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

I wonder how much excess cold gas/propellant/oxidiser was left after landing. Would a skirt around the base of the booster, pumped with cryogenic stuff keep it cool enough to reduce damage.
 
Apparently space x wants to catch the 2nd stage now as well

if they want to catch it now instead of landing, does that mean they are longer want to go to Mars?

I'm kind of confused because they're supposed to be focused on delivering HLS which requires landing feet and but they want to catch Starship instead so that's a bit confusing - it still looks like the Chinese will get to the moon first because they'll go the easy route and just copy what Apollo did instead of trying to faf around


I still doubt anyone will build a moon base or a mars base, starship still shows how unpractical moving large amounts of mass is
 
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I was wondering why they don't add landing legs to the star ship and attempt a landing next time. They done it with the early prototypes. This would allow them to test landing it and allow them to review the heat shield.

Even if it's just for 1 flight.
 
Grim5 said:
Apparently space x wants to catch the 2nd stage now as well

if they want to catch it now instead of landing, does that mean they are longer want to go to Mars?

I'm kind of confused because they're supposed to be focused on delivering HLS which requires landing feet and but they want to catch Starship instead so that's a bit confusing - it still looks like the Chinese will get to the moon first because they'll go the easy route and just copy what Apollo did instead of trying to faf around


I still doubt anyone will build a moon base or a mars base, starship still shows how unpractical moving large amounts of mass is
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RTLS tower catch has been the focus of the design for both stages for years now. Its the main factor for rapid reusability, launch, return, restack, refuel launch.
From my understanding, HLS is being designed in parallel, as will effectively a family of upper stage designs originating from a common Starship platform.
What we are seeing at the moment is still prototype/proof of concept, that has a close resemblance to what the final product will be.
 
XPE said:
I was wondering why they don't add landing legs to the star ship and attempt a landing next time. They done it with the early prototypes. This would allow them to test landing it and allow them to review the heat shield.

Even if it's just for 1 flight.
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They already seem confident that they can catch it the same way as they did the booster. Why waste time and resources developing a system that would be useless. The legs that will be designed for HLS will require completely different design due to different forces.
 
I think the big question that he’s asking is why are SpaceX doing all this when it isn’t part of the HLS contract, which they appear to be hugely behind on and don’t seem to be doing anything about.

If this is all being paid for from the NASA contract money, then someone somewhere should have some questions to answer…

I’m sure it’s nothing to do with the NASA administrator who awarded the contract to them in the first place, and then quit to go work at SpaceX.
 
Penfold101 said:
I think the big question that he’s asking is why are SpaceX doing all this when it isn’t part of the HLS contract, which they appear to be hugely behind on and don’t seem to be doing anything about.

If this is all being paid for from the NASA contract money, then someone somewhere should have some questions to answer…

I’m sure it’s nothing to do with the NASA administrator who awarded the contract to them in the first place, and then quit to go work at SpaceX.
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They are doing it because HLS requires in orbit refueling. In orbit refueling needs rapid reuasibility and for Earth landings legs are just watsed mass that reduces the payload when you have the ability/intent to catch the rocket out of the air. So catching StarShip is absolutely central to HLS. Most of HLS development rides on the back of StarShip development, as said previsuly HLS is just a variant of StarShip. StarShip is being developed with debt and StarLink income. StarLink is fast becoming a huge cash cow for SpaceX. They have leveraged their Falcon9 business to reduce the cost of developing and deploying StarLink. Within 5 years assuming StarShip develops as expected there will be a direct to cell phone (not sat phone) internet service that covers the majority of the planet.
 
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Grim5 said:
Apparently space x wants to catch the 2nd stage now as well

if they want to catch it now instead of landing, does that mean they are longer want to go to Mars?

