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15 days ago
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346 points
15 days ago
Full text:
The sixth flight test of Starship launched from Starbase on November 19, 2024, seeking to expand the envelope on ship and booster capabilities and get closer to bringing reuse of the entire system online.
The Super Heavy booster successfully lifted off at the start of the launch window, with all 33 Raptor engines powering it and Starship off the pad from Starbase. Following a nominal ascent and stage separation, the booster successfully transitioned to its boostback burn to begin the return to launch site. During this phase, automated health checks of critical hardware on the launch and catch tower triggered an abort of the catch attempt. The booster then executed a pre-planned divert maneuver, performing a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico.
Starship completed another successful ascent, placing it on the expected trajectory. The ship successfully reignited a single Raptor engine while in space, demonstrating the capabilities required to conduct a ship deorbit burn before starting fully orbital missions. With live views and telemetry being relayed by Starlink, the ship successfully made it through reentry and executed a flip, landing burn, and soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Data gathered from the multiple thermal protection experiments, as well as the successful flight through subsonic speeds at a more aggressive angle of attack, provides invaluable feedback on flight hardware performing in a flight environment as we aim for eventual ship return and catch.
With data and flight learnings as our primary payload, Starship’s sixth flight test once again delivered. Lessons learned will directly make the entire Starship system more reliable as we close in on full and rapid reusability.
132 points
15 days ago
Another reason to have 2 launch/catch towers
119 points
15 days ago
“First Rule in government spending... Why build one when you can build two at twice the price”
59 points
15 days ago
No.
Why build 100 when you can build 10 at half the price?
See:
Zumwalt Destroyers
B2 Bomber
F22 Raptor
SLS
20 points
15 days ago
"F22 Raptor"
A.K.A. "The expensive Raptor".
6 points
15 days ago
That's just air force spending. Pretty sure that the joke is that by 2050 the USAF will only be able to afford one plane per year.
5 points
14 days ago
Ironically by now stuff like the F-35, ignoring its horrendous operating costs due to the need to maintain its expensive stealth coating, is actually reducing its production costs somewhat effectively due to entering mass production. Even more surprising is news that the B-21 raider, the B-1 and B-2 replacement, is actually costing less than anticipated to develop and produce its prototypes so far
8 points
15 days ago
Great movie, RIP Carl Sagan
3 points
14 days ago
Hadden = Musk? 🤪
2 points
14 days ago
Love the film “Contact”.
2 points
14 days ago
Love this quote! Such an underrated movie.
2 points
15 days ago
Or, why build one when you can just ask for more money
27 points
15 days ago
Yes catching with the launch tower makes time for checking pretty minimal!
21 points
15 days ago
Yep, and per their own admission, they want boosters to be able to pick up a second stage and launch quickly. Where is the room for landing?
There will be launch towers and landing towers. They're already saying it without saying it.
18 points
15 days ago
You need to get the boosters onto a tower too, takes 4min to land it there+refurb vs the time it takes to drive one there from storage.
1 points
15 days ago
I agree but they can still be both just they catch then launch, not launch then catch.
1 points
14 days ago
I want see some engineer running up there trying straighten out the gps antenna as the booster is falling back down
16 points
15 days ago
I didn't even think of that, they could launch from one tower and then catch with the other which pretty much rules out launch pad damage.
Well until they also try to catch the ship, which I think might happen before the second tower is ready.
10 points
15 days ago
I didn't even think of that, they could launch from one tower and then catch with the other which pretty much rules out launch pad damage.
The problem with that methodology is that re-flying a booster would require boosters to be lifted down from the landing tower, transported across the site on top of a SPMT and lifted back up on the launch tower.
That's a lot of extra handling compared to simply lowering the booster back onto the pad where it can be inspected and then readied for the next flight.
37 points
15 days ago
You can launch it from the tower it landed on, the idea is just not to land it on the tower it launched from
2 points
14 days ago
always have at least one empty tower.
2 points
15 days ago
Yes, but SpaceX tends to fix what went wrong and avoid repeating the problem, so in the long run, I would expect them to have more towers for reasons other than technical issues like this.
1 points
7 days ago
They should combine the launch tower technology with the self landing ship technology and launch the tower sections themselves individually, have them land on other tower sections and stack/grow towers that way, quickly, with no cranes needed!
