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Merged SpaceX’s Starship Rocket Explodes After Launch/Starship hop

To add to this: Cape Canaveral has about 35 paunch pads, most not in use. It is Space Force, not NASA. It does mostly government launches (military and intelligence and such). Space X has one (1) out of those 35, plus two landing pads. Admittedly, SpaceX is using 100% of the rocket landing space there.;)

Cape Kennedy (NASA) has 3 launch pads with a fourth one planned. Space X has one of those, and if the planned one is built it will be for Space X.
So that's SpaceX using less than 10% of Canaveral/Kennedy's pads. The great majority (about 2/3) of the launch pads are inactive. The area is operating at a far lower capacity and launch rate than it was built to accommodate.

Nobody is blocking anyone down there. To use the airport analogy, this like Denver International Airport (bigger than Manhattan, six runways, at least one long enough to land the Space Shuttle) running no more than a few dozen flights a day. Canaveral/Kennedy is great big complex, built for a level of spaceflight dreamed of in the 1950's and 60's and that we never got close to achieving. It is massively overbuilt and under-utilized.


Exactly! All this talk of blocking launch pads, and of SpaceX launches being at the expense of competitors is a load of old tosh, being spread by haters, as well as a bunch of people like Bezos who are butt-hurt over being out-done by a competitor.
 
Also, while I think of it, I will debunk another BS claim I'm hearing from some sources, so that it doesn't get a foothold here.

There is a claim that no-one else can get their rockets on launch pads to prepare them for launch at Cape Canaveral while there is another rocket on a nearby launch pad. The argument goes that, because SpaceX have a high launch cadence, everyone else cannot get access to their own launch pads, and so SpaceX are blocking other launch companies.

This claim is complete and utter nonsense.

F9-F9.jpg

On the right, a Falcon 9 carrying 49 Starlink internet satellites waiting to launch from LC-39A on Jan 31, 2022
On the left, a Falcon 9 carrying Cosmo-SkyMed Second Generation FM2 satellite waiting to launch from SLC-40, the next day - Feb 1, 2022
The two launch pads are 2.3 miles apart.

F9-SLS.jpg

On the right, SLS carrying NASA’s Artemis I waiting to launch from LC-39B on April 6, 2022.
On the left, a Falcon 9 carrying Crew Dragon "Endeavour" for Axiom Space waiting to launch from LC-39A two days later on April 8, 2022
The two launch pads are 1.7 miles apart

And this is not even a rare occurrence. Over the three decades of Space Shuttle operations, two Space Shuttles were on LC-39A and & LC-39B at the same time no less than 18 times - here is a photo of the last time before Shuttle operations ceased.

Here is the last occasion

eZRyUSczK4sXRR9gGo8qSi-650-80.jpg.jpg

On the left, Shuttle "Atlantis" ready for STS-125 - launched from LC-39A on May 11, 2009
On the right, Shuttle "Endeavor" ready for STS-127 - launched from LC-39B on July 15, 2009

The ignorance is strong in the hater cohort!

 
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Starship launch 5 is now scheduled for no earlier than Sunday October 13.

They are apparently going to try to use the chopsticks to catch the booster.
 
Starship launch 5 is now scheduled for no earlier than Sunday October 13.

They are apparently going to try to use the chopsticks to catch the booster.
I wish them the best of luck.

Actually I wish them the best of engineering. If luck plays a part in this, the engineering wasn't good enough.
 
The Starship landing was pretty good, too, right up to the point where it exploded.

It was expected to blow up, there were no plans to recover it. It did land (water?) right where it was supposed to. The watering was filmed from what was described as a "buoy", which I assume to mean that it was stationary - suggesting that the Starship was really close to where it was supposed to be.

The previous launch saw the Starship partially burn through one of the wing-flappy things. That one made a soft water-touchdown but was apparently like a half dozen km off target. Which was a lot considering that the goal is to eventually catch them just like they did with today's booster.

Today's Starship saw some damage to the wing flap thing but much less than the previous. The next launch will be of the same "Block 1" design. After that they go to "Block 2" which have the wing flaps set further back/dorsal such that they'll be more out of the plasma flow.
 
Blofeld's reusable rocket was taking off crewed, intercepting a crewed capsule in orbit, and returning both vehicles to the launch pad, in 1967. Musk still has a ways to go to if he really wants to set new benchmarks in super-villainy.
 
It was expected to blow up

That's the first time I've heard that. Where did you get that from?

there were no plans to recover it. It did land (water?) right where it was supposed to.

Sure, but that doesn't mean it was expected to blow up. I don't think it was. I don't think their previous one did.

The watering was filmed from what was described as a "buoy", which I assume to mean that it was stationary - suggesting that the Starship was really close to where it was supposed to be.

That is correct, they did do a good job (and better than last time) with landing it where they wanted it to go.
 
That's the first time I've heard that. Where did you get that from?

It is pretty normal for F9 boosters not survive intact when they fall over after landing. They still have around 2.3% of their RP1/LOX fuel load on board after they land - so its like a 20 storey building falling over with 9 tones of fuel still inside.



... I see no reason why Super Heavy (20 stories) or Starship (14 stories) should be any different.
 