I'm kind of confused because they're supposed to be focused on delivering HLS which requires landing feet and but they want to catch Starship instead so that's a bit confusing - it still looks like the Chinese will get to the moon first because they'll go the easy route and just copy what Apollo did instead of trying to faf around


I still doubt anyone will build a moon base or a mars base, starship still shows how unpractical moving large amounts of mass is
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Super heavy still in the early stages of rapid development. When they landed the first one it had single use crush legs but they then went in the direction of tower chopstick catch. I think the idea is to build a moon base first and then a mars base with a platform to land on rather than the rock/dust surface. That or legs. Kicking up surface dust might be another problem to overcome. There will need to be a base otherwise you will need to take the return fuel with you.

First steps on Mars is still 20ish years away. We will need to build spaceship where 2+ people can live in for the 5 month journey, land, refuel etc for an amount of time (2 weeks ;)), or a while as you need to wait for the right planet orbital alignment, then 5 month return. The moon is easy compared to mars.

They could catch both stages but they will need to finish building the second tower, or leave the second stage in an orbit until they're ready I guess. They need the tower catching to be reliable if they want it to be cost effective.

Who will build the bases on the moon and mars? Some kind of lego/ikea automated building, there are many design and things being developed. AI lol. But Tesla robots are as likely as any.

 
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keyser van someone said:
First steps on Mars is still 20ish years away. We will need to build spaceship where 2+ people can live in for the 5 month journey, land, refuel etc for an amount of time (2 weeks ;)), or a while as you need to wait for the right planet orbital alignment, then 5 month return. The moon is easy compared to mars.
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Requiring one ship to do it all creates a lot of challenges. Unmanned ships could be sent on ahead to land supplies, based modules, return vehicles etc. and the Earth to Mars transfer ship moving the people can stay in orbit. Easier than landing the whole thing on Mars then having to refuel it, get it back into orbit and then back to Earth.
 
Integrated Flight Test 6 is now tentatively set for November 18th. This will be an afternoon launch local time so that ship re-entry and hopefully landing takes place in daylight. They are also testing in orbit raptor engine relight, booster catch and some alternative heat shield configurations
 
Mr Badger said:
Requiring one ship to do it all creates a lot of challenges. Unmanned ships could be sent on ahead to land supplies, based modules, return vehicles etc. and the Earth to Mars transfer ship moving the people can stay in orbit. Easier than landing the whole thing on Mars then having to refuel it, get it back into orbit and then back to Earth.
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Certainly the required aerobraking maneuveur for StarShip doesn't seem a great idea for a manned ship. I can see the attraction of a transfer ship and a simpler reuseable Mars to orbit transfer vehicle.

On a different note I'd expect that the HLS Starship and Mars Starship will be repurposed at some points as surface habitats. They are already pressure vessels and being stainless steel cutting and welding to add airlocks or connectors is entirely acheivable. Re-land them in holes at the end of their useful lives and backfill for radiation protection.
 
SpaceX's Starship Intergrated Flight Test 6 is currently Scheduled for Tuesday 19th November at 4pm Local with a 30 minute launch window. This is 10:00-10:30pm GMT so not as friendly to Europeans as before.

Flight hardware is similar to the previous flight 5 however there are changes and new objectives

- Reduced extent of heat shield tiles to the sides of the ship
- Catch the Booster on the tower as flight 5
- In orbit Raptor relight to prove deorbit capability
- More aggressive re-entry profile to study control authority
- Land the ship in daylight rather than at night in the indian ocean.

Excitement Garuanteed.
 
Hoping for some more spectacular footage of the booster being caught. Musk and SpaceX have created some utterly incredible visual sights in the last few years with the boosters, the sorts of images that I'd long since given up hope of seeing in my lifetime.
 
Tombstone said:
Hoping for some more spectacular footage of the booster being caught. Musk and SpaceX have created some utterly incredible visual sights in the last few years with the boosters, the sorts of images that I'd long since given up hope of seeing in my lifetime.
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I'm tempering my excitement somewhat. This is still very much experimental. Still plenty of scope for aborted landing and for things to go less than optimal for the starship.
This is the last of the "V1" starships and they are seemingly pushing the limits of it in this IFT.
Whilst I'm looking forward to this especially the daylight Starship "landing". Its the upcoming IFT's in the new year (or whenever they get license) that I'm really looking forward to. With hopefully a Starship catch:eek:
 
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