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Starship Launch Upcoming
Rocky Raab
Member Posts: 14,213 ✭✭✭✭
SpaceX will attempt to launch their monster craft Starship this morning at 7:00 Central time. The live webcast is live here: https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-2
I may be a bit crazy - but I didn't drive myself.
Comments
Darn it! Missed the liftoff but it looks like it made it off the pad and is doing pretty good now. Go Elon!
And now I just thought I heard them mention an 'unscheduled disassembly'...
Oops!
Starship, you say?
On the tv news they just said that the launch went bad.
Rocky, have you applied to be the voice of SpaceX?? Who would be more qualified??
That was one hell of an explosion to be labeled an "Unscheduled disassembly!!" An amazing example of understatement!!
Rocky since your knowledge of all things space is far past anyone else here on GB, what do you think of Elon and SpaceX??
Personally, I'm impressed but what do I know.
I did apply to be their launch commentator, but they went with having employees do it - and they mostly do an excellent job.
SpaceX is simply astounding. When I was with NASA, every single engineer there swore up and down that returning a booster to land and reuse was not only impractical but impossible. Elon himself is brilliant, but (like Trump) addicted to hyperbole. That's to be expected in a showman and entrepreneur, of course. And he mostly follows through on his grandiose claims.
As to the self-destructs: both occurred after at least 90% of the hoped-for data points had been achieved. They'll be able to tell what triggered the RUDs, but they were NOT failures. From my initial observations in real time, it looked to me that the first stage started its flip and boost back, but may have kept on "flipping" instead of pointing correctly. That would have caused the self-destruct mechanism to activate - which it did. The second stage looked to me to have an anomalous plume very close to the end of its planned burn, which may have been either an engine failure or some other serious issue. Again, the self-destruct system sensed that and performed as designed. Telemetry analysis will reveal all.
Well done SpaceX!
Very good impressive. 100% of first stage engines survived to separation. Would have been great to see that monster come home.
Brad Steele
Watching replays, the first stage had engine issues trying to relight some of them. At least one may have exploded. The telemetry will reveal all.
Meh........................it blew up again.
I do want to see a successful launch and recovery.
Baby steps.............
Well, he's done a hundred times better than NASA did and in a fraction of the time.
And he does it cheaper