The road to the moon and beyond to Mars.

[ERIC ALLTORQUE]

How wonderful is this today,what an achivement.

 

[ERIC ALLTORQUE]

 

[Ozexpatriate]

3 hours ago, ERIC ALLTORQUE said:

How wonderful is this today,what an achivement.

Very interesting. They could do without the blabber when telemetry was lost around T+49:39. That seemed very intentional - a "Squirrel!" moment - right when they (presumably) lost the craft.

 

The 'rifling' action early in the video was intriguing. I wonder if that's an intentional thermal roll (low atmosphere friction - not solar heating) or something else.

 

Lots of bits falling off too - could be frozen stuff stuck on during liftoff but curious all the same.

 

The whole of the attitude telemetry was interesting. There was very little loss of altitude while it was going through the reentry phase - clearly to bleed speed but that's a lot of increased thermal stress. It feels like a risky mission profile tradeoff.

 

Makes me wonder if the failure mechanism is either tile failure or some other thermal intrusion. 

 

Edited March 15 by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

3 hours ago, ERIC ALLTORQUE said:

Launch video

Launch looked flawless. Super Heavy booster return, not so much. The commentary is dopey. After only a couple of raptors reignited and the altitude of the returning booster was "0" (T+7:00) the commentary was talking about finding other video. There wouldn't have even been any of the splash left by that point.  They did fess up to losing the booster at around the end of the video (T+10).

[Ozexpatriate]

From this article:

 

CNN: SpaceX’s Starship reaches new heights in monumental test flight but lost on reentry

 

I found this comment interesting:

Quote

However, after reaching several milestones, SpaceX revealed it opted not to attempt to reignite Starship’s engines after a half-hour coasting phase that was originally planned for the flight test.

 

Starship was on a “pretty steep trajectory,” Huot said. That meant Earth’s gravity would likelrapidly drag Starship back toward Earth, whether or not engines are relit.

 

It’s not clear why SpaceX decided to forgo that test, but engineers noted a lot of data needs to be evaluated in the hours and days ahead.

 

[Jeff Smith]

SpaceX works on the iterative principal.  They learn from their failures but it's an expensive way to do it.

 

I think it was pretty obvious that control was lost of the booster return when the 'paddles' started rapid back and forth movement!

[Ozexpatriate]

8 minutes ago, Jeff Smith said:

I think it was pretty obvious that control was lost of the booster return when the 'paddles' started rapid back and forth movement!

And the engines didn't fire while the altimeter was screaming toward zero.

 

Booster attitude looked "ok".  It wasn't sideways or upside down.

 

Edited March 15 by Ozexpatriate

[ERIC ALLTORQUE]

14 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

And the engines didn't fire while the altimeter was screaming toward zero.

 

Booster attitude looked "ok".  It wasn't sideways or upside down.

 

Yes the booster worked good until the landing burn what should have been 9 then down to three to hover.

the ship was intensionally put into a decaying just short of orbit trajectory and the raptor relight was skipped and only destined to by one to test the capability,great achievement to build on for next time.

[Ben B]

We were watching telly last weekend, and when we paused it, an advert for the RAF came up, boasting about how one could join up to 'help protect space'.  Whilst I appreciate the thought, and it appeals to the SciFi part of me, it did make me wonder if we've secretly spent the defence budget on a Battlestar :)

 

My eldest glanced at the advert it and said "Oh good, UNIT's recruiting" :) 

[ERIC ALLTORQUE]

1 hour ago, Ben B said:

We were watching telly last weekend, and when we paused it, an advert for the RAF came up, boasting about how one could join up to 'help protect space'.  Whilst I appreciate the thought, and it appeals to the SciFi part of me, it did make me wonder if we've secretly spent the defence budget on a Battlestar :)

 

My eldest glanced at the advert it and said "Oh good, UNIT's recruiting" :) 

The US have a forth military now with there space force, joke if Britain does anything toward that,we dont have the Empire but no one at Westminster has noticed,we cannot make a reliable capital ship let alone experiment with space ships.

[The Johnster]

I am much entertained by the way that the elongated muskrat’s rocket fails catastrophically each time it is launched but gets a little further than the last disaster, yet each disaster is hailed as a brilliant success as if it it is what was intended.  This thing is a serial failure and clearly has deep and institutional problems, and will no doubt continue to be a spectacular spectator sport until somebody gets killed, at which point it will be a lot less fun.  

[Jeff Smith]

21 hours ago, Jeff Smith said:

SpaceX works on the iterative principal.  They learn from their failures but it's an expensive way to do it.

