SpaceX's sixth Starship test flight successful despite abandoning booster catch | Mashable.

SpaceX's sixth Starship test flight successful despite abandoning booster catch

Fortunately, the rest of the flight went smoothly.
By Matthews Martins on 
Credit: Chandan Khanna / AFP via Getty Images

Comments

  1. Twas a nice controlled water landing.

    They didn't want to risk blowing up the tower with a catch. Something wasn't perfect.

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    1. Theory that there's a damaged tower attenae, ground equipment not ready for return, decided just after hot staging.

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    2. That would make sense, but I also think that would still be combined with the increased speed and difficulty of the catch. The catch is still a secondary objective, and it sounds like they were doing a lot of limit testing this flight. With Elons comments about a harder catch and the commentators talking about more pressure on the fin control in reentry.

      A soft water landing still gives a lot of great data on control during landing that will be used for the tower catch. So still a win for the chopstick progress.

      Also to add for those interested, this is the last flight of V1. Next flight will have a butt load of improvements.

      Great flight to watch!

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    3. People are missing the fact that a catch was not the main goal. They wanted to see if it can turn off and then turn back on in space which it did successfully.

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    4. Nah, the main goal was always to get a biological banana payload to space. Reigniting the engines was the secondary goal. /s

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    5. They just don't want to risk something going wrong with Trump in attendance.

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    6. They made the call out that the tower was good to go; honestly I was looking at the fuel gauges after boostback and it looked like the LOX was on fumes, but I’m sure they have much better precision on what’s needed.

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    7. Landing is done with header tanks which don’t show up in those gauges.

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    8. Does superheavy have header tanks? I thought they were only needed of the flip manouvre starship does which would have any proppellant in the main tanks sloshing around like crazy. Superheavy comes in vertical, eliminating such a slosh.

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    9. This is why I'm a little suspicious of Musk's talk of the booster being ready for launch again in under an hour. We had similar claims about the space shuttle and look what happened there. Will turn around times be faster? Yes but expect lots of delays and inspections (especially for crew rated flights).

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    10. We've rolled trillions into airliners, they run all day with downtime for maintenance.

      It's a different scale entirely (launching to space and back within an hour) but slowly the tolerances will get dialled in, and there will be a fleet to launch, even if a rocket is in a maintenance cycle for a day, there will be others to take it's place.

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    11. The tower probably costs more than the rocket.

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    12. Rocket costs $150-200M (edit quoted the Falcon 9’cost, not the Heavy)..

      It’s not the cost of the tower, it’s the potential to render it inoperable for a long time.

      And no, it was not a ‘nice controlled water landing’, it was an abort into water. Still a $150-200M write off.

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    13. It wasn't a full abort it was a change of flight landing nothing RUDed.

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    14. Controlled or not doesn’t make it any less of an abort. The asset is lost, the talk of protecting other assets is literally standing on your head pretending the ground is the sky level mental gymnastics. The asset is lost. Cool it didn’t hurt anyone or blow anything up but that’s kinda a minimum in space flight.

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    15. I'm guessing that someone was afraid of risk because Trump was in attendance. Also, they really don't want the president at an event with an accidental fireball. Better a controlled, expected fireball in the ocean.

      I'm sure they'll give us more info soon.

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  2. Do they recover the splash downs from the water?

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    1. Yeah they fish it out. Can't let that technology fall into the hands of pirates.

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    2. That’s how you get pirates with lightsabers

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    3. Lightsabré terriblé!

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    4. The thing was still floating an hour after it landed. I get they aren't going to have to fish anything

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    5. They recover it, but it’s pretty much just wreckage.

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    6. That “wreckage” though still contains tons of proprietary information that is protected under ITAR.

      This includes a guidance and navigation system that can bring the Super Heavy to a landing with HALF A CENTIMETER OF ERROR.

      This is military-grade stuff. They cannot let it fall into others’ hands.

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    7. You mean other than Enol’s Putin calls.

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    8. Staying in a serious, NON-INTERNAL POLITICS and NON-RECENT ELECTION-related topic, this DOES include Russia.

      I highly doubt Congress is gonna risk gifting its enemies a fresh new tech that they can use to attack the US.

