On a side note, was out camping this weekend and soaking in the off-grid hot tub when what should come overhead but the freshly launched batch of starlinks. They were really bright and had good distance between them already which made for a great show.

An interesting thing though is that most of them were in a relatively well spaced straight line but there were a couple of pairs that were off to the side if the line. Not only were they off to the side, but they also did not run exactly parallel to the line. It was extremely close to parallel, but as the whole show moved across the sky it became very clear that the Sideliners were on a path that would intersect each other, and just lightly angled away or towards the main stream. I am wondering if something went wrong with these when they were released, or maybe they are headed to join a different string? Maybe to replace failed satellites?
 
I actually didn't realized until this afternoon that the Starlink launch they delayed was just this afternoon haha, the cadence is so wild.

Badass that you got to see a solid Starlink train too, and by simple luck haha. Good eyes on the few stragglers too. The answer could be any of the options you thought of. Once they're on orbit SpaceX does checkouts, and actively deorbits any that have issues (if the propulsion is still operational, but they original release height is so low they deorbit quickly naturally as well). But that doesn't usually lead to an inclination change, so it's possible they sent a couple over to a different orbital shell to fill/replace some final positions.

This website is awesome:

Starlink satellite tracker

Not only does it give you a global view of the current satellites in orbit, if you click the "..." at the top mid-left of the screen, you can select starlink launches. Then click on each individual launch and see what the starlinks from that particular launch are doing:

List of starlink launches and status today

From clicking on those latest few launches, my initial guess is you saw the train from the Sept 19th launch, as it has two satellites acting different. It has one maintaining the initial low altitude (which probably means it's shifting to a different spot in the shell, or the propulsion system is inactive. The second one looks to be actively deorbiting:

Starlink launch 19 September 2022, 00:18 details
 
Clean mission, 5th flight in the books for this booster. And another cool note I didn't realize, this set another internal record of theirs for shortest amount of time between two flights at 7 hours and 10 minutes



And here's the cool statistic:

 
Crew 5 docked successfully with tie ISS in the last hour



And Falcon 9 launch number 3 in two days launches in about an hour and fifteen



And some exciting news, payloads are finally starting to get ready for the next Falcon Heavy launches, with the first happening this month. I think they have something like 6 planned in the next 12 months, after not launching for a long time

 
10 minutes until an Electron launch by Rocket Lab



And SpaceX scrubbed last nights launch at T-30 seconds, it was an automated abort by the computer due to a small helium leak. They're geared back up to go again today though in a 6 hours:

 
Solid flight, first and second stage performed as expected. the third ("kick") stage is coasting now, but has been pretty reliable.

Oh yeah and in Starship news, a couple days ago they dismounted Ship 24 from its test stand and rolled it over near the launch mount. Then early this morning Booster 7 rolled back out of the assembly building possibly for the final time. It's currently lined up within the chopsticks, and it looks like they'll be going for a full stack in the coming days, which may very well be the final time before they launch. Awesome stuff

 
SpaceX stood down from this launch for the second time yesterday, around ~30 minutes before launch. Third time's the charm, going for it today.

It's launching in around 50 minutes

 
Great flight all around, flight number 14 for this booster.

But holy shit. SpaceX like to launch at twilight because of the incredible effect it creates (the launch site is in the shade, the rocket flies up into sunlight) and this was no exception. But had some special views I've never seen before.

Apparently they had the drone ship's cameras lined up so they were looking back in the general vicinity of the launch site, and caught this view of the second stage burning straight towards it overhead. The exhaust plume creates what people call the "jellyfish" as you can see how much it expands as the rocket gets into the upper atmosphere



And right before that shot from the drone ship they were showing this tracking shot from the ground. The left object is the second stage powering away, the right object is the first stage flipping around soon after detaching to get ready for its ride back into the atmosphere. Then you can see the two fairing halves separate from the second stage part way through. This style of shot has been seen before, but always cool



And the photographers are really getting tricky with their alignments

 
I haven't been keeping up with the posts as well, but things are still moving right along

Starlink launch in just over 45 minutes:



And in other news, ESA's (European Space Agency) Ariane 6 (the successor to the very successful Ariane 5, that launched the JWST on one of its many missions) first flight has stretched out to Q4 2023. It's built to be more cost effective than the previous version, with some other upgrades in thrust and modular capability. Not the end of the world, but ESA was relying heavily on the Russian Soyuz up until this year so their whole program got flipped on its head when the shitstorm started. Thankfully they've been able to find rides for their planned payloads on other rockets in the meantime.





 
Why does there appear to be so much shit falling off the booster as it returns? looks like lots of tiles falling off or something.
 
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