[HN Gopher] The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its ...
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The FAA has granted SpaceX permission to launch its Starship rocket
Author : ChickeNES
Score : 65 points
Date : 2023-04-14 21:54 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| remarkEon wrote:
| April 17 is the anniversary of Apollo 13's splashdown, if anyone
| was wondering.
|
| Edit: in case anyone wasn't aware of the coolest website on the
| internet
|
| https://apolloinrealtime.org/13/
| creddit wrote:
| I wasn't aware of this website! It's great, I'm following
| Apollo 11 right now.
| midland_trucker wrote:
| I certainly wasn't and appreciate you posting it, great site! A
| little intimidating initially, but after a minute curiosity has
| you flicking between the different controller channels and
| stages in the mission.
| tschellenbach wrote:
| 7:00 a.m. CT, kinda early, but ill wake up for it :)
| starbase wrote:
| If the two stages survive long enough to do a splashdown, will
| SpaceX attempt to hover them over the water until they run out of
| fuel?
|
| Will there be splashdown video?
| agrajag wrote:
| According to the flight plan published by SpaceX, the booster
| is going to attempt a hover in the gulf to simulate a landing,
| while the Ship isn't going to slow down at all after reentry
| and will impact the ocean at a high velocity.
| olex wrote:
| I wonder why they don't plan to execute the flip and landing
| burn with the ship, just for additional test data. So far it
| fully worked only once (and _almost_ worked a couple more
| times), surely it can't hurt to have another go at it, even
| if the ship is ultimately not being recovered. I guess
| propellant margins may be a cause, but then they'll likely
| want to have a "nominal" amount of leftover fuel onboard
| anyway to have a proper mass distribution for the first re-
| entry test...
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| I think the chance that the second stage survives reentry
| on the first attempt is almost zero anyway.
|
| IIRC Musk said something like that in his second interview
| with Tim Dodd.
| pageandrew wrote:
| I remember Elon saying that flight test 1 would attempt to do a
| soft touchdown in the water.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Tragically off-topic, but following the link I see that SpaceX
| has an online shop.
|
| The shop sells a SpaceX sticker pack, and one of the stickers
| looks like a bunch of cats in a satellite dish.
|
| I'm not a SpaceX follower, so can someone who is explain what it
| means: https://shop.spacex.com/collections/featured-
| products/produc...
| xoa wrote:
| Feline friends always love it when humans put out nice new warm
| beds for them! Certainly a warm heated spot in the cold could
| serve no higher purpose :):
|
| https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/outdoor-cats-are-u...
| Aeolun wrote:
| > the American Veterinary Medical Association recommends
| keeping cats indoors to avoid dangers associated with
| diseases, parasites, cars, attacks from other animals,
| poisons and extreme weather
|
| Now it's not only children but cats too? I grew up in a
| location where cats could go anywhere they pleased (in or
| outside), and it's really strange to me that some countries
| recommend or require them to always be inside.
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| Cats destroy wildlife on a massive scale.
| [deleted]
| bagels wrote:
| Cats like to sleep on warm surfaces. Starlink antennas are
| outdoors and warm. Cats sleep on them.
| whynotkeithberg wrote:
| I think it's because the dishes get warm & cats like to sit on
| warm things
| inigoalonso wrote:
| Antennas get warm. Cats like it:
| https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/10/starlink-...
| memorylane wrote:
| I think it is a play on words - five cats -> Cat 5
| ChickeNES wrote:
| The license itself:
| https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/as...
|
| As someone who has been waiting since the ITS presentation in
| 2016, I've very excited :)
| grecy wrote:
| You and be both, I'm jumping out of my skin!
| 00F_ wrote:
| i was at south padre island for the first startship landing. even
| though it blew up a minute or two after it landed, i consider it
| the first landing. i had seen pretty much every major launch from
| spacex on their livestreams but i was still taken aback at seeing
| starship. its as odd as watching a skyscraper slowly levitate
| upward into the sky. and to see it standing after the dust
| settled was unreal. and after it was over people shuffled away
| and even i was halfway to my car when we heard the explosion. i
| thought it was a sonic boom or something and only later realized
| it had blown up because by that time the landing pad was well out
| of sight. i got a crazy sunburn.
|
| im not sure if im even going to attempt to see the next launch in
| person because i think it will be absolutely thronged. finding a
| hotel room, parking, even a good spot in the grass come launch
| time. its going to be a fucking mad house. if some people here
| want to split a hotel room then i might consider it. hotels can
| really add up because they can scrub or cancel or whatever and
| youre just stuck there. i think there were a couple scrubs on my
| last go too. my advice to anyone who goes: bring sunscreen and a
| really good pair of binoculars.
