Starship | SN8 | High-Altitude Flight Test

[6Foot2]

 

Take off: Just after 1 hour 48 minutes.

[supportman]

Epic! rockets are so awesome!!

[TriggerHappyUK]

 

A good talk-through of the whole flight

[Dos_Box]

I'd say 95% successful and their policy of testing to destruction is a good one I think. They also only had 50% of the engines the final version would have, which may account for the last seconds 'oopsy'.

Still, well done them, and it's exciting to see space transport developing so rapidly.

Edited December 10, 2020 by Dos_Box

[synaesthesia]

That was amazing to watch. Watched both the spacex and Everyday Astronaut feeds - loved both!

I just love the openness of SpaceX/Musk with all - yeah its a multi million dollar bit of kit but it served the purpose!

[6Foot2]

Link:

[Elon Musk Text Tweets]

 

[Dos_Box]

Scott Manley has done a video explaining what went wrong in the final seconds of the flight:

 

 

And totally called it on 95% sucessful

[6Foot2]

 

Started streaming on 26^th of August 2020

[mikes]

He wants to have fleets of these things available, it sounds awesome! Passenger flights around the moon? He wants to have fuel carrying Starships in orbit; so you blast off into orbit, refuel, and then you can go off from there! Imagine a trip to the Moon to take a look at the Apollo landing sites. Would the Apollo 11 site be declared a historical monument, or would people be able to take bits of trophies from them?

[6Foot2]

...Would the Apollo 11 site be declared a historical monument, or would people be able to take bits of trophies from them?

Link: Protecting & Preserving Apollo Program Lunar Landing Sites & Artifacts [Presentation: 8 page PDF]

 

...Risks to the protection and preservation of sites and artifacts

 

The primary risk to Apollo sites and artifacts is associated with potential future lunar missions. A visiting vehicle approaching a historic site can generate a significant amount of damage to the site in a variety of ways:

 

• Landing on top of or too close to the site. A crash or off-nominal landing near a heritage site may produce an enormous amount of debris, dust, and chemical contamination.
  
• Sandblasting effects from rocket thrusters as propellant gases dislodge and propel lunar soil (regolith) at high speeds in the local area (e.g., erasing footprints and treads, damaging nearby hardware). Due to a lack of atmosphere and low gravity, the regolith can travel many miles and at speeds exceeding two kilometers per second for the smaller particles.
  
• Disrupting the local area with dust lofting or biological contamination...

[Duranis]

I'm not a big fan of Musk as a person but damn I love Tesla and SpaceX. The fact that something that cost so much can go wrong and they still (rightfully) consider it a success is what makes it so great. If this happened with any other agency/company they would consider it a major set back. With SpaceX its just business as normal and on to the next one. SpaceX seems to have done more in the last 15 years then any other agency or company has done in the last 50. Same for Tesla and Electric cars.

[supportman]

I'm not a big fan of Musk as a person but damn I love Tesla and SpaceX.

 

Just out of interest why are you not a fan of Elon?

 

I read is biography and its incredible the journey he's been on building companies, being forced out of the board room, loosing a child, putting all his money into 2 startups that can literally save the world and risking everything. Selling all his billionaire properties to lead a simple life of dedicated innovation.

 

To me, he is one of the worlds greatest minds, always thinking about the big problems the world faces.

 

And to top it all off, he's a dank meme lord and loves Reddit. What more can you ask for in a leader haha.

 

As you can probably tell, I'm a fan

[SamanthaD]

This guy really goes into detail about the propulsion systems used. And scarily actually describes the issue encountered. As an ex-propulsion tech in the RAF I think this is awesome!

 

[synaesthesia]

Just out of interest why are you not a fan of Elon?

 

I read is biography and its incredible the journey he's been on building companies, being forced out of the board room, loosing a child, putting all his money into 2 startups that can literally save the world and risking everything. Selling all his billionaire properties to lead a simple life of dedicated innovation.

 

To me, he is one of the worlds greatest minds, always thinking about the big problems the world faces.

 

And to top it all off, he's a dank meme lord and loves Reddit. What more can you ask for in a leader haha.

 

As you can probably tell, I'm a fan

 

I think it's the fact that he's either just stark raving mad, a Bond villain or somewhere between the two and it's hard to draw the line

[6Foot2]

I think it's the fact that he's either just stark raving mad, a Bond villain or somewhere between the two and it's hard to draw the line

 

Many (all?) Bond villains were/are mad?

 

[Duranis]

Just out of interest why are you not a fan of Elon? I read is biography and its incredible the journey he's been on building companies, being forced out of the board room, loosing a child, putting all his money into 2 startups that can literally save the world and risking everything. Selling all his billionaire properties to lead a simple life of dedicated innovation.To me, he is one of the worlds greatest minds, always thinking about the big problems the world faces.And to top it all off, he's a dank meme lord and loves Reddit. What more can you ask for in a leader haha.As you can probably tell, I'm a fan

 

I in no way want to take away what he has done and I agree that he is pushing technologies that the world needs right now. However he also has done some pretty questionable things and his whole public image (including his biography) is a very carefully crafted piece of marketing. He builds himself as "King Geek" and "Hope of humanity" and people that love tech buy it hook, line and sinker.

