[HN Gopher] Starship is ready for its 2nd test flight
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Starship is ready for its 2nd test flight
Author : alentred
Score : 38 points
Date : 2023-09-06 18:24 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| dmarcos wrote:
| Says not before middle of Sept. Would love to go. Anyone else
| trying to time a trip?
| ansible wrote:
| The timing for the staging is interesting. On the one hand, you
| want to light the Starship engines (the 2nd stage) while the
| SuperHeavy (1st stage) is still accelerating the entire stack.
| This is to keep the propellants at the bottom of their respective
| tanks to prevent any bubbles going into the engines. The Starship
| then needs to be under sufficient thrust to accelerate just as
| the SH cuts its engines so that the two stages can separate
| safely.
|
| I'm sure it will be exciting. I just hope sufficient SH engines
| remain running long enough to try the staging event.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Interesting how fast they switched to that.
| ansible wrote:
| The "spin the entire stack" was an interesting approach to
| staging as well. It is theoretically very simple and elegant,
| by just using the existing RCS thrusters for separating. It
| wasn't clear to me if this also obviates the need for a
| propellant settling burn on StarShip. I'd think it wouldn't,
| but I'm not sure. There is still a thin atmosphere at the
| staging altitude, so if StarShip is pointed in the right
| direction after separating, it should be de-accelerating
| slightly in the direction of travel.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Which would be the reverse of what you want, it would push
| the propellant away from the engines.
| chasd00 wrote:
| I thought for sure pad repairs would have taken longer than they
| did. I'll have to start getting back in the livestreams and get
| caught up on developments. I saw that the latest static fire was
| successful in that all engines ignited.
| orost wrote:
| Preparations for pad repairs and upgrades were well underway
| before the first flight - the question was not whether they'd
| be necessary, but how much and how soon. In particular if I
| remember correctly manufacturing of the steel plating that now
| forms the pad started all the way back in January.
| MilStdJunkie wrote:
| It's not the two months that was promised, but 6 mo is still
| _astonishing_. I keep wondering to myself, _where is this money
| coming from?_ , but then I remember just how much cash we
| straight up torch in traditional mil-spec aerospace. Without
| anything to show for it, natch.
| cududa wrote:
| Caveat: I realize that any Musk related conversations come
| across as combative and either vilifying him or blindly
| following him - that's not my intention here. That said,
| personally I can't stand the man, but I'm a huge fan of SpaceX.
|
| After the last launch attempt, every article said the launchpad
| repairs would take a year or more, without any explanation, and
| it seemed like everyone just started repeating it as an
| "obvious fact".
|
| That never made sense to me given the launch tower was mostly
| intact. So, asking in good-faith: Why did you think the pad
| repairs would take longer? Do you have an experience in the
| space, or is it just that you read the repeated "year or more"
| estimate and internalized it?
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(page generated 2023-09-06 20:02 UTC)