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    9. Compare and contrast how China would rather have criticism of how their rockets are crashing into populated villages… rather than have a more optimal flight platform/path over the ocean flying right into the hands of the U.S. navy.

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  3. Least they didn't take out the catch tower. Better luck next time!

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    1. Exactly that’s what some people who are a bit down that they didn’t see a catch right now are having difficulty grasping. You would much rather splash down a booster that you were never going to reuse anyway because it’s test hardware than risk it and send it plowing into at least $100M of launch infrastructure, setting you back probably a year. It’d be one thing if that second tower was fully online but tower 1 is all they have.

      Very interested to see what happened and I’m interested in seeing the next flight with the updated vehicle that has a different flap design because they still had burn through issues at the flap on this flight. It was nice to see a daytime splashdown of the ship today though. There’s very clear progress that happens on each flight and it’s pretty cool to witness. Cool to see what happens when you put tens of thousands of brilliant minds (employees and contractors) together.

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  6. That was a fast turn around

    | Flight Number | | Launch Date | | Turnaround Time |
    | Flight 1 | April 20, 2023 | | First integrated flight, no prior data |
    | Flight 2 | November 8, 2023 | | ~6.5 months after Flight 1 |
    | Flight 3 | March 23, 2024 | | ~4.5 months after Flight 2 |
    | Flight 4 | June 5, 2024 | | ~2.5 months after Flight 3 |
    | Flight 5 | October 13, 2024 | | ~4 months after Flight 4 |
    | Flight 6 | November 19, 2024 | | ~1 month after Flight 5 |

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    1. Probably because of the launch license allowing similar trajectory flights, meaning they didn't need to wait for an faa license

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    2. Hopefully they can keep doing these identical missions with bug fixes of course each month until they can catch it with their eyes closed in the dark

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  7. Even with the smooth water landing, still an incredible achievement. Really hoping we see regular catches in the near future.

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    1. If you know anything about David Beard’s Catfish King, you know it’s all about the Super Catch

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  8. When are we getting to mars?

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    1. Whenever a first Mars launch window opens

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    2. They mentioned in the broadcast yesterday that they are targeting the 2026 window when Mars is closest to Earth.

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    1. you're a bigger pos for not contributing with anything to this conversation . only bad vibes .

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    2. Sad that some people on this website choose not to differentiate or separate achievements in the field of spaceflight and engineering from politics.

      (The comment got deleted so i can only assume that he was bringing these types of vibes. Please correct me if I’m wrong.)

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  10. Let’s keep talking about Space Welfare company while honkey ass motherfucker talks down government lol

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  11. Love SpaceX, but glad to see Elon couldn't show daddy Trump a booster catch. Hope he's mad

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    1. They were attempting to catch the booster at a much steeper incline than before; it had very little chance of success, but that is the SpaceX approach (iteration). If they simply wanted to catch it, the commit criteria would have been met, but they are testing the extremes here. After being the only company - or government - in the world to pull off a recapture the last time around.

      SpaceX is much more than just Musk, but trust Reddit to stick to its idiotic echo chamber.

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    2. What do you mean? Isn't the incline same when you're 70km up in the sky?

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    3. Not too informed but elon did say their goal with this was a faster/harder catch.

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    4. I’d interpret as meaning you take a different path on the way down.

      There’ll be an “optimum arc” for it to take, if you wanted to use minimal fuel. But you could take a safer / easier one by taking the booster closer to bring directly above the landing spot and coming in more vertically (less horizontal movement when you’re close to landing)

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    5. You can angle the booster to turn more of the body towards the atmosphere to control lift/drag, thus changing the return trajectory. They chose a more aggressive one to see how it would perform, and unfortunately for one reason or another they aborted the catch.

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    6. The Litch King sends his regards.

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    7. That dudewithoneleg is just a sore loser and can't get over the fact that the Dems lost the Presidency / House / and Senate.

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    8. Do you see me rioting and betraying my country like yall did? Nope.

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    9. BLM, antifa, summer of love ring a bell?

