[HN Gopher] Starship IFT-6 Livestream (liftoff at 4pm CT)
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       Starship IFT-6 Livestream (liftoff at 4pm CT)
        
       Author : grecy
       Score  : 52 points
       Date   : 2024-11-19 21:26 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.spacex.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.spacex.com)
        
       | marviel wrote:
       | unfortunately they had to scrap the booster Catch, due to
       | undisclosed factors.
        
         | mwambua wrote:
         | The explosion when it landed in the ocean was pretty epic
         | though!
        
         | Ancalagon wrote:
         | did they land it on the barge instead?
        
           | teractiveodular wrote:
           | No, it was a water splashdown. Looked silky smooth though,
           | they likely could have caught it again had they tried.
        
             | xnx wrote:
             | Water splashdown did look very smooth. I seemed like they
             | cut the video before it exploded (I assume), but hopefully
             | there's some third-party footage or SpaceX will release it
             | later.
             | 
             | Update: Looks like Spaceflight Now has the explosion at
             | https://www.youtube.com/live/dtmvbQDou4I at about 90
             | minutes in
        
               | perihelions wrote:
               | There's a better camera here which shows the aftermath,
               | 
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjDFirLcQDM (Everyday
               | Astronaut)
               | 
               | Landing is at about T+06:42.
        
           | oezi wrote:
           | Water splashdown.
        
           | pieix wrote:
           | No landing legs on Starship or its booster! Tower catch or
           | bust.
        
             | Ancalagon wrote:
             | oh duh, thanks
        
           | perihelions wrote:
           | It did a controlled landing on the Gulf of Mexico, exploded,
           | and now it's floating!
           | 
           | Hasn't sunk yet; haven't seen any official comments yet about
           | this novel situation.
        
           | nycdotnet wrote:
           | no barge for super heavy- the point of the catch is to save
           | weight on the massive legs that would be required. It "soft
           | landed" in the Gulf a few miles off shore, meaning they did a
           | burn and it entered the water not in freefall (though it
           | still looked faster than I expected).
        
         | ReptileMan wrote:
         | The way it gently splashed down in the ocean without hiccup - I
         | think this is promising and that they will get to the
         | chopsticks catching a booster is boring and mundane phase soon.
         | Specialists would say why they aborted.
        
         | the_king wrote:
         | I would love to see the dashboard that the team that made the
         | decision was looking at.
         | 
         | I'd be interested to hear speculation by people who know about
         | this as to what they think went wrong. Was it off course? Did
         | the engines not relight in time? Did it not have enough fuel?
        
           | ceejayoz wrote:
           | They announced a no-go while it was still boosting towards
           | space, so it won't be a relight issue.
        
             | zamalek wrote:
             | I wonder whether doing a catch without the catcher (rapid
             | scheduled crash landing) would be feasible. Data is data.
        
       | gnarbarian wrote:
       | Any word why they scrapped the booster catch?
        
         | JoshuaJB wrote:
         | No official word, but the communication antenna on the tower
         | appears to be damaged [1]. Seems likely that played a role.
         | 
         | [1] https://x.com/CSI_Starbase/status/1858998330401190375
        
         | bandyaboot wrote:
         | Whatever it was, it seems more likely that it was a booster
         | issue than anything relating to the tower given that they were
         | initially go for the catch. It was only during the boostback
         | burn that they scrapped it.
        
       | teractiveodular wrote:
       | Cost cutting in effect at SpaceX: Falcon Heavy used a Tesla
       | Roadster as their test payload, Starship only has a banana.
        
         | adolph wrote:
         | No shots of the banana yet post launch. Did it rip away from
         | the strings?
         | 
         | (Up until I typed this I hadn't considered they might use an
         | artificial banana.)
        
           | Laremere wrote:
           | Banana is on screen at T+00:24
        
         | state_less wrote:
         | I think it's an homage to previous chimp astronauts.
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjCX5F74zIM
         | 
         | Knight E6.
         | 
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ham_(chimpanzee)
        
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       (page generated 2024-11-19 23:00 UTC)