[HN Gopher] Live feed of Starship SN15 flight test
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       Live feed of Starship SN15 flight test
        
       Author : prtkgpt
       Score  : 88 points
       Date   : 2021-05-05 22:24 UTC (35 minutes ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.spacex.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.spacex.com)
        
       | bpodgursky wrote:
       | Lame. I came for explosions and shrapnel, and all I got was a
       | viable POC of cheap interplanetary flight.
        
         | CarVac wrote:
         | Breaking news!
         | 
         | Most boring Starship flight ever!
        
         | loganwedwards wrote:
         | This comment made my day. Looking forward to Starship flights
         | to be as routine as the Falcons.
        
         | fighterpilot wrote:
         | Downvotes from all the negative people hoping this would fail
        
       | whatshisface wrote:
       | > _Shortly after the landing burn started, SN11 experienced a
       | rapid unscheduled disassembly. Teams will continue to review data
       | and work toward our next flight test._
       | 
       | I wonder how many failures SpaceX can fund before the project
       | ends up in trouble.
        
         | foota wrote:
         | It's my impression they're printing money, so probably a whole
         | lot.
        
         | bpodgursky wrote:
         | I've heard that the Boca Chica operations are currently a
         | really small % of the overall SpaceX budget given how cheap the
         | materials and low the consequences are.
         | 
         | (it's just steel + engines, and since there's no human or
         | customer component, there's much less process than around the
         | commercial launches)
        
           | powderpig wrote:
           | I'd imagine the most complex engine ever to use the full flow
           | staged combustion cycle has a large price tag.
        
             | nickik wrote:
             | Its not that high, because its designed from the beginning
             | to be produced in the 100s per year. Its probably being
             | produced faster almost every other rocket engine (outside
             | of SpaceX own) and maybe some much simpler engines from
             | Russia or China.
             | 
             | They are producing SN100ish by now. A while ago they said 2
             | million $, already cheap for such an engine. Target is more
             | like 200k$.
             | 
             | So likely its between 1-2M. That would make it only about
             | 6M per flight based on the engine.
        
             | phpnode wrote:
             | Presumably a vast majority of that cost is in R&D rather
             | than manufacturing.
        
         | google234123 wrote:
         | Why are you bringing up #11?
        
           | whatshisface wrote:
           | That's what was on the page when I opened it. On my desktop
           | it's talking about #15 though, so I guess I was victim of a
           | weird mobile vs. desktop issue.
        
       | jffry wrote:
       | That's a standing, upright rocket, which is pretty cool!
       | 
       | More camera angles (unofficial):
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPNvB5ComFw
       | 
       | Looks like whatever the small fire was after the landing has been
       | contained.
        
       | guardiangod wrote:
       | In the previous tests Spacex used 2-3 rocket engines for the
       | initial landing burn.
       | 
       | For SN15, the rocket used 2 engines throughout the landing
       | procedure. I wonder if this is a sign of their confidence in the
       | improved design.
       | 
       | The landing was smooth as butter and nothing went noticeably
       | wrong, although I did noticed that the rocket landed dangerous
       | close to the edge of the concrete pad.
        
         | pantalaimon wrote:
         | There was also quite a bit of fire after the landing, but this
         | time the rocket would not explode from it.
        
           | Pfhreak wrote:
           | Fire and a few pops/pings/small explosions in the engine
           | area, but didn't appear to destabilize the rocket, which is a
           | good sign.
        
       | d_silin wrote:
       | ...has landed!
        
       | ArtWomb wrote:
       | Congrats! Looks like they stuck the landing. Marks the 60th
       | anniversary of first American in space: Alan Shepard's Mercury-
       | Redstone 3 mission ;)
       | 
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_3
        
       | fasteddie31003 wrote:
       | Let's launch it again!
        
       | d_silin wrote:
       | Now the next step is high suborbital flight and then real orbital
       | test.
        
         | bpodgursky wrote:
         | IIRC they don't plan on an orbital test of the standalone
         | second-stage. They'll strap it to a superheavy first.
        
           | d_silin wrote:
           | Yes, you are right. But 100km altitude or so suborbital test
           | is definitely possible with SN prototype alone.
        
       | Aeolun wrote:
       | It didn't explode!
        
       | daedalus2027 wrote:
       | At 11:08 you can see udp://234.70.253.161:9000
        
         | skeletonjelly wrote:
         | People have managed to tune into the raw video stream via RTL-
         | SDR. I'm guessing this IP is post this step and internal to
         | their streaming
         | 
         | https://www.rtl-sdr.com/receiving-space-x-falcon-9-telemetry...
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26423406
        
         | walrus01 wrote:
         | IANA reserved multicast space, often used in peoples' internal
         | networks, not something you could ever access unless you were
         | connected to the same network segment as the video stream
         | source.
        
           | regnerba wrote:
           | Today I learned, thanks for sharing that info!
        
       | Laremere wrote:
       | "Starship landing nominal!" - @elonmusk
       | 
       | https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1390073153347592192
        
       | raphaelj wrote:
       | Any idea why they shutdown some engines during ascent?
       | 
       | Seems efficient as you are fighting gravity with less
       | acceleration and more dead weight.
        
         | hiharryhere wrote:
         | They're not trying to go fast. They're trying to get to the
         | target altitude to test the flip. No need to rush or overshoot.
         | 
         | In "production" it will be atop the booster, so taking off like
         | this from sea level isn't part of the plan.
        
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       (page generated 2021-05-05 23:00 UTC)