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  12. dude.

    its a rocket. it was never political.

    trump was just a basic spectator. neither he nor anything related to politics was mentioned during the launch.

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    1. He is a sore loser that has to get his "win" no matter what.

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    2. So far i only see him winning. Show your personal achievements for me to re-evaluate the definition of "loser".

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    3. Elon made his whole existence political.

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    4. is elon the rocket?

      is starship’s whole existence political?

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    5. is this what we're doing?

      asking dumb question because you're triggered?

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    6. lol what bro?

      just answer the questions 😉

      Is Elon the rocket? Is Starship’s whole existence political?

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    7. Did I say elon is the rocket? Did I say the starship existence is political?
      Youre mad, I know.

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    8. Nah, YOU’RE mad 🤣

      YOU wished for the failure of a ROCKET cuz “it owns the people I don’t like.”

      YOU decided to mention Elon in a conversation in which Elon was never a topic.

      YOU talked specifically about Elon when all I did was clarify a teeny tiny error with your argument.

      Look bro, the rocket succeeded in all but the booster catch. And you’re free to not like some people, but in this scenario there is ZERO reason to mention a politician and his supporter when all we’re doing is talking about a rocket launch.

      Just saying :D

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    9. The difference between me and you, is that I admit, I am mad. But don't deny you're not mad about me saying what I said. You're so mad, you took time out of your day, just like I did, write these comments.

      Just saying ;)

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    10. Then we are simply opposite sides of the same coin (according to you), I guess?

      Anyway, now that I think of it, it’s pretty pointless to keep on with this war. This war without a true reason.

      The only thing that I wish to recommend to you is that you understand that just because Elon is the owner of SpaceX doesn’t mean that everything SpaceX does should be hated or should be associated with the president-elect’s political goals. I wish you have a nice day, fellow redditor.

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    11. I'd argue that, because of Musk, his companies have political associations due to his actions. It's his own doing. And it was on purpose. Like I said, I love SpaceX and everything they're doing. I would love to see SpaceX succeed, but I'd also love to see Elon fail.

      You can't have your cake and eat it too.

      You have a nice day as well

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    12. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    13. "is that I admit, I am mad"

      you should post your thoughts at bluesky, you will be welcomed there

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    14. Or I post them wherever I want 😂

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      If you're looking for a refreshing alternative to traditional platforms, Bluesky’s innovative approach and community-driven model make it worth considering.

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  13. How about a chance of lightning as a cause for the abort?

    The track of the storm showed its tail sparking lightning all afternoon.

    And one of the podcasters said that the lightning mast at the top of the tower got hit every launch.

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    1. I'm not sure what storm you're talking about; the sky looked pretty clear above Star Base all day.

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    2. The gaimongous storm piling through GA region shown on Windy sat.

      As I said, lightning all day in the middle of the Gulf.

      This isn't just about what happens over BC, but anywhere along the return track.

      Also, someone on this or a parallel sub confirmed that the mast was for lightning. If it has sensors, it could be part of the go-no go decision tree.

      And lightning can happen in a clear blue sky.

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    3. You don't need to worry much about what's happening in the troposphere when you are 80-100 km above it. Sprites don't even go that high.

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  14. Most important thing is that the engine relight worked on Starship, meaning the next test could potentially launch Starlink satellites if they're willing to push it more. It's good for SpaceX if Starship can start making them some money to offset the development and testing costs.

    It's a bummer about the failed booster catch, although perhaps not surprising. It was a close call on the decision to catch vs abort on IFT-5 IIRC, although ultimately successful.

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    1. I think there will still be one test before an actual payload deployment. Rather than just relighting a raptor, they may have to test fully going to orbit, then relighting 3 to deorbit.

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    2. There is no need to relight all 3 SL Raptors to deorbit. They just demonstrated full orbital capabilities. They're definitely having a payload for the next flight.

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    3. Ok I saved your comment, surely in a month you won't ignore me when I ask you about this.

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    4. If the test goes fully to orbit, why couldn't it deploy some Starlink satellites?

      (One reason could be if they can't launch to a useful inclination for Starlink. That will be something to watch for.)

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  15. will multiple empty launch towers be a solution as a fallback to this problem?

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