As mentioned above, SpaceX works differently to traditional aerospace companies but considering the great success and reliability of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy (over 300 launches) it's only a matter of time until they get it right!

[KeithMacdonald]

On 15/03/2024 at 19:51, Ben B said:

My eldest glanced at the advert it and said "Oh good, UNIT's recruiting" :) 

 

Glad to read that your eldest is aware.

 

Quote

Don't underestimate Doctor Who's UNIT spin-off

 

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/doctor-who-unit-spin-off-comment/

 

[ERIC ALLTORQUE]

23 hours ago, The Johnster said:

I am much entertained by the way that the elongated muskrat’s rocket fails catastrophically each time it is launched but gets a little further than the last disaster, yet each disaster is hailed as a brilliant success as if it it is what was intended.  This thing is a serial failure and clearly has deep and institutional problems, and will no doubt continue to be a spectacular spectator sport until somebody gets killed, at which point it will be a lot less fun.  

Starship and the superheavy booster are all prototype,in early development for the huge step forward it will give,as mentioned above the falcon has revolutionised space reusability,it will develope and be sucessfull.

[57xx]

On 15/03/2024 at 01:59, Ozexpatriate said:

The 'rifling' action early in the video was intriguing. I wonder if that's an intentional thermal roll (low atmosphere friction - not solar heating) or something else.

 

I saw lots of comments about "oh they're doing a BBQ roll" on other forums. The BBQ rolls were done on the Apollo missions because the craft were in space for days on end and needed thermal control. Something on a ballistic trajectory is not going to heat up enough to warrant a thermal control roll. It was out of control.

 

On 15/03/2024 at 02:43, Ozexpatriate said:

From this article:

 

CNN: SpaceX’s Starship reaches new heights in monumental test flight but lost on reentry

 

I found this comment interesting:

Quote

However, after reaching several milestones, SpaceX revealed it opted not to attempt to reignite Starship’s engines after a half-hour coasting phase that was originally planned for the flight test.

 

Starship was on a “pretty steep trajectory,” Huot said. That meant Earth’s gravity would likelrapidly drag Starship back toward Earth, whether or not engines are relit.

 

It’s not clear why SpaceX decided to forgo that test, but engineers noted a lot of data needs to be evaluated in the hours and days ahead.

 

 

On the day, Space X actually said why they didn't attempt to relight. It was out of control. The rotation was not intended or at a higher rate then intended and for whatever reason prevented the relight test.

 

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-3

[Ozexpatriate]

5 hours ago, 57xx said:

The BBQ rolls were done on the Apollo missions because the craft were in space for days on end and needed thermal control. Something on a ballistic trajectory is not going to heat up enough to warrant a thermal control roll. It was out of control.

That was my conclusion - though it was still low enough for there to be some atmospheric friction. The roll stabilized when they pushed it into reentry - before it (presumably) burned up.

[ERIC ALLTORQUE]

The ship was tumbling all over on the re entry phase as at one point it was coming i backward,IFT4 will be interesting,probably better achiving a stable orbit and then attempting re entry.

[ERIC ALLTORQUE]

Interesting it would seem the tumbling should be sorted for six weeks time......:)

 

 

[ERIC ALLTORQUE]

 

[Mol_PMB]

With last week's announcement of trains on the moon...

https://www.independent.co.uk/space/moon-train-lunar-base-darpa-b2516248.html

...and today's news item about creating a unified lunar time...

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/apr/02/moon-nasa-coordinated-lunar-time

..how long will it be before NASA advertises the role of Delay Attribution Co-ordinator?

[ERIC ALLTORQUE]

10 hours ago, Mol_PMB said:

With last week's announcement of trains on the moon...

https://www.independent.co.uk/space/moon-train-lunar-base-darpa-b2516248.html

...and today's news item about creating a unified lunar time...

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/apr/02/moon-nasa-coordinated-lunar-time

..how long will it be before NASA advertises the role of Delay Attribution Co-ordinator?

Well it would make sence on Mars to use diesel to warm up and build an atmosphere in the long term.

 

[ERIC ALLTORQUE]

Looks like booster eleven going to pad next few hours and road closure for testing tomorrow.

https://www.cameroncountytx.gov/spacex/

Edited April 3 by ERIC ALLTORQUE

[ERIC ALLTORQUE]

Well booster on the launch table overnight and today should start launch tests by the look of closures.

This should be the one to see a better re entry as the roll thrust problem will be identified and addressed for this flight test im sure.

[ERIC ALLTORQUE]

 

[ERIC ALLTORQUE]