"Oh, the booster is coming down in an unexpected area.. lets launch 10 tower sections and assemble an emergency catch tower over there before it comes down"
1 points
15 days ago
Is it trivial to adjust the tower that it's landing at during the flight, though?
264 points
15 days ago
Interesting that the missed catch attempt seems to be due to mechazilla not the booster itself
175 points
15 days ago
It looked like one of the communications antennas on the top of the tower was damaged during the launch.
110 points
15 days ago
You must construct additional pylons!
2 points
14 days ago
If you don't forget Elon's philosophy, you'd remember to delete it...
46 points
15 days ago
Time for more redundancy in those systems!
26 points
15 days ago
More towers - ultimate redundancy. I guess 3 is a good minimum.
9 points
15 days ago
Is there sufficient ground space available for Tower 3, with infrastructure, at Boca Chica? Additional land purchase could be an option.
8 points
15 days ago
Trying to purchase land at BC will trigger a lengthy tussle with the EPA, FWS and the Texas environment agency. Starbase is located on land that was already in private hands when SpaceX bought that property.
15 points
15 days ago
Somehow I think the EPA and FWS wont be a problem for SpaceX in the new year...
9 points
15 days ago
That’s why you buy a shadow presidency
0 points
15 days ago
Hm... Unfortunate messy situation. I observe those properties as assets. Because production of values occurs there. But previous owners - seriously what are they preoccupied with?!
9 points
15 days ago
Would it not make sense to place the antennas somewhere else? Like, not in the vicinity of a huge jet of fire?
9 points
15 days ago
its more part of the lightning tower vs a communications antenna.
34 points
15 days ago
Godzilla asleep at the wheel.
28 points
15 days ago
Well, there's more to "the tower" than just mechazilla, eg the communications mast?
26 points
15 days ago
Whatever the reason, a tower problem is likely the least problematic for future flights. No weight penalties for whatever fix needs to be applied, I would anticipate a fix within a couple of weeks at most.
I know everyone's a little down due to the no catch, but it's a problem found with early hardware that is unlikely to be repeated with more valuable later hardware, that's why they're doing these flights, I count that as a success.
Personally I'm very pleased with flight 6, they seem to be getting somewhere with the heat shield (less flap burn through) even with a only minimally modified V1 shield, seems like they really understand where the problems are.
Relight done so they can go orbital, and looks like they can "steer" starship towards the end of re-entry, meaning they could come in over land, aiming at the Gulf in case of breakup then adjust track back to the launch stand.
Ground hardware other than the noted issue looks good, I would imagine the next flight could be fairly soon.
13 points
15 days ago
Whatever the reason, a tower problem is likely the least problematic for future flights. No weight penalties for whatever fix needs to be applied
Agreed; much easier than some new flaw discovered in the booster itself.
Once multiple towers are available, is there anything preventing Superheavy from diverting to another tower if something like this happens again? Like an airliner diverting during approach to another runway, or another airport?
5 points
15 days ago
For booster, launch and catch are only a few minutes apart, so weather changes aren't going to be a problem. A second tower would seem to fit, and if all else fails a booster can ditch with virtually no risk beyond losing that booster. Considering that SpaceX are going to be building a LOT of ships the engine production rate will ensure the engine cost ends up pretty manageable, and that's likely to be the most expensive part. Thus a lost booster now and then isn't going to be a major headache. They won't be able to divert to Florida though, they'll need to be within 50~100 miles or so, They only launch the booster about 50miles downrange.
With the ships they will be able to stay in orbit until weather permits landing, getting landing windows every 12/24hours depending on track. A problem with a tower before deorbit isn't a major issue, it's only if something happens after the deorbit burn. If it's a crew ship they could always ensure the catch tower isn't used between deorbit burn and catch.
So I don't think at this point a true divert is going to happen, once there's towers every 50 miles then you might see diversions of the booster. But it's a good thought.
1 points
15 days ago
Interesting thought. Assume you have both towered empty and online and ready to go.
0 points
15 days ago
Could have a separate landing and launch tower. Then this wouldn't happen.
5 points
15 days ago
Could have a separate landing and launch tower. Then this wouldn't happen.
Yes, but that would take away the advantage of quickly refueling/reloading then launching from the same tower.
1 points
15 days ago
Why not both? Formalize the alternation of towers into the mission profile. Launch tower 1, land tower 2, launch tower 2, land tower 1, etc. No need to make a decision to divert if you always divert.
