** The Official Space Flight Thread - The Space Station and Beyond **

darkgen said:
That's mad. So the chopsticks pin the stage 1? Surely there are notches or something on the rocket which rests on the sticks themselves?!
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A certain amount of luck there no doubt. One issue is the chop sticks can't come in too fast or they could bounce off but I assume they thought of all that.

It's proof this works though! I was thinking of a future 3 tower catch where it hovers/lowers into a ring that has multiple pins, like 3 or 6 so is less likely for that to happen. I'll let Elon know :)
 
keyser van someone said:
A certain amount of luck there no doubt. One issue is the chop sticks can't come in too fast or they could bounce off but I assume they thought of all that.

It's proof this works though! I was thinking of a future 3 tower catch where it hovers/lowers into a ring that has multiple pins, like 3 or 6 so is less likely for that to happen. I'll let Elon know :)
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That's the bit. Perhaps it was a big dose of incredible luck to boot. Just the entire presentation astounds me, to guide such a thing so precisely with all the variables involved but to stick it like that.

The 1st stage landings of the falcon are in themselves a sight to behold but I do not think I've yet seen one which landed exactly in the cross of the X on the landing pads. The precision involved with starship is most certainly next level.
 
I dont think its so much luck as it has been preparation. They've been ready for months to attempt this launch, all that time they have had to run calculations, simulations and refine code.

I think in future we will see a lot less lateral translation and less angle in the final few seconds. I feel like they played it a bit safe with this one as they didnt want too much risk incase in came down on top of the tower or chopsticks. However that in itself had the booster doing some wild angles to bring it in to range of the arms.
I also think we'll see shorter chopsticks in future iterations of Mechazilla
 
Richard - London said:
That was so so cool, we really may see a starship on mars by 2026
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lol don't get unrealistically hyped. It's taken 4 and a half years of testing to get to this point and they're not even half way done with testing. They still need to:

Build tankers
Demonstrate orbital launch of tankers
Demonstrate refueling in orbit
Develop new starship landing feet
Demonstrate Starship landing on rough/uneven and soft soil surface (no concrete pad)
Launch starship and refuel in space and land on Moon
Launch starship and refuel in space and land on Mars
 
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ianh said:
It's amazing, in 16 years SpaceX have gone from "we can now put something in orbit just like everyone else can" to a controlled landing of an interplanetary rocket back to the launch tower - thats mind blowing for such a short space of time!
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Just goes to show what you can do with a fat bag of cash and the government isn’t involved.
 
Terminal_Boy said:
Just goes to show what you can do with a fat bag of cash and the government isn’t involved.
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It’s a weird one - I prefer how NASA launched the SLS at its first attempt and it succeeded in getting to orbit and sending the capsule round the moon on its planned mission. Due to all the checks, audits, accountability etc that go with government programs they have to get it right first time and has a lot of overhead checks which is good. It just takes a horrific amount of time and is subject to many political problems which I hate.

The private sector can do whatever they want pretty much, and SpaceX has shown it can work without a lot of the red tape involved in the government program - I’m personally not so much a fan of the iterative design philosophy where we’ve had so many things fail before succeeding, but that’s just me.

Catching the booster is impressive engineering either way.
 
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