Single-track’s space, rockets and astronauts thread

Looks like they have approved it! Go for launch!

https://www.space.com/spacex-faa-license-second-starship-launch

First go is a 2 hour window starting 1300 gmt in Friday.

We placing bets on the damage caused this time round?

1 rocket,  2 mini vans, 6 cameras and one ego.   Second thoughts,  nothing can damage Musk’s ego!

Delayed until Saturday.  Replacing a grid in a fin actuator.

Shouldn’t that be,  Actuator in a grid fin’?  Makes more sense

50 minutes (potentially) boys and girls!

They are fueling.

🤩

OMFG…. That was SO cool!

Incredible …. Every engine running and perfect stage separation!

Missed it live but watching the replay. 

Very impressive. Clean takeoff , tidy separation. 

Hoping for a nice crash landing 😁

If you’re going to watch a stream go with Everyday Astronaut…… Way better than NSF

I was lost in the adverts of YouTube and the ongoing shed build. 

Lost in space?

I’m sure it’s all technically amazing but rocket launches like this all seem a bit passé now. Even the kids were a bit meh.

I’d perhaps watch the launch if musk was duct taped to the nose one, otherwise meh. 

id probably wear a helmet on next years crewed mission to mars tho

I’m sure it’s all technically amazing but rocket launches like this all seem a bit passé now. Even the kids were a bit meh.

And yet you still found the time to post that 🤔

Please let us know what interests you so we can say how boring it seems.
😉
(And JFYI yes it is rocket science and it is technically pretty amazing)

Edit: I’m not sure kids have the ability to comprehend the enormity of it compared to any other rocket.

I have just re watched it. It was impressive. I struggle to build a wooden shed and do simple DIY. Hats off to the engineers and scientists that can visualise this stuff and then build it.
One day I’ll launch my shed. 🚀🏚️

Did the deluge system work? Did stage 0 survive?

The launch pad looked in good condition after launch. The rocket didn’t hang around digging a hole like the first attempt. 

Separation was successful, booster was destroyed on purpose, the top bit continued for a few more minutes before being destroyed. 

I’ll hazard a guess that that was the intention to terminate the flight rather than letting the ship crash into the sea off Hawaii. Easier to clean up a mess in their local area. 

Wow.  Just watched the nsf feed.  I’ll have to do every day astronaut later.  Impressive progress!  So what next?  Crunch data for 6 weeks and go again early Jan?  They’ve got the rockets to do several launches I think.

Water deluge good,  separated good,  flip and ready to boost back,  good?

Starship to space and orbit good.

I’d say the electric gimballing was a big success. As far as I could see not a single raptor failure!

Wow!

Iterate, wash, rinse, repeat, perfect!

When you remember they launch falcon 9/ heavy more than once a week,  how many starship launches per month could they be at a year from now?

And yet you still found the time to post that

No need to be so defensive, it’s just an opinion on a forum. It’s a Saturday so time is spare, and I’ve just watched a much-hyped event on national telly which was a bit underwhelming.

I think to be amazed you need to think about the numbers. That rocket is huge and it doesn’t show how huge on film.  It goes very fast and Again film doesn’t show that

booster was destroyed on purpose

I’m not completely convinced it was, but they had to change the self-destruct system after the first flight so maybe they needed to test it [to satisfy the authorities that the changes were effective].

I very much doubt they blew starship up on purpose. Some speculation is that it had strayed slightly off course and, as it was coming down anyway, they decided to terminate over the sea rather than over land.

No need to be so defensive

I’m fairly sure SpaceX does not need defending.

I see plenty on national TV that I’m underwhelmed by, but I dont bother going online to say so.

Whatever, it’s a chat forum, expect chat. Sorry to ruin your Musk spaff-fest.

Thanks for explaining neil, useful.

For size,  it’s 120m tall.  Angel of the north is 20m.  Big Ben is 96m tall.  

Good to see it launch and separate without issue! Bit upset both bits went bang but definite improvement compared to last time. Looking forward to the next one.

The first time we see a starship land properly after orbit will be incredible! The first time we see them refuel in orbit will be even more incredible!

These achievements aren’t Musks. They’re the engineers at SpaceX’s.

This is all part of his Tescreal plan to colonise mars isn’t it?, quote below is doing the rounds on various forums 

“I was sceptical before, but after seeing his management skills in action, I think allowing Elon to oversee the migration of Earth’s wealthiest elites to Mars is a great idea”. 

What seems like good analysis from Scott Manley.

Sorry to ruin your Musk spaff-fest.

This thread is not about Musk.  Maybe have a go on the electric car or solar threads?

Daft question, but when they blow up the booster and top section, do they go off and collect the debris. Be quite cool to get a bit of a space rocket in the garden.

I have no idea!  I think this time the debris will be small.  For starship at least,  the bits would have burnt up on re entry.  Not sure for the booster

If on land they would collect them…. Not at sea.

I watched the Scott Manley video last night….as always it was very informative.

It will be interesting to find out why Starship was destroyed – pretty much everything looked to be going OK.

Maybe it was a leak as SM suggested.

And now lots of clean audio and video of the launch from everyday astronaut.Some of the views give a much better sense of scale.

Watching the assembled footage now on the everyday astronaut site and some of the long distance videos are nice to watch. 

One day I’ll hopefully get round to watching a launch (of any rocket) in person. 

The space world has been busy over the last 3 months.  It appears there is a full on race to the moon in progress with lots of participants.  I guess it’s all about hopefully finding water to make fuel from,  and build a staging point for further exploration and exploitation of the further solar system.  The couple of failures to land successfully seem to show landing is darn hard!  I wonder if spaceX will feel confident given the earth based landing practice they have is immense.

On spaceX, integrated flight test #3 in the next couple of weeks it seems. Will it get there this time?  Apparently they have applied for a licence to launch up to 9 times in 2024 so almost 1 a month!  I reckon they could get close given the speed they achieve falcon 9/ heavy launches and the second launch tower under construction now.

Closer to home.. ..I took the kids to the national space centre in Leicester at half term and they loved it. We are keen to go back.  I thoroughly recommend booking online to avoid disappointment as it was rammed. The online tickets are automatically upgraded to annual passes too so our planned visit at Easter will just be £4 parking and 5x£3 for a planetary show.   If you’ve young kids and are passing Leicester give it a go.  My only disappointment was not seeing Maddie Moate.

Just come across this thread. Went to Florida last week to watch the Daytona 500 and popped over to the Kennedy Space Center before coming home. Brilliant place and the Atlantis shuttle display was fantastic. Starts off with an Imax style presentation on the development etc with really moving music and ends with the screen opening to reveal the real Atlantis shuttle!
Anyway, by chance there was a Space X launch happening while we were there carrying an Indonesian satellite. Got to see it live with commentary from an expert plus big screen live feed. To be honest, not as loud as I expected but it was seven miles away at Cape Canaveral. Brilliant to see though and see the corkscrew trails left when they throttle back the engines at the Max Q point of the ascent. I have a video if anyone is that interested 🙂

SpaceX starship IF3 is coming! Noon today, launch window opens, oh yes!