SpaceX (general discussion)

Good point made on NSF:

Likely a big job to re-engineer flap seals to mitigate that failure. May not be possible on already built starship (won't be surprising if we see big delay to next flight)
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But can fly to test other things as I said above like bay doors etc.
 
Flyaway said:
I’m guessing IFT-5 might be to go into orbit. But got an idea they may have other things to test suborbital first.
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I suspect they do a few suborbital tests first. This was huge progress but it looks like the heat shield needs some work. Booster lost an engine on the way up and another on relight, and while it can survive that they will want to address those problems.
 
Josh_TN said:
I cannot believe that flap could still actuate. It looked like the back quarter or third of it burned through. I would not think it could accurately flip the vehicle after that damage.
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More than that, it lost a hinge. At 1:05:45, when the vehicle rights itself and unloads the flap from the wind, you can see the flap tilt in a direction it's not supposed to move in. The entire hinge burned through, and the flap was only supported by the other hinge and the actuator.
 
That Flap is why there was a push to go full Steel instead of carbon fiber.

Simply put?

if it was carbon fiber it would have been another Columbia.

Shen it comes to this type of robustness Steel can not be beat.
 
Hop double splashdown on both ends of the world, and a stunning success against crazy odds ( that poor flap !)
Soooo
-Starship booster reentry: DONE
-Starship 29 reentry: DONE
Next to reenter on Crazy Epic Spaceflight Week
-Starliner
-Chang'e 6 with 1 kg of South Pole Aitken, farside of the Moon
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1798735261645369806
View: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1798735261645369806


Speaks to the incredible resilience of stainless steel at temperature.

We will further hone our SX300 alloy to withstand even higher temperatures.
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1798730164232421498
View: https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1798730164232421498


Slow motion liftoff of Starship on Flight 4
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1798732390313218305
View: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1798732390313218305


I think we should try to catch the booster with the mechazilla arms next flight!
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Hey folks, remember that peculiar day (and related movie) exactly 80th years ago ? THE LONGEST DAY.

Well... behold: The Longest Day IN SPACE.

June 6, 2024. Mankind launch its grand assault on space.

Around the Moon...
spacenews.com

Chang’e-6 spacecraft dock in lunar orbit ahead of journey back to Earth

An ascent vehicle docked with the Chang’e-6 service module Thursday, in a critical step towards bringing the first lunar far side samples to Earth.
spacenews.com spacenews.com

Around Earth...
www.space.com

Watch Boeing's Starliner arrive at ISS today on historic 1st astronaut mission

Starliner is expected to dock with the orbiting lab today (June 6) around 12:15 p.m. ET.
www.space.com www.space.com

The lunar orbit rendezvous and docking was completed at 2:48 a.m. Eastern (06:48 GMT) June 6, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) announced. Transfer of a lunar material container to a reentry module was completed at 3:24 a.m. (07:24 GMT)
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SpaceX launched its Starship megarocket for the fourth time ever today (June 6) at 8:50 a.m. EDT (12:50 GMT)
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Starliner is expected to dock with the orbiting lab today (June 6) around 12:15 p.m. ET. (16:15 GMT)
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What a day.
 
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Dilandu said:
It. Was. SO AWESOME!!!

View attachment 731071
I was absolutely awed by this wing. The thermal protection layer failed, slabs were stripped away. Plasma burned right through steel. BUT IT DID NOT FAIL. And it worked when it was required to turn the ship. What an awesome design!
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And most importantly it looked gorgeous while doing all of that! Truly remarkable indeed...
 
Thunderf00t made 2 hour life stream on IFT-4 in YouTube
With allot Elon Musk hate and predictions of failure of Starship
Insulting SpaceX team as morons and has ZERO understanding of rocket science…

Only to see it succeed some how.
The comment in the Video are Gold

This life stream is his downfall for his YT channel
 
It would be hard to get any firm conclusions from the video we have here. Since Starship managed to keep attitude correctly, with precision, and was still conclusively maneuverable for the pitch-up prior to the splash down, we can only infer that the heatshield apparent failure is very localized.

