SpaceX launches

Wow! That one worked. 

Keith Tanner said:

Maybe they parked SN15 close to the edge to leave room for SN16 to land :)

I expect Tankzilla will swing by to drop SN15 on the centipede. There was some crazy gimbaling going on with the engines during landing, they might have a little work to do on the steering algorithms for Starship. The Falcon 9 landing yesterday was right in the 10 ring. 

I haven't studied the design...do you know if there's a header tank or baffles or ??? to control for fuel slush...if not, crazy gimbaling seems compulsory.

In reply to RX Reven' :

Definitely a header tank. It's in the nose - that's the frost ring at the tip. 
 

You could see the engine exhausts pointing away from each other, which seems like they got out of sync. Still, SpaceX knows more about landing rockets than anyone else, they'll get it sorted. 

adam525i said:

So what do they do with an intact landed SN15? SN16 is pretty close to be ready.

Stereo launches.

In reply to Honsch :

Hopefully they don't line up all the successfully landed test vehicles in a way that keeps all of our prying eyes out of their launch or landing compounds.

Maybe they could sell them to some nearby roadside hotel to hang their sign off of? Art installation in the dessert? Pressurize the tanks until they explode (likely got some of that data from SN10)?

Today (Tuesday, May 18) at 1:31 p.m., ULA is sending up an Atlas V. 

Keith Tanner said:

In reply to RX Reven' :

Definitely a header tank. It's in the nose - that's the frost ring at the tip. 
 

You could see the engine exhausts pointing away from each other, which seems like they got out of sync.

Generally, that's done to cancel out thrust.  The engines have a min-max range of thrust so if you want less than the minimum, you vector them away from each other.

Could be, that makes sense. They did land pretty close to the edge of the pad and it looks like SN15 skidded a little after touching down, but it was also pretty windy at the time. Not quite the bullseye we've come to expect from the Falcons.

SpaceX took that critter and dragged it right back to the launch pad which is one heck of a statement. So much for me asserting that they don't refly!

There's also information about the orbital test with the booster. The booster is going to fly most of the way back and do an attempted F9 style soft landing on the water - no weird flip. The second stage (what we've been watching) will come down for a water landing in a naval range off Hawaii. It's not doing a full orbit but it will be doing a proper reentry simulation with all of the heat and velocity that involves. No hard dates on this one but SpaceX is pushing hard.

Meanwhile, they did three F9 launches with about 180 satellites in 11 days before clearing the pad for the ULA launch.

Honsch said:

adam525i said:

So what do they do with an intact landed SN15? SN16 is pretty close to be ready.

Stereo launches.

If you have two, you have to race them. It's human nature.

Formation flying/flopping. Later on it will become an Olympic Games trial sport and eventually will replace pairs figure skating.

Today's Atlas V launch. 

David S. Wallens said:

Today's Atlas V launch. 

Damn kids and their bottle rockets!

In reply to stafford1500 :

I know, right? This one disappeared into the high clouds sooner than I would have expected. Still, always cool to witness. 

Those solid boosters can be pretty sporty.

Things are happening...

https://www.space.com/spacex-super-heavy-lifted-launch-stand-photos

Apparently planned for within the next few months.  It sounds like they are going to splash the booster into the gulf (maybe a soft landing? but not back to the launch site)

I am guessing some of the engines have not been test fired.

Engine mounted on (less splody) Starship:

In reply to aircooled :

Is that the first mounting of the Vacuum Raptor to the starship?  

It is. They're some big boys.

The plan for the orbital test is to have the booster do a soft landing offshore as it's the first time this creature has tried to land. It will land more like a Falcon 9 than a Starship, no bellyflop. The Starship second stage will do the bellyflop landing on water near Hawaii, in a range with a lot of Navy monitoring capabilities. There's a lot more energy involved in that landing than the previous attempts so there are a bunch of new things that can go wrong.

It's not going to happen for a little while, there's still a whole bunch of ground support equipment that needs to be sorted and some permits that need to be approved. But we should see the whole monster stacked this week.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

And when it's fully stacked, it will not resemble a you know what like Blue Origin.

In reply to Sparkydog :

If it does, you should either see a doctor or a porn director.

Stacking was scrubbed due to high winds.  The setup looked super imposing with the booster and Starship next to each other...can't wait to see the whole unit!

Take a look at just how massive this setup is!!  Also I'd like to note just how puckeringly tall those boom lifts are 

Mr. Bezos must feel pretty inadequate after seeing that!

bgkast said:

Mr. Bezos must feel pretty inadequate after seeing that!

I never realized a dick-swinging contest could be so fun to watch from the sidelines, but here we are!

In reply to sobe_death :

No kidding, those booms are terrifying. That booster is (ahem) 69m tall, which is 230' tall if my mental math is right. And it's on a stand.