Elon Musk said the SpaceX starship achieved a precise, soft landing in the ocean, paving the way for return to launch site and being caught by the tower arms, like the booster.
Full and rapid reusability improves the cost of access to orbit and beyond by over 10,000%. The cost per kilogram to space will go from $1000 per kilogram to $10 per kilogram. The amount of material launched to space will increase by thousands of times.
It is the fundamental technology breakthrough needed to make life multiplanetary and for us to become a true spacefaring civilization.
SpaceX Starship made the flip maneuver and landing burn on its fifth flight test. Vehicle improvements ensured flaps were protected from high heating, resulting in a controlled entry and high accuracy splashdown at the targeted area in the Indian Ocean.
SpaceX is working towards a November 10-15, 2024 launch date for flight 6.
Starship flip maneuver and landing burn on its fifth flight test. Vehicle improvements ensured flaps were protected from high heating, resulting in a controlled entry and high accuracy splashdown at the targeted area in the Indian Ocean pic.twitter.com/nLIQLLVMv1
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) October 18, 2024
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I’d expect the next Starship flight to deploy some Starlinks to make sure that the the PEZ dispenser works.
TBH I am not sure SpaceX wants to recover the Starships (yet) as they are still iterating on the design a good deal.
This next launch isn’t going for Starship catch, and they have a second tower to catch it.
I think authorities will allow SpaceX to tower catch Starship,they already demonstrated safely catching the superheavy.
My hunch is they might want to go orbital with Starship and launch something. Some Starlink satellites using the PEZ dispenser.
Not sure if that’s too big of a change from the approved mission profile, but for the launch and returns, it’s basically the same, despite the longer Starship flight.
It will be very difficult to convince regulators to allow noisy and potentially dangerous (in event of breakup) reentry over Mexico/Texas. Everyone is so much more risk-averse than they were in Shuttle’s time
They can target a slight over-shoot toward ocean and then glide a few km back towards land and tower as they fall from 30km
If you’re landing on the East coast, reentry over land is pretty much unavoidable. Sure, you could as you suggest over-shoot a *little*, and glide back, but the Starship has, according to an old NASA analysis I’ve seen, a L/D ratio of between 0.5 and 1 depending on orientation, and a glide ratio of about one; Slightly better than a brick, but only slightly. And it comes in with drag, not glide, optimized, to shed speed. All the wings do is increase drag a bit and provide control surfaces.
So the feasible “over-shoot” would be very slight indeed. Basically enough to account for the chopsticks being on the East side of the launch tower, and that’s it. The thing’s not a glider.
If the FAA decides to not allow an over-land reentry, their only remaining option would be an off shore platform. That would delay them at least a year.
I have heard discussions about catch-only towers.
I seem to remember LV studies that had clamshell type enclosures to protect first stage engines—perhaps SuperHeavy could use them.
How will they catch both booster and ship with one tower ? Unless the 2nd tower is ready for the flight.
The booster returns within minutes, the upper stage could potentially complete any number of orbits before reentering to be caught. So they’d have to catch the booster, and then set it aside using the arms, perhaps on the transport, and land the Starship once the tower area was clear.
Yes they are also working on an second tower, it might be delays lowering the first stage on the launch mount and de-fuel if then move it away.
Un-fueling SS is also an issue on the standard towers I assume but might work.
Thank you, Brian.
I would like to see the Starship complete a full orbit of the planet before landing. 😉
Starship is going to make all other commercial rocket launch companies obsolete, unless they can also manage to keep up with the progress that SpaceX has already made.
The 1950’s science fiction finally brought to life!