Space - The Final Frontier

ERD50 said:
It was frightening to see that rocket tilting a bit as it neared the tower.
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I was thinking the same thing. But one of the talking heads explained that they deliberately aimed it a bit away from the tower, then made the go/no-go decision at the last moment when it looked like everything was going well. That's why it "scooted" over at the end. Makes a lot of sense.

They also explained that flame we saw coming out the side of the ship as it was coming down. Turns out they were intentionally venting fuel from the quick disconnect.
 
Some amazing days - The booster catch brought tears to my eyes and today the Europa probe is on it's way. Wow! Cool stuff - like when I was a kid watching the Apollo missions.
 
audreyh1 said:
The problem was that no live feed was available on YouTube. SpaceX hasn’t provided live feed on YouTube for over a year now. Yet many people go to YouTube expecting to find the SpaceX live feed. Today an imposter put up a YouTube video claiming to be the live SpaceX feed but it turned out to be a cryptocurrency ad or something like that. Apparently there were numerous fake videos.

Apparently 10s of thousands of folks were caught by fake feeds on YouTube today. Lots of discussion on the internet. Happens with all the space launches these days not just SpaceX. fake cryptocurrency ad claims spacex feed - Google Search. Happened on March 14 this year: Crypto scammers flooded YouTube with sham SpaceX Starship livestreams
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But is was ELON MUSK doing the ad... I do not know if he was faked or not but it looked real to me...
 
Texas Proud said:
But is was ELON MUSK doing the ad... I do not know if he was faked or not but it looked real to me...
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It was faked. There is tons of video footage out there to mess around with.

Plenty of incidents from an internet search about this. Been around for a while. Some Examples:
https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/184ybu0/ad_with_ai_generated_elon_musks_voice_saying_i
mashable.com

Fake Elon Musk livestreams promoting crypto scams keep popping up on YouTube

The deepfake Musk streams often hit the top of the live video charts.
mashable.com mashable.com
 
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ERD50 said:
Thanks, I missed that. These guys/gals think of everything! :)
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I noticed today looking at the Europa Clipper launch that there is already one Starship launch tower which looks complete at Cape Canaveral and DH says a second will be added.

You can see it in this photo of today’s launch of the Europa Clipper from Jet Propulsion Laboratory.*

1728961342866.jpeg


My understanding is that Cape Canaveral will be the commercial launch site for Starship. Boca Chica TX Starbase is development/testing.

*Liftoff! NASA’s Europa Clipper Sails Toward Ocean Moon of Jupiter
 
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It looks like Hurricane Milton’s track passed right over the Cape Canaveral launch complex as a category 1, 85 mph. Glad to see they are launching again. The screenshot I took early Thursday of the hurricane track below - the launch facility is just above the point of land. I was worried about the launch facilities.

IMG_5407.jpeg
 
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audreyh1 said:
I noticed today looking at the Europa Clipper launch that there is already one Starship launch tower which looks complete at Cape Canaveral and DH says a second will be added.

You can see it in this photo of today’s launch of the Europa Clipper from Jet Propulsion Laboratory.*

View attachment 52701

My understanding is that Cape Canaveral will be the commercial launch site for Starship. Boca Chica TX Starbase is development/testing.

*Liftoff! NASA’s Europa Clipper Sails Toward Ocean Moon of Jupiter
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I never noticed the difference between the size of the towers. Starship is *HUGE*!
 
It is interesting to compare old technology with new.... and yes starship produces a lot more thrust it is using 32 engines (IIRC) where Saturn V had... wait for it... 5...

Here is a nice comparison...

newspaceeconomy.ca

Titans of the Space Race: Comparing the Legendary Saturn V and Revolutionary SpaceX Starship

In the annals of spaceflight history, two rockets stand tall above the rest – the Saturn V, which carried humans to the Moon during the Apollo era, and the SpaceX Starship, poised to enable a…
newspaceeconomy.ca newspaceeconomy.ca
 
The old Soviet Union had the N1 rocket that used 20 engines. It was more powerful than the Saturn 5. But, every test ended in failure, and the program was disbanded.
 
audreyh1 said:
33, but what has that do do with anything? It’s just scaled differently.
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It shows how big those engines were back then...
Chuckanut said:
The old Soviet Union had the N1 rocket that used 20 engines. It was more powerful than the Saturn 5. But, every test ended in failure, and the program was disbanded.
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Not according to what I can find... Saturn V lifted the largest payload from what I can find to date... now SpaceX might pass it with the thrust it has but the rocket itself is much heavier than the Saturn V... so might not be able to do that...

The undisputed king of space is the Saturn V. Developed in the 1960s to send American astronauts to the moon, it still holds the record for the largest payload delivered to LEO: 141 metric tons consisting of an Apollo command and lunar modules, plus the fuel needed to take them to the moon and back.

5 Most Powerful Space Launch Systems - ASME

When it comes to sending heavy payloads to orbit, these five rockets have the edge.
www.asme.org

PS... found a LOT of list showing the 'most powerful' and I guess it make a difference in if you are considering thrust or lifting capacity... but almost all said Saturn V... the N-1 expected lift was much less than the Saturn V....
 
SpaceX uses those engines multiple places instead of having different engines for each stage. And they’re reusable.
 
audreyh1 said:
SpaceX uses those engines multiple places instead of having different engines for each stage. And they’re reusable.
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Oh yea... the technology has improved a lot since he 60s...

And if you saw when it was coming down they used only a fraction of the engines... and at the end when being caught even less...
 
Texas Proud said:
Oh yea... the technology has improved a lot since he 60s...

And if you saw when it was coming down they used only a fraction of the engines... and at the end when being caught even less...
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Note: Given the power in those engines, if they lit more than a few the rocket would go back up again. Consider how much the weight has been reduced by burning all that fuel and oxidizer in the previous few minutes.
 
Another thing about the Raptor engine. Notice how they have improved and simplified it drastically in such a short time. Very important when you are building thousands...
 

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There's so much coverage of catching the booster, I haven't found anything describing the rest of the mission. Does anyone have a source that gives an overview of the whole thing? I do recall hearing them mention something about an upper stage event while the booster was returning, but I'm missing the big picture.
 
You can scrub through the video. 30 mins in is close to launch and then only 10 minutes to catch, between them lots going on including separation. Then near the end is the Starship returning through the atmosphere and the splashdown.
 
ERD50 said:
There's so much coverage of catching the booster, I haven't found anything describing the rest of the mission. Does anyone have a source that gives an overview of the whole thing? I do recall hearing them mention something about an upper stage event while the booster was returning, but I'm missing the big picture.
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My understanding is the Starship (2nd stage) splashed down pretty much on target, upright, and properly braked. I recall seeing a video taken by a buoy placed near the planned landing area with camera. So, it must have been reasonably on target. Also, there was lot less damage to the ship during reentry compared to the previous launch. Altogether it seems to have been a great success.

I can’t help but think they will attempt to land and recover the Starship itself on the next launch. If they do it will be the first time anybody has got the entire rocket back in one piece after a launch. Those rascally space aliens will have to find their salvage from somebody else’s rockets.
 
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