| deepsun wrote:
| Thank you, such a nice inspirational and personal writeup! Keep
| it up!
| mmaunder wrote:
| Here are the TFRs. Two on the 17th and 18th from 6am to 9am MDT.
| The yellow section.
|
| https://ibb.co/H41P6Md
| InTheArena wrote:
| It's been interesting to see SpaceX shift from hardware-rich to a
| more traditional process the last year. I suspect a lot of it is
| due to the sheer cost of what they are doing, but a lot of it is
| PR management as well... Plus it's obvious that the US government
| is doing everything in their power to have Musk on as short of a
| leash as possible.
| mhandley wrote:
| SpaceX moved beyond what they could test without the launch
| (and catch) tower. They've spent a lot of time and money
| developing the ground systems - in comparison the early crude
| Starship prototypes were comparatively cheap and easily
| replaced - and I would imagine they really would prefer not to
| accidentally demolish the tower again.
| ralfd wrote:
| If I recall correctly after this Methan explosion 9 month ago
| they got more cautious and slower:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjbjXTomxqI
| samwillis wrote:
| Schools (where I am in the Uk) aren't back till Tuesday next
| week, so I'm looking forward to being able to watch this with my
| kids. However it goes it's going to be an incredible sight.
|
| Launch window opens 1pm BST (7am ET).
|
| Good luck to everyone at SpaceX!
| irrational wrote:
| I am so looking forward to watching this behemoth fly.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Behemoths are tiny compared to this :)
| LostLocalMan wrote:
| Sounds like they are not planning on testing the booster catch
| yet, I wonder what's stopping them
| starbase wrote:
| Risk of damaging their only launchpad, I would assume.
| samwillis wrote:
| The hardware at the launch site is hundreds of millions of
| dollars (or more). They won't want to test that till they are
| sure they can fly the thing.
|
| The Flacon 9 did a fair few simulated landing over water before
| they tried on land or risked and barge.
| Me1000 wrote:
| That's correct, there will be no catch attempt this launch.
| They're going to simulate a landing by attempting to do soft
| land it in the Gulf of Mexico.
|
| The reason is pretty straightforward: this vehicle has never
| flown before and a lot can go wrong. There is a lot of ground
| equipment including propellant tanks very close to the launch
| tower. If anything goes wrong hundreds of tons of metal +
| propellant is going to cause a lot of damage, and they'd likely
| end up having to rebuild a large portion of their launch area.
| Best to see how the booster behaves first before risking all
| that infrastructure.
| Aeolun wrote:
| It can't be that hard to not land it in your launch area
| right? Can't they have a separate land and crash area
| (preferably separated by a few tens of kilometers)?
| [deleted]
| olex wrote:
| You would need to build a second tower with catch arms
| there. The booster does not have landing legs and will not
| touch down on the ground, the plan is to have it settle on
| the same "tower arms" that are used as a crane to stack the
| booster and the ship for launch, with engines still well
| above ground.
| Me1000 wrote:
| It's a good question, and I don't have a great answer for
| you other than my understanding is that the ground space
| they have to work with in Boca Chica is not really that
| large. And there are a lot of environmental concerns (+ the
| chances of blowing up on landing is greater than blowing up
| on liftoff).
|
| But I've heard speculation that they might build a dedicate
| landing tower around their Florida launch site for that
| reason. No idea how accurate that is though.
| [deleted]
| valine wrote:
| Long term it's better to have launch and landing on the
| same tower, if the goal is to rapidly reuse the rocket.
| hadlock wrote:
| The falcon 9 did several "hover over water" landings in the
| ocean to prove out safe landing on... land, and also to alay
| fears that it might miss it's target and hit a population
| center. Even now, falcon 9 do a ballistic reentry that would
| hit the water, and then propulsively adjust the landing target
| towards land, after the engines have safely started.
|
| Given how much larger, and how much additional fuel is onboard,
| it's not surprising that they're following a similar strategy
| this early in the program.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| They haven't launched and recovered it at all yet, have they?
| Presumably they want to test out to sea where it won't blow up
| the only launch tower if it comes in hot.
| olex wrote:
| The booster has not yet flown, no. The closest it came was a
| all-engines static fire (during which 2 out of 33 engines
| didn't fire, but it was still enough of a success to continue
| with the program apparently).
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(page generated 2023-04-14 23:00 UTC)