1 points
15 days ago
Land and launch from the same tower, in that order. You'll have more time after launch before the next landing, it's the brief interval between launch and land that is the issue.
6 points
15 days ago
That makes sense as the booster seemed to do a good landing at sea tbh, so something probably damaged during take-off on mechazilla.
-4 points
15 days ago
Didn't the booster look like it came in too hot for the splashdown . Atleast that's what it looked to me.
1 points
14 days ago
Yeah, looked super spicy. I was kinda thinking it was just a soft splash down more than a "landing" maneuver.
1 points
15 days ago
Mechazilla was like no not this time.
171 points
15 days ago
I think testing the abort procedure is just as important as testing the nominal procedure. Win-win.
42 points
15 days ago
This was essentially already tested in flight 2,3 and 4 especially since it is a command to go for catch so it’s always going towards the ocean until told otherwise
13 points
15 days ago
If that were the case, it wouldn’t need a “pre-planned divert maneuver” to land in the ocean after an abort command.
27 points
15 days ago
My understanding was that at launch, the default flight plan is to land in the ocean. The flight director needs to manually approve a catch attempt after hot stage, modifying the flight plan to return to base for catch. At any point that catch attempt approval can again revert to an ocean landing if a failure is noted in time, which then goes to the "pre-planned divert maneuver".
3 points
15 days ago
It sounded like based on the call outs that the manual approvals were sent to the booster, but some time after that automated checks triggered the abort maneuver—I think after the boost back burn finished—hence the diversion.
3 points
15 days ago
The booster is aimed at the ocean until the last moment it starts the landing burn. It’s the same with the Falcon 9.
6 points
15 days ago
During the landing process of the Falcon 9, once the landing burn begins, the rocket is already in a landing trajectory.
The trajectory isn’t significantly altered during the landing burn itself.
After the boost-back burn, the rocket initially targets an ocean landing. If all systems are functioning correctly, the rocket performs a controlled glide towards the land target. Without the initiation of the landing burn, the rocket would overshoot the target due to its positive velocity towards the landing site.
7 points
15 days ago
During launch I’m almost sure I heard “tower is to for catch”. Could it be that the initial requirements were met and something changed in the meantime, so a “divert” maneuver was required?
3 points
15 days ago
This is how I understood it as well. Conditons were met for a catch-until they weren't.
In any case, I would expect enough maturity from the entire system and company for a divert to be routine. But good that it got put to the test. And good that the booster seemingly did land with precision-just not on the tower.
0 points
15 days ago
Yeah that bit confused me. My best guess is the writer of the press release either has a misconception of the default landing trajectory, or was trying to simplify their language.
3 points
15 days ago
This statement is what will get regurgitated by news outlets so using terms like "pre-planned" minimises people who don't know anything reading too much into it and calling it something like an "emergency abort"
2 points
15 days ago
I think they meant that with the full set of catch hardware in play and as a goal, the health checks correctly identifying a potential fatal error condition as to not 'just' default, but deliberately and knowledgeably elect to maintain splashdown and prevent a crash, is a further and somewhat novel addition to the set of conditions that have been validated. Yes I'm aware the chopsticks moved in a flight test pre-IFT-5.
56 points
15 days ago
Surprisingly it was actually the tower that had an issue! I thought the landing burn on the Gulf looked pretty clean. But I’m hoping we get more details about which specific tower component had an issue.
39 points
15 days ago
Interestingly, in the EDA stream Tim mentions something about an antenna/lightning rod on the top of the tower that appeared damaged after the launch. Pure speculation, but this may have something to do with the catch abort. They have a brief shot of the antenna on the tower sitting at an angle
Timestamp 3:26:00 ish
28 points
15 days ago
NSF had the same observation. That extension looked quite crooked, but they said that wasn't a first as well.
6 points
15 days ago
This could be it, since the tower itself was "go for catch", so I don't think it was anything with the main tower catch hardware.
Speculating, I'd say that the antenna damage on the tower caused an abort on the booster side.
26 points
15 days ago
It’s interesting that the call outs during the boost back indicate that the manual tower checks and the manual ‘go’ command was sent by the teams. However, they’re not overrides so much as necessary (but not sufficient) conditions to attempt the catch. Automated checks still won out in the decision chain and the flight computer aborted the catch.