Hence no general conclusion can be rigorously made on the heat dissipation strategy like I read somewhere.

On the other hand, we saw a lot of micro debris below 50km alt while the speed was still incredibly high*. We could then suspect that a localized degradation propagated toward the canard joint but that the overall system performed appropriately.
Did these debris came from Starship or were there environmental? Hard to say at this stage.

*I am on the opinion that Starship came down too fast and should have pitched-up to cool down the structure before re-initiating the descent.
 
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FighterJock said:
A splashdown? That is different. Good to see that it was successful this time, SpaceX better get the recovery ships out there sharpish or they might lose the rocket.
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They don't plan to recover it. They soft landed it on purpose. I'm thinking next time they'll simulate a tower landing at sea. I didn't get the impression they did that this time.
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1798789555342200964
View: https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1798789555342200964


Starship’s fourth flight test launched with ambitious goals, attempting to go farther than any previous test before and begin demonstrating capabilities central to return and reuse of Starship and Super Heavy.

The payload for this test was the data.

Starship delivered →
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www.spacex.com

SpaceX

SpaceX designs, manufactures and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft.
www.spacex.com www.spacex.com

JUNE 6, 2024
STARSHIP'S FOURTH FLIGHT TEST
Starship’s fourth flight test launched with ambitious goals, attempting to go farther than any previous test before and begin demonstrating capabilities central to return and reuse of Starship and Super Heavy. The payload for this test was the data.

Starship delivered.

On June 6, 2024, Starship successfully lifted off at 7:50 a.m. CT from Starbase in Texas and went on to deliver maximum excitement:

The Super Heavy booster lifted off successfully and completed a full-duration ascent burn.

Starship executed another successful hot-stage separation, powering down all but three of Super Heavy’s Raptor engines and successfully igniting the six second stage Raptor engines before separating the vehicles.

Following separation, the Super Heavy booster successfully completed its flip maneuver, boostback burn to send it towards the splashdown zone, and jettison of the hot-stage adapter.

The booster’s flight ended with a landing burn and soft splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico seven minutes and 24 seconds into the flight.

Starship's six second stage Raptor engines successfully powered the vehicle to space and placed it on the planned trajectory for coast.

Starship made a controlled reentry, successfully making it through the phases of peak heating and max aerodynamic pressure and demonstrating the ability to control the vehicle using its flaps while descending through the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds.

Starlink on Starship once again enabled real-time telemetry and live high-definition video throughout every phase of entry, with external cameras providing views all the way to the flight’s conclusion.

Flight 4 ended with Starship igniting its three center Raptor engines and executing the first flip maneuver and landing burn since our suborbital campaign, followed by a soft splashdown of the ship in the Indian Ocean one hour and six minutes after launch.

The fourth flight of Starship made major strides to bring us closer to a rapidly reusable future. Its accomplishments will provide data to drive improvements as we continue rapidly developing Starship into a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond.

Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an inspired fourth flight test of Starship! And thank you to our customers, Cameron County, spaceflight fans, and the wider community for the continued support and encouragement.
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1798792222743122164
View: https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1798792222743122164


Starship made a controlled reentry, successfully making it through the phases of peak heating and max aerodynamic pressure and demonstrating the ability to control the vehicle using its flaps while descending through the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds
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Firefinder said:
That Flap is why there was a push to go full Steel instead of carbon fiber.

When it comes to this type of robustness Steel can not be beat.
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There might be another way to leverage the strength of steel.

Imagine a rubber band that goes around the hinge join....looking a bit like conformal fuel tanks on fighters.

But it is made of RCC.

The main fins have tiny RCC sub-fins sticking out during the worst of re-entry.

After re-entry, the fins actuate, shattering the RCC and leaving a pristine hinge area.

What happened to Columbia's WLE by accident can occur here by design.

This, along with the interstage discard, would be stop-gap measures to get productive payload carrying Starship flights off the ground until more permanent solutions can be had.
 
