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Merged SpaceX’s Starship Rocket Explodes After Launch/Starship hop

They are really putting this ship through the wringer. Not only is one of the flaps kind of burning away at the back edge, but I can see forging-temperature colours running on the stainless steel hull - blue to pink to straw.
 
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*slow clap*

The rear flaps took real beating this time, and something blew up inside before the reentry. But front flaps worked great. Engines restarted just fine. Good flight.
 
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Impressive. I think both aft flaps were burned through at the trailing edge there was damage to the aft skirt as well. But it all kept working.
They were deliberately stress-testing it - removing tiles and using re-entry angles that they knew would cause issues. A LOT of data came from this flight. I think we can confidently say that this was Starship's first completely successful test flight.
 
Something definitely blew inside with debris thrown inside engine bay, also the right rear flap was damaged even before that.
I was looking at my other screen when that happened. I saw sudden movement out of the corner of my eye and missed what actually happened. I'm sure Scott Manley will catch me up within 24 hours.
 
They were deliberately stress-testing it - removing tiles and using re-entry angles that they knew would cause issues. A LOT of data came from this flight. I think we can confidently say that this was Starship's first completely successful test flight.
Agreed. Just one thing they weren't using the angle of re-entry they used previously - I looked this up - that was about 70 degrees, and that seemed too much for the structural strength. That isn't a criticism as this test showed it can touch down where it was meant to.
 
Starship LEO capacity is mentioned 100-150 tons. They plan to release 60 v3 Starlink satellites as one of its first missions, and one is about 2 tons, as 120 tons total.
That is going to take a while if they intend to use the pez dispenser... about 1m 20s per satellite, 120 satellites so 160 minutes. That's over 1½ orbits.
 
60 satellites, 120 tons. They mentioned 60 minutes IIRC.
Well, that doesn't add up with what the SpaceX narrator said on the broadcast.. Falcon 9's deploy about 24 satellites per launch, and he said that Starship will deploy five times that number.... 24 x 5 = 120. Maybe he misspoke, or I misheard, but it does match up with Starlink payload capacity... Falcon 9 = 17t, Starship = 100t ...over 5 times more.


Starlink Version 3 satellites after this test then they will increase the bandwidth per launch by 20 times. They could launch 100 Version 3 starlinks with each Starship launch.
Each Starship launch deploys ~50 to 120 V3 sats (about ~2-ton mass per sat for 200-ton payload to Starlink orbit, accounting for larger size and full reusability).
 
Musk is a complete idiot. See latest posts in the UK politics thread with him supporting racist ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊.
But people working for him have accomplished some remarkable stuff. In spite of him.
I would imagine they would accomplish much more if Elon just ◊◊◊◊◊◊ off out of their way and let them get on with it.

ETA. :bigclap:th:to the SpaceX teams. Good job!
 
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Well, that doesn't add up with what the SpaceX narrator said on the broadcast.. Falcon 9's deploy about 24 satellites per launch, and he said that Starship will deploy five times that number.... 24 x 5 = 120. Maybe he misspoke, or I misheard, but it does match up with Starlink payload capacity... Falcon 9 = 17t, Starship = 100t ...over 5 times more.
I'm basing it on what the SpaceX lady said yesterday during the flight. She might have meant 60 stacks of the satellites .. gotta rewatch that part.
The weight of the satellites is also not known exactly, neither is the launch rate. Guess we'll see ..
 

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