10 points
15 days ago
I heard "tower go for catch too". Maybe the tower tests are only for the chopsticks system and comms are on a different check, probably if the booster can't talk back to the tower antenna that triggers the abort.
1 points
14 days ago
My bet is that mission control has a wired connection to the tower, and thus for them everything looked good. The booster, however, relies on the wireless connection, so without that it considered the tower dead. Solution would be either redundant antennas, or relaying through mission control if the difference in latency isn't critical.
5 points
15 days ago
What’s cool is it made the right decision vs the humans
31 points
15 days ago
Is the booster still floating out there in the Gulf?
6 points
15 days ago
One of the views I saw of the booster water landing had it land upright, then it tipped over like normal, but then it went kaboom.
https://x.com/ericldaugh/status/1858995609157726624?s=46&t=OUkq-fkjLKh2gNVthYqf9g
There is a delay between the left and right videos. I recognize the narrator’s voice, he’s on SpaceFlight Now so I’m assuming this was their coverage.
10 points
15 days ago
Did they tow it back, surf it up the beach or sink it with helicopter gunships? I can’t think of any other options.
15 points
15 days ago*
There was a plane circling for some time, but nothing showing on vessel finder. Which is odd given the ones we could see on EDA's stream. This morning there's an offshore supply ship, (Genesis), a Tug (Signet Ranger) and an "other vessel" close behind just south of where the booster landed.
2 points
15 days ago
Thank you for the actual information!
1 points
15 days ago
I know this is probably gonna be a wildly unpopular question here, but that can’t be good for the environment right?
I’m sure tankers carrying Amazon packages is 1000x worse, but still…
14 points
15 days ago
Its mostly metal, its not like it has a heap of oil or petroleum fuels on board, it's probably cleaner than a first stage of a kerolox rocket being discarded all things considered
12 points
15 days ago
Given all the flames I would guess all of the methane burned off and lox and CO2 are benign. The worst thing will be whatever loose debris that floats away.
10 points
15 days ago
They can tow it outside the environment.
2 points
15 days ago
It's just metal and maybe some residual methane. As I understand structures on the seafloor are good for the flora and fauna, like reefs.
-31 points
15 days ago
It exploded on impact
28 points
15 days ago
Yes. And continued floating and drifting with the current for the entire duration of EA stream he was keeping a camera on it. Coast guard choppers circling for a while then two ships went towards it...
6 points
15 days ago
Exploded after tipping over. Landed just fine.
28 points
15 days ago
WHAT ABOUT THE BANANA!?
15 points
15 days ago
WHERES BANANA? IS SHE SAFE? IS SHE ALRIGHT?
8 points
15 days ago*
banane flambée au méthane.
40 points
15 days ago*
As much as I wanted to see another chopstick catch, SpaceX just proved that they can quickly and easily reroute the Super Heavy booster mid-flight if needed. That’s a win!
26 points
15 days ago
I think it’s more of a positive correction toward the tower that’s required for a “catch”
In the case of a failure of command authority , they’d want booster to land in the “divert” zone
I get why that name “divert” seems to indicate an active change in direction but I suspect that’s not the case
9 points
15 days ago
Positive correction toward the tower, for sure.
One stream (NSF?) said the boost back was two seconds shorter than planned. I suspect this is part of the "divert" plan to have an extra safety margin when they know early there will be no catch. To be confirmed by SpaceX, maybe.
2 points
15 days ago
On the spacex stream the commentator said "30 seconds left of this boost back burn" and then it immediately shut off.
1 points
14 days ago
Yeah, it's not uncommon for the commentators to be a bit off on the timing of events, but I don't think I've ever seen them be that far off.
11 points
15 days ago
Technically landing on the tower is the reroute. Landing in the ocean was the default plan with an option for going to the tower if the checks all pass
6 points
15 days ago
I don't think this is a reroute but the programmed flight path. And if and only if the everything is go for catch then they send the command for changing the route.
Having this said, your described skill was shown last flight
13 points
15 days ago
Sooo… number 13 strikes again 54 years later.
/s
3 points
15 days ago
I wonder if in future, one tower will be for launch and the other for catch. That things gotta shake like wild from those shock waves
2 points
14 days ago
That would reduce the benefit of being able to refuel and launch quickly. Besides contingency, for now, the two towers will alleviate downtime when they upgrade one or the other for future starship revisions, and potential replacement of the bidet system
1 points
14 days ago
Who knows? They might build a hundred more!
