SpaceX (general discussion)

Wasn't that Starship first step into project Orion?

Humor aside that was a fantastic flight and 1st successful landing. The bent metal is only a minor problem. If the landing gear had absorbed the touchdown loads correctly, probably that the tank wouldn't have ruptured at all.
 
 
More information for Starship SN10 flight on the SpaceX web site, and one photo.
www.spacex.com

SpaceX

SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft.
www.spacex.com www.spacex.com

On Wednesday, March 3, Starship serial number (SN10) successfully completed SpaceX’s third high-altitude flight test of a Starship prototype from our site in Cameron County, Texas.

Similar to the high-altitude flight tests of Starship SN8 and SN9, SN10 was powered through ascent by three Raptor engines, each shutting down in sequence prior to the vehicle reaching apogee – approximately 10 km in altitude. SN10 performed a propellant transition to the internal header tanks, which hold landing propellant, before reorienting itself for reentry and a controlled aerodynamic descent.

The Starship prototype descended under active aerodynamic control, accomplished by independent movement of two forward and two aft flaps on the vehicle. All four flaps were actuated by an onboard flight computer to control Starship’s attitude during flight and enabled a precise landing at the intended location. SN10’s Raptor engines reignited as the vehicle performed the landing flip maneuver immediately before successfully touching down on the landing pad!

You can watch a replay of the flight test above.

As if the flight test was not exciting enough, SN10 experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly shortly after landing. All in all a great day for the Starship teams – these test flights are all about improving our understanding and development of a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo on long-duration interplanetary flights, and help humanity return to the Moon, and travel to Mars and beyond.

Congratulations to the entire Starship and SpaceX teams on the flight test!
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"He (nearly) did it. Crazy SOB, he did it !" Drat, I missed that yesterday evening, but it made my day today.

SN10 mimicking BSG legendary "Cpt Adama maneuver". Now a completely awesome animated GIF !

I snatched a NSF video out of Youtube, and cut the most astonishing part: 11:40 to 11:50, a scene straight out of sci-fi. Then I used a free video-to-GIF converter on the web.

View: https://youtu.be/ODY6JWzS8WU
 

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SpaceX will need to redesign the landing gear if they are to avoid any mishaps in the future regarding the landing of Starship.
 
Interesting. What mechanism is supposed to latch/lock the legs into the deployed position? Here we see them swinging freely. Did some/all of them scoot uslessly inboard at ground contact? And, if they stayed deployed properly, was the landing velocity low enough to permit the leg crumple elements to mitigate the shock? Looking forward to Manley's analysis.

This was a magnificent flight with the perfect popcorn munching closing act.

(Hey, Bezos. You watching this shit?).
 
So we finally got an official name for the skydiving stuff Starship does and someone at Space X is obviously a Doctor Who fan:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1367350152080461827

Exciting day & not over! #10 came through - flew to 10km, did the Adama maneuver, got the data we needed, flipped and landed! Time for #11...Geronimo! And more to come - I'm working Falcon 9 launch tonight. But no webcast for me, I've done mine today (abort, recycle, launch).
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Regarding all the nice videos we were given to view, couldn't they add reference lines* to quickly assess the attitude of Starship? Obviously the stream of white smoke helps when activated but when the camera are switching rapidly, it can take some uncomfortable seconds to figure what's going on on the screen.

*vertical mainly (coupled with the camera accelerometers?)
 
I mean for SpaceX they already have plenty of telemetry data, so they don't need additional attitude data; are you just talking about for the sake of viewers? I think as you watch a few launches you'll get a better understanding of the vehicle's identifying features.
 
@Dragon029 : Yes for the viewers. Gauging Starship attitude with no ground references and against a blue sky can be challenging in some shots.
 
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1367888875746697217
View: https://twitter.com/wapodavenport/status/1367888875746697217


The FAA says it "will oversee the SpaceX investigation" of the "Starship SN10 prototype mishap... All debris appears to have landed within the designated hazard area and the company reports no injuries or public property damage."
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1367889259693236224
View: https://twitter.com/wapodavenport/status/1367889259693236224


The FAA will approve "any corrective actions SpaceX must take before return to flight is authorized." The probe would "validate that the safety systems performed as designed and that the analysis of public risk was accurate. It also will determine the root cause of the mishap."
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Thrust being other than commanded is an interesting and possibly worrisome failure, will be interested to see what comes of that. Still SN11 to fly before the leap to SN15's now hotness, so I guess it makes sense to skip right to 2-engine landing and see how it does.
 
Progress at Boca Chica
SN10 remains are cut up
several article on build site got label "SCRAP"

and something new
there several part for a Starship, but are label as GSE-1

also plan for launch site show up in Internet
the site will expand twice it size

overlay with existing installation

EasyZoom

Share huge gigapixel high-resolution images from microscopy, photography, astronomy
www.easyzoom.com www.easyzoom.com
 

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Post stall, this thing can outmaneuver a Sukhoi!
 
And it doesn't even have a Pugatchev at the controls, to perform that Cobra ! :p (didn't thought about it, but yes, it looks a bit like the Su-27 whacky maneuvering - when they did not hit Le Bourget solid ground of course, 1999, cough).

Only algorithms that "learn" from their successive crashes.

SN-8 "fuck, landed too fast"
SN-9 "merde, forget to start an engine"
SN-10 "joder, I had pulled a soft landing, only to catch fire and explode 8 minutes later."

"I, for one, welcome our new AI and algorithm overlords"
 
The problem the first two times seemed to be restarting in a timely fashion with a rapid geometry change that the Falcon 9 never had to deal with. The third attempt seemed to be bad logic in the landing profile - all three engines restarted, so there were plenty of options, but the controller shut down one then two and the last engine didn't seem to have sufficient thrust to soften the landing. I assume this is a question of fine tuning the software that controls thrust and/or how many engines stay lit, it looks like so far they were banking too heavily on one engine being sufficient. It looks like they really are going to have to rely on two for almost the entire landing cycle to get it to come down soft enough reliably.
 
 
Josh_TN said:
The problem the first two times seemed to be restarting in a timely fashion with a rapid geometry change that the Falcon 9 never had to deal with. The third attempt seemed to be bad logic in the landing profile - all three engines restarted, so there were plenty of options, but the controller shut down one then two and the last engine didn't seem to have sufficient thrust to soften the landing. I assume this is a question of fine tuning the software that controls thrust and/or how many engines stay lit, it looks like so far they were banking too heavily on one engine being sufficient. It looks like they really are going to have to rely on two for almost the entire landing cycle to get it to come down soft enough reliably.
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Musk mentioned the other day that the engine didn't throttle up when commanded... no word yet on why
 

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