GPZSnTgbkAA9zSy
 
Elon Musk probably needs to consider replacing the heat shield tiles with something else.
 
Michel Van said:
Thunderf00t made 2 hour life stream on IFT-4 in YouTube
With allot Elon Musk hate and predictions of failure of Starship
Insulting SpaceX team as morons and has ZERO understanding of rocket science…

Only to see it succeed some how.
The comment in the Video are Gold

This life stream is his downfall for his YT channel
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Thunderf00t is a bit of a twat, who doesn't seem near as smart as he thinks he is.
 
publiusr said:
This, along with the interstage discard, would be stop-gap measures to get productive payload carrying Starship flights off the ground until more permanent solutions can be had
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Honestly as is You can use Starship as productive launcher.

Both made it to orbital velocity with only the flight plan being made so that it came down in a safe spot. They could have set it down in the Gulf if they wanted too but didn't due to safety reasons.

That basically ALL you need to yeet 100 plus tons of Satellite into orbit.

And use the cash from that to run prototyping til they get it fixed like they did with the Falcon 9. Especially Since most of the kinks are seemly removed from the main booster Which can toss like 90 tons to orbit with a faring, double that on a expandable flight, irc.

Then you can get it human rated.
 
Michel Van said:
Thunderf00t made 2 hour life stream on IFT-4 in YouTube
With allot Elon Musk hate and predictions of failure of Starship
Insulting SpaceX team as morons and has ZERO understanding of rocket science…

Only to see it succeed some how.
The comment in the Video are Gold

This life stream is his downfall for his YT channel
Click to expand...
He also claimed that Ingenuity was a scam and wouldn't fly.

He seems to have 'issues.'
 
Firefinder said:
Honestly as is You can use Starship as productive launcher.

Both made it to orbital velocity with only the flight plan being made so that it came down in a safe spot. They could have set it down in the Gulf if they wanted too but didn't due to safety reasons.

That basically ALL you need to yeet 100 plus tons of Satellite into orbit.

And use the cash from that to run prototyping til they get it fixed like they did with the Falcon 9. Especially Since most of the kinks are seemly removed from the main booster Which can toss like 90 tons to orbit with a faring, double that on a expandable flight, irc.

Then you can get it human rated.
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But nobody would actually want to finance an expended Starship launch when they have the F9/FH as an option. Only a few NASA and DOD outsized payloads would make Starship a necessity and I don't think we can come up with truly viable Starship use cases for at least a decade though. Until that point, it doesn't matter whatever Starship could actually do, Falcon 9 simply does it better (cheaper/more reliable). Simply said, you don't need a beast of a rocket for most missions.
 
NMaude said:
Since it sunk intact shouldn't SpaceX and NASA be concerned about PLA:N ships sniffing around around the site to see if they can salvage the wreck to raise and examine it?
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no, not going to matter
 
publiusr said:
There might be another way to leverage the strength of steel.

Imagine a rubber band that goes around the hinge join....looking a bit like conformal fuel tanks on fighters.

But it is made of RCC.

The main fins have tiny RCC sub-fins sticking out during the worst of re-entry.

After re-entry, the fins actuate, shattering the RCC and leaving a pristine hinge area.

What happened to Columbia's WLE by accident can occur here by design.

This, along with the interstage discard, would be stop-gap measures to get productive payload carrying Starship flights off the ground until more permanent solutions can be had.
Click to expand...
No, they don't need stop gap measures. That is negative work. It is not the same as the interstage jettison. They will still need an interstage.
 
sferrin said:
32 of 33 were working on the booster. 6 of 6 on Starship during boost. Was there a failure somewhere else?
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NMaude said:
Since it sunk intact shouldn't SpaceX and NASA be concerned about PLA:N ships sniffing around around the site to see if they can salvage the wreck to raise and examine it?
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I suspect it would tell them nothing they don’t already know . It is also probably deep enough to make recovery impossible.
 

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