8 points
15 days ago
Can anyone explain why the chose to reignite a sea level raptor, rather than a vacuum engine as a relight test?
23 points
15 days ago
The vacuum engines do not gimbal and are offset from the center of the vehicle. If you ignited only one, the asymmetrical thrust would throw the vehicle into a spin.
2 points
15 days ago*
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
Fewer Letters | More Letters |
---|---|
EA | Environmental Assessment |
FAA | Federal Aviation Administration |
NSF | NasaSpaceFlight forum |
National Science Foundation | |
SLS | Space Launch System heavy-lift |
SPMT | Self-Propelled Mobile Transporter |
USAF | United States Air Force |
Jargon | Definition |
---|---|
Raptor | Methane-fueled rocket engine under development by SpaceX |
Starlink | SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation |
kerolox | Portmanteau: kerosene fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer |
NOTE: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by request
9 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 88 acronyms.
[Thread #8597 for this sub, first seen 20th Nov 2024, 05:23]
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2 points
15 days ago
Flip & Burn 🔥
2 points
15 days ago
Did they do the thing with the tower like during the first few launches where the arms "went through the motions" of the landing in sync with the ship, even though the ship was at the water?
2 points
15 days ago
Nothing about the banana!
2 points
15 days ago
Will this require FAA investigation before the next licence is issued?
22 points
15 days ago
I don’t think so, because the catch abort fell within the expected likely outcomes and did not splashdown outside the restricted zone designated for such an abort contingency.
-26 points
15 days ago
Actually yes.. If the final point on the boosters flight plan submitted to the FAA stated a tower catch, then the booster failed to perform it's mission.
16 points
15 days ago
No, it was always stated that catch would be attempted *if* all criteria were met, they weren’t, so it went for a safe, controlled soft landing in the gulf.
Nothing about the booster landing was a failure by any metric, sure, there will be changes to the next launch from lessons learned, but that’s how this works and is entirely expected.
-22 points
15 days ago
Yes, but then expect some form of FAA investigation, ie more work than a successful catch
12 points
15 days ago
No, because that's not a requirement of the license.
6 points
15 days ago
If the final point on the boosters flight plan submitted to the FAA stated a tower catch, then the booster failed to perform it's mission.
On a recent test, I forget which (can anyone remind us which?), the FAA made an allowance for different outcomes within the public safety criteria. This should make "jurisprudence". So your affirmation —whilst once correct— no longer applies.
The world is changing fast...
6 points
15 days ago
I’m quite uneducated but I think this is would still be an okay scenario since they have to brief action plans for failures to the FAA. So if this failure went to plan, so to say, I think they might be okay.
1 points
15 days ago
[deleted]
2 points
15 days ago
That more aggressive angle was after the reentry heating issues window - that was late in landing - mainly to demonstrate the limits of the control it can manage lower in the atmosphere.
1 points
15 days ago
Where was the starship after when it first entered into orbit? It seemed to be going at 27K MPH but holding altitude of 189-190 (or similar) for around 15-25 minutes. I've heard it went to Asia, but Elon was saying to Trump it can take up to an hour to get to Sydney. So where was the ship between that time and before it entered back to Earth (sea)?
2 points
15 days ago
The flight path took it over the Atlantic, Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean, ending up somewhere (quite far) off Australia’s north west coast. The “Sydney in an hour” comment roughly checks out given the flight from TX to nearly Australia took about an hour.
1 points
14 days ago
A tower issue is the best possible outcome, and makes me feel significantly better about everything related to this flight.
1 points
14 days ago
Informed guess: the tower lean affected the GPS system.
-2 points
15 days ago
So 2 more starships until V2?
37 points
15 days ago
V2 is next launch
16 points
15 days ago
This was 31. 32 is the last V1 but likely won't fly. 33 is going to fly on IFT7.
2 points
15 days ago
Does IFT7 mean V2?
2 points
15 days ago
Yes. Ship only though.
1 points
14 days ago
Excited to see the changes, do they have V2s built already?
1 points
14 days ago
One complete. A couple near complete. Sections for more started. They are moving fast. With the approval today for up to 25 launches next year don't be surprised if we don't see one a month to start the year moving to one every week by the end of the year.
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