The bigger picture is that each flight has seen significant improvements over the previous one, I will be amazed if Starship/Superheavy isn't operational before Artemis 2 flies.
 
Next test launch No Earlier Than Tuesday Nov. 19 at 4:00 PM U.S. Central Time.

They'll land the starship on water again, but apparently will try to recover it this time rather than allowing it to sink.

Last test of the Block 1 Starships. Might also be the last suborbital test.
 
Has Elon linked to his twitch channel so we can get the reports live?
No need. It will be on a few YouTube channels

The Launch Pad (LIVE Now):

NASA Space Flight (LIVE now):

The Everyday Astronaut (Tim Dodd) will almost certainly stream it on his channel too, but his live feed is not up yet!
 
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No need. It will be on a few YouTube channels

The Launch Pad (LIVE Now):

NASA Space Flight (LIVE now):

The Everyday Astronaut (Tim Dodd) will almost certainly stream it on his channel too, but his live feed is not up yet!
I was meaning getting the what were previously considered private internal reports and updates he gets as CEO whilst beating a level 150 pit. I was hoping to pick up some pointers, I struggle around level 100.
 
I have no idea what this means
headscratch.gif
It's a video game reference. Musk seems to be a very high level player in some game, such that me must be playing for hours most days.

They were unable to catch the booster this time; it came down off the coast a bit. I don't know why they could not catch it - too windy maybe?

The Starship itself seems to have performed well.
 
It means exactly what you might think it does, some people can't seem to progress beyond schoolyard mentality.
Well, I have been told its a gaming reference. Might as well be written in Chinese for all the good it did - the last time I did anything you might consider to be gaming was when text adventures such as Planetfall, Ghost Town and Pyramid of Zoom were at the height of their popularity
 
The bigger picture is that each flight has seen significant improvements over the previous one, I will be amazed if Starship/Superheavy isn't operational before Artemis 2 flies.
The even bigger picture is that SpaceX haven't even met the first milestone that their contract with NASA stipulated was to happen at least 18 months ago. By the start of this year they were supposed to have an unmanned lander on the moon. They have't managed to get an empty rocket into orbit yet.
 
The even bigger picture is that SpaceX haven't even met the first milestone that their contract with NASA stipulated was to happen at least 18 months ago. By the start of this year they were supposed to have an unmanned lander on the moon. They have't managed to get an empty rocket into orbit yet.
Artemis is seeing delays across the board.

"To safely carry out these missions, agency leaders are adjusting the schedules for Artemis II and Artemis III to allow teams to work through challenges associated with first-time developments, operations, and integration."


"In a media teleconference on Tuesday (Jan. 9), NASA leadership stated that its flagship Artemis 2 mission will be delayed from November 2024 until September 2025. And the Artemis 3 moon-landing mission, originally targeted for late 2025, will now aim for September 2026."


"... the agency had planned to launch a crewed lunar flyby mission called Artemis II in November 2024. In a press briefing last Tuesday, NASA officials revealed that because of various hardware issues, the mission is delayed until September 2025. Artemis III—the program’s first crewed lunar landing—has slipped as well..."


And let's not forget that before Artemis there was Orion, which went over schedule and over budget and ended up canceled. Artemis is actually NASA's second attempt at returning to the moon. So let's not pretend that SpaceX is somehow notable for slipping its Artemis targets. The sponsor itself is slipping its Artemis targets, and has prior form in wasting money and slipping targets, going back to the STS.
 
The even bigger picture is that SpaceX haven't even met the first milestone that their contract with NASA stipulated was to happen at least 18 months ago. By the start of this year they were supposed to have an unmanned lander on the moon. They have't managed to get an empty rocket into orbit yet.
These things always take longer than expected. They are still vastly ahead of their competition.
 
It's naive to assume that initial project timelines and budgets are definitive. The more complex the project, the less is known at its inception. It's very much expected that time and cost requirements will go up as the work progresses and better understanding is achieved. Aerospace projects are among the most complex. SpaceX is behaving exactly as we would expect anyone in the industry to behave, in terms of project status.

The B-21 project was notable for being on time and under budget. I'll happily stipulate that SpaceX is not Northrop-Grumman. That's a suitable ideal for SpaceX to aim for. Meanwhile, every other aerospace firm should probably aim to be more like SpaceX. Gully Foyle continues to be on the wrong side of this. It's bizarre.
 
The even bigger picture is that SpaceX haven't even met the first milestone that their contract with NASA stipulated was to happen at least 18 months ago. By the start of this year they were supposed to have an unmanned lander on the moon. They have't managed to get an empty rocket into orbit yet.
And NASA can't even bring their own flown astronauts back from the ISS. Guess who they've had to ask to do that for them? :ROFLMAO:
 
It's a video game reference. Musk seems to be a very high level player in some game, such that me must be playing for hours most days.

They were unable to catch the booster this time; it came down off the coast a bit. I don't know why they could not catch it - too windy maybe?

The Starship itself seems to have performed well.
Apparently a loss of comms with the Tower control computer - The Comms mast took some damage. They reckon that the landing could well have gone OK, but took a more careful approach.
 
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