this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2024
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Starship survives reentry during fourth test flight (spacenews.com)
submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago (2 children)

That was some Columbia-level damage that Starship experienced during reentry, and yet it successfully retained control authority, completed a soft landing, and everything was live streamed. Amazing!

The booster seems to be almost ready for the first catch attempt (depending on the accuracy of the landing).

I wonder to what extent they can retrofit Ship 30 to reinforce the hinge of the flaps, and how long that is going to take? On the other hand, the ship did survive, so maybe they will just repeat the launch without any major fixes, and try a few different things? (Deorbit burn, maybe even suborbital test-mass deployment, or more aggressive tests of the heat shield?)

The next-generation Starship design has less exposed flaps with reinforced hinges already. But is it already in production?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

less exposed flaps with reinforced hinges already. But is it already in production?

I'm not sure if it was at the time, but it is now. S33 nosecone was spotted on July 14th, and it has the new flap design. (Smaller flaps, positioned more leeward)

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

If it's only the on-screen flap that had issues, hopefully that points to a minor fix instead of a major one. I wonder what sort of data they have on this. How many thermal tiles were lost on each flap? Where did the issues start? Are the other flaps alright? Hard things to track.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

I don't think loss of tiles was the problem, actually. There were vapor trails in various places which I thought at the time were something venting, but Scott Manley pointed out that they actually look like hot air seeping through the gaps in the hinges. That would have exposed unshielded metal to hot gas, bypassing the heat shield entirely

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago

That was an incredible success and improvement. Control authority worked. Engine relights worked. Both stages for to their splashdown.

Put Starlinks on the next one!

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 months ago

How did the flap and, indeed, starship have enough control authority after the burn up during re-entry, to complete the soft landing?

The booster done good as well of course...

Flipping awesome outcome... Beers all around.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 months ago

That was incredible

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I would love to see external video of the landing. Is there any?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I'm not sure if SpaceX had any marine assets near the landing zone this time. I hope they did though, as the onboard cameras were a bit... occluded.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

On the one hand, you'd definitely want a look at the landing. On the other hand, I'm not sure I'd want to be anywhere near the possible impact spot in case of failure.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

They used a drone launched from a ship to the film The First falcon 9 landing almost a decade ago so I don't see why that would be out of the realm of possibility.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

And they have droneship landing platforms that could be used as a basestation for surveillance equipment.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

They're called drone-ships, but they're more drone-barges. You absolutely couldn't take them all the way out into the Indian Ocean in anthing but amazing weather, and they were delivered to their current home on top of another ship.

That's not to say you couldn't have some kind of unmanned observer nearby, but it'll have to be something else. Any yacht with a camera and a good drone would do the trick, you don't need to spend (and risk) millions on custom ships for that.