 

I have no doubt he can get stuff done and I 100% believe that his overall goals are for the betterment of humanity. But from what I have seen he seems like a pretty unpleasant person to actually spend time with and he doesn't care who gets burnt in the pursuit of his goals.

 

For example:

 

The founder of Tesla sued him for basically doing to him what was done to Musk at Paypal. Musk has also said a lot of pretty defamatory stuff about him online as well. The case was dropped as Eberhard requested the suit to be dropped which most people believe means he likely got a nice chunky out of court settlement.

 

Last year he shared someones artwork via twitter and when someone called him out for not crediting the artist he tweeted back "No one should be credited with anything ever". Funny since the lawsuit from Eberhard was mostly due to Musk trying to take all the credit for creating Tesla.

 

Then there was his assistant who was working with him for 12 years and basically doing the job of an executive. When she asked for a pay raise to match what she was doing Musk told her to take two weeks off so he could see if he could manage without her. After two weeks he told her he didn't need her anymore. I have seen some people spin this as "well she obviously didn't do much if he managed two weeks without her". I very much doubt though that he just took on her job. Much more likely he just passed the work on to someone else to do that wouldn't complain about it.

 

The same idea carries over to Tesla and SpaceX. MANY employees have said that they were expected to work 70+ hour weeks. Many have said the environment was awful to work in and they are expected to meet unrealistic goals and are readily fired if they don't. Not to mention Tesla suing a whistle blower (and Musk talking Carp about them online) who claims they were knowingly using unsafe batteries.

 

Don't forget he also called a diver that was involved in saving the kids that were stuck in a cave in Thailand a Pedo. Why did he say this? Because the diver quite rightly pointed out that his idea for sending a sub wouldn't work and was nothing more than a publicity stunt.

 

He also recently said that the Government should "give people back their freedom" instead of putting in lockdowns to try and stop the spread of Covid 19. He also opened one of the Tesla factories against government guidelines and had several thousand people come into work. He has also said many untrue and frankly dangerous things about Covid 19 as well.

 

These are just the things I can think of off the top of my head and I don't even really follow him myself.

Edited December 14, 2020 by Duranis

[supportman]

Thanks interesting post indeed! I guess you have to be a certain type of person to get stuff done and change the world.

 

A trail of unhappy people, but huge progress, sounds like many leaders of history

 

Every

[6Foot2]

Thanks interesting post indeed! I guess you have to be a certain type of person to get stuff done and change the world.

 

A trail of unhappy people, but huge progress, sounds like many leaders of history

 

Every

 

Did you get interrupted?

 

[localzuk]

There's no question that Musk as a person is not exactly the best all round. However, the things he has achieved are pretty darn impressive. It is rare that someone manages to get both talent and a good personality though. The 2 seem to be at pretty opposite ends of the spectrum.

[6Foot2]

 

As early as Tuesday, February 2, the SpaceX team will attempt a high-altitude flight test of Starship serial number 9 (SN9) – the second high-altitude suborbital flight test of a Starship prototype from our site in Cameron County, Texas. Similar to the high-altitude flight test of Starship serial number 8 (SN8), SN9 will be powered through ascent by three Raptor engines, each shutting down in sequence prior to the vehicle reaching apogee – approximately 10 km in altitude. SN9 will perform a propellant transition to the internal header tanks, which hold landing propellant, before reorienting itself for reentry and a controlled aerodynamic descent.

 

The Starship prototype will descend under active aerodynamic control, accomplished by independent movement of two forward and two aft flaps on the vehicle. All four flaps are actuated by an onboard flight computer to control Starship’s attitude during flight and enable precise landing at the intended location. SN9’s Raptor engines will then reignite as the vehicle attempts a landing flip maneuver immediately before touching down on the landing pad adjacent to the launch mount.

 

A controlled aerodynamic descent with body flaps and vertical landing capability, combined with in-space refilling, are critical to landing Starship at destinations across the solar system where prepared surfaces or runways do not exist, and returning to Earth. This capability will enable a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo on long-duration, interplanetary flights and help humanity return to the Moon, and travel to Mars and beyond.

 

Given the dynamic schedule of development testing, stay tuned to our social media channels for updates as we move toward SpaceX’s second high-altitude flight test of Starship!

 

Streamed live 25 minutes ago [At the time of posting]

[ICTDirect_Dave]

You havd to give points for style. Those things look ace.

 

Going to take some work to get everything firing as it should when they push the reignition button, but they're certainly getting there.

[psydii]

"controlled aerodynamic decent"

 

 

 

lol

[6Foot2]

[6Foot2]

 

SpaceX Starship SN10 prototype launched to an altitude of 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) and landed 6 minutes and 20 seconds after liftoff. Several minutes later the rocket exploded...

[supportman]

Awesome flight, so impressive! I can't believe they forgot to give it landing legs though