SpaceX launches

Next week is Big Rocket Week. Not only are we hoping for the Starship test flight, but there's a fully expended Falcon Heavy going up on Tuesday. An expended Heavy means we don't get the spectacle of the dual booster landings, but it's a very high performance rocket when expended. It's the heaviest lift rocket that's currently operational with the exception of the SLS, and it flies a lot more often and at a much lower cost. Of course, if Starship is considered "operational" after Monday's test, Heavy will be relegated to third place :)

Oh, don't forget they're also going to be launching two regular Falcon 9s. It's gonna be a poppin' week.

Note that the Starship (second stage) is not going to attempt a simulated landing. It's going for the world championship bellyflop. Super Heavy (booster) will do a simulated water landing, though.

Does it seem like there are a lot more launches than there were a decade ago? Check this out.

Scrubbed for today

Valves. It's always valves.

Currently scheduled for Wednesday April 19th 9-10 am eastern (6-7 am pacific).

[SpaceX guy in background spraying valve with WD40 and hitting it with a hammer]

Now moved to Thursday 9:30 - 10:30 am (6:30 - 7:30 pacific)

(the duct tape is coming out)

There are a lot of scam "streams" out there that mostly seem to be interested in selling crypto or something stupid. Here's the official SpaceX one for Thursday. 
 

I'd bet money on the stuck valve not actually existing. Monday was a planned wet dress rehearsal, and now musk gets to launch on 4/20, because for some reason he's obsessed with 4/20. 

In reply to lnlogauge :

Why wouldn't they just... schedule the test for 4/20?

Yeah, that wasn't what was going on. Musk isn't as obsessed with 4/20 as a bunch of internet commentators are and he's made a few jokes about it, but that launch attempt was way too involved to just be faked. It involved assets from NASA, the Coast Guard and I'm assuming some military assets in the Starship impact zone. SpaceX is more of a grown-up company than Twitter because what they do matters and it has a real end goal, so SpaceX Musk is almost a different person from Twitter Musk. He's also got oversight, Gwynne Shotwell wouldn't allow for that sort of thing because of the cost and the effect it would have on some very important partners.

The TFR for Thursday was removed, now it may be back on - looks like lots of activity at the launch site. SpaceX isn't saying anything yet but the FAA notifications are a bit of a peek into potential windows. There's a possible launch window every day from 7:00-9:30 Central (other than Saturday). Basically, they keep trying until it's willing to go.

10 minutes to launch if it goes.

In reply to adam525i :

thanks, i didnt know this was launching. Less than 3 minutes to go. Unfortunately its not at canaveral so i cant watch it live from our backyard. 

She's up!

Kablowy!

Rocket go boom. The SpaceX feed on Youtube is spinning this as a positive test because it made it as far as it did. Is that spin, or is it legit?

Sky donuts!

In reply to Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) :

I'm going with legit. 

They have proved over and over again they don't mind blowing stuff up to learn something. 

In reply to Tom_Spangler (Forum Supporter) :

It's how spacex seems to do things. It seems to be working for them, but I would be a bit hesitant as a potential rider in that....

They were pretty clear that just clearing the tower was a win before hand. I'd say it was a good one. Go Elon!

the energy of that room was excellent. That was genuine excitement. 
 

what was the objective had the separation happened?  Send the capsule into orbit or shut down and splash it? 
The live video of the rockets ready to fire had separation happened was all i was watching. Maybe next time we'll get to see it. 
 

also, RUD, "rapid unscheduled disassembly" is a great term. 
 

OK, is it supposed to flip for separation?  
 

That seems a bit strange, but they did note that in the feed.

SpaceX actually has a really great reliability record, this is just how they get there. I think the Starship was supposed to splash down somewhere in the Pacific after a short flight, had it separated correctly.

I think they're separating the stages with that flip. First I'd heard of it. The problem looks like the second stage (Starship) didn't seem to let go, so they had to blow it all up. They didn't have all the engines burning either so it seemed to be a little slow at MaxQ.

Starship was supposed to burn up to orbital velocity and do a controlled reentry, but not the final flip for landing. It was going to do a terminal velocity bellyflop into the ocean. The booster was going to simulate a landing over water.

This is hardware rich engineering. Do your work, build the parts and then test in the real world. Helps you find the things that you don't know you don't know. And since one of the things SpaceX is building is the rocket factory itself, it gives them something to do with all the rockets they build. 

I'm not sure a vehicle in history has experienced the forces that Starship just had. Doing sky donuts and flips with the power of quite a few Raptor engines at full burn. 
 

something the size of a high rise tower doing a bottle flip..

Fair enough, good for them.

It does seem crazy that we've been doing manned spaceflight with multi-stage rockets for 60-plus years, and we're still experiencing failures like this. Just another reminder that space is hard.