Tonight’s Terran 1 launch

So, think it will go up tonight? We’re about to head out (again) to watch the skies. 

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Thanks for the reminder.  I say nope unless they do.

Live video if others want to watch.

Stage 2 issues.

Thanks for the heads up. Perfect timing to get the kids in on it before bed.

Made it through max Q with a 3D printed structure, so even with 2nd stage failing to start, it's still a win for them.

We saw it! Not the brightest rocket, but we saw it go into the sky–until it stopped.

And then, as we started to drive home, the nice police officer stopped us to see why were in the park after hours....

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Probably not the type of 'rocket enthusiasts' they're used to dealing with in the park at night.

Just watched the NASASpaceFlight's view of the launch (they have nothing to do with NASA- good enthusiasts).  And it was interesting how they marveled at the blue flame.  It reminded me of the Gemini launches when they were using alcohol for fuel- which makes sense since methane and ethanol are so close to each other, lol.  

Pretty interesting rocket concept- they kept talking about the 3d printed feature of it, which makes you think the entire tube is 3D printed and it's such a huge thing- and it is- getting through maxQ is a huge structural deal.  But if I read their webpage, the engines are also 3D printed- and that's the part where the 3d printing reduces the numbers of parts a LOT- and being an engine/combustion person (but not rockets)- I personally find this part really fascinating.

Like others, this is supposed to be reusable- and I kind of wish their web page roughly outlined their launch development plans.  Just to keep an eye on them.

One of the best parts about this is that it increases the odds of us cruising into Port Canaveral and seeing a launch.

Veritasium did a video about this project a year ago- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz165f1g8-E&ab_channel=Veritasium

The 3D printing is basically MIG welding a structure.  "Basically" because I'm sure it takes a lot of research and development to get the process right for the desired alloy.

It's a shame the second stage failed but I thought I read somewhere that they are almost ready for another go. I'm really interested in the next version that will be bigger and reusable.  

alfadriver said:

Veritasium did a video about this project a year ago- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz165f1g8-E&ab_channel=Veritasium

The 3D printing is basically MIG welding a structure.  "Basically" because I'm sure it takes a lot of research and development to get the process right for the desired alloy.

We've all done that kind of "printing" :) I wasn't worried about the structure personally. It would not have been that challenging to do the testing and math on the ground. I think Relativity is mostly a printing company that's building rockets to get everyone's attention (and succeeding), and the big question is what the printing brings to the party. Most of the interesting parts of this rocket are in the engines.

The odds of seeing a launch coming in to Canaveral is getting pretty high these days. SpaceX is popping a launch off every 4 days on average this year. Some of those are out of Vandenberg, but most are still coming from the Cape.

Iusedtobefast said:

It's a shame the second stage failed but I thought I read somewhere that they are almost ready for another go. I'm really interested in the next version that will be bigger and reusable.  

I think that's referring to the next version, the Terran R. It's "almost ready to go", but that's very much a relative thing.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

In terms of a 3D printing company- I wonder if they will end up pushing the limit where buying and using stamping and welding is actually faster than 3D printing?   There's a reason cars are stamped from sheet steel instead of printing- it's a whole lot faster that way.  And for ICE's, it's also faster to cast, cure, and machine them vs. 3D printing.  

But there is certainly a limit where 3D printing is fast enough, compared to the cost of building the tooling.  Sometimes, the 3D print is the tooling.

It's pretty darned, cool, though.

The other limit is- how much more stuff do we need in space?  At some point, it will get crowded enough that collisions will start happening.

Rockets have always been very high effort items. I can see how 3D printing would work. Lots of it is just cylinders until you get to the engines, so maybe that's not the most efficient way to make cylinders. It's pretty interesting seeing Relativity's take on making it easier to make running changes to rockets at the same time that SpaceX is working to bring mass production techniques to rocketry. And ironically, it's SpaceX that is also the only one doing reuse so they don't need a new rocket for every launch so they're the ones that need mass production the least for a given launch rate. That last bit, though...

All that stuff in space has been pretty handy so far. Making it easier/less expensive to launch things like weather satellites and communications satellites is good. And space is really big, so as long as some care is taken (parking orbits or deorbiting for decommisioned items) it can be managed. The Starlink constellation, for example, is at an altitude that will deorbit on its own when the satellite reaches EOL so we won't end up with them hanging around for decades. The biggest problem is going to be if countries like Russia keep blowing stuff up in highly populated higher orbits just to show off their weenies.