BFR Developments

And here's Elon explaining to Princeton University astrophysics professor Adam Burrows why he's so attracted to steel as a rocket structural material. (Elon says "Steel and I should get a room or something...")

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1798937746624631249

As to what happened to the booster and ship after they landed...

Talk is that Go America, the offshore-oil service ship SpaceX hired to patrol the booster landing zone in the Gulf of Mexico, proceeded to B11's landing spot and then started moving slowly toward deeper water. It's believed that it might have the floating booster in tow and is moving to a better spot to sink it.

S29 is presumably floating in the Indian Ocean northwest of Australia. And reportedly a private jet took off from the Perth area, flew northwest toward Indonesia, circled over the landing spot and then returned to Perth. So somebody might have photos of it, assuming they were able to find it.

I have no idea who it was, though I suspect that they might have been SpaceX or their Australian associates, since they seemed to know the approximate landing site. What's more, I would guess that the SpaceX engineers would love to see the reentry damage for themselves. But I don't know if any kind of recovery is planned (rumor says none, that it's to be scuttled like the booster).

(Edit: I'm told by an Australian space nut that the private jet belonged to a mining company in West Australia. But I still suspect that they were working with SpaceX and got the landing coordinates from them.)

New SpaceX video, presumbaly taken from Go America showing B11 conducting its landing burn and soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico.

The 13 (actually 12 in this case) landing engines were visibly using their thrust vector control to bring the booster vertical for landing.

We knew that the booster blew one of its 13 landing engines at landing burn startup and a fuel leak is apparent in the video. But the landing software adjusted nicely and successfully conducted the landing, thereby demonstrating engine-out resilience.

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1799458854067118450

Elon says "Booster landing was on target, ship landing was several km off due to flap damage, but both were soft landings."

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1799510160592834764

Flight 5? (Render by Tibininin)

(Jun 8, 2024 08:08 PM)Yazata Wrote: New SpaceX video, presumbaly taken from Go America showing B11 conducting its landing burn and soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico.

The 13 (actually 12 in this case) landing engines were visibly using their thrust vector control to bring the booster vertical for landing.

We knew that the booster blew one of its 13 landing engines at landing burn startup and a fuel leak is apparent in the video. But the landing software adjusted nicely and successfully conducted the landing, thereby demonstrating engine-out resilience.

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1799458854067118450 [...]

There are flames coming from or going up the side of the booster that might suggest a leak of propellant or something.

(Jun 8, 2024 10:18 PM)C C Wrote:

(Jun 8, 2024 08:08 PM)Yazata Wrote: New SpaceX video, presumbaly taken from Go America showing B11 conducting its landing burn and soft landing in the Gulf of Mexico.

The 13 (actually 12 in this case) landing engines were visibly using their thrust vector control to bring the booster vertical for landing.

We knew that the booster blew one of its 13 landing engines at landing burn startup and a fuel leak is apparent in the video. But the landing software adjusted nicely and successfully conducted the landing, thereby demonstrating engine-out resilience.

https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1799458854067118450 [...]

There are flames coming from or going up the side of the booster that might suggest a leak of propellant or something.

Yeah, I think that was due to the engine that failed at landing-burn startup. Apparently there was still propellant flowing through what was left of it.

Watch this with the sound on

It's not Hollywood special effects

It's a spaceship entering Earth's atmosphere at Mach 25

(SpaceX video put to music by Wolf of X)

https://x.com/tradingMaxiSL/status/1798736408804475186

Starbase then (only about five years ago) Hoppy is the one constant.

(Photo by Austin Bernard)

Starbase now

(Photo by S.E. Robinson)

nsNS

(Jun 7, 2024 08:12 PM)C C Wrote:

(Jun 7, 2024 07:44 PM)Yazata Wrote: Ellie Sheriff (the Ellie in Space channel) gets a post-Flight 4 interview with Elon.

In it, Elon reveals that booster B11 landed in the precise spot intended with a descent velocity approaching zero as it reached the water. (That's Falcon-9 level performance, which was the goal.) So, if the rest of his team is on board with the idea, he wants to try a booster tower catch on Flight 5!

The ship itself came down 6 km away from its intended landing spot (halfway around the world), but it survived reentering the earth's atmosphere like a meteor and successfully conducted its landing burn.

And Elon also says that when he saw what was happening to it, he didn't think that the Flap would survive all the way down to a successful ship landing. (Like the rest of us, I certainly didn't.) The Flap had shed many of its tiles and the reentry airflow was contacting bare steel. That makes Elon happy that he went with steel instead of carbon-composite or aluminum (more typical rocket materials) neither of which would have performed nearly as well. 

https://x.com/esherifftv/status/1799101674138579381

If any significant progress was being made on the second launch tower (i.e., if near completion), I might say wait until that is done so that there is a back-up in case of disaster.

But I guess there is zilch occurring in that department, so might as well be trying to salvage and reuse the boosters. Also, get a head-start on rebuilding now, if the launch tower and area get wrecked via a close miss.

They are making surprisingly fast progress on the second tower.

All but two of the tower segments have already arrived at Starbase from Cape Canaveral and are currently being outfitted with plumbing and wiring. The last two segments, along with the two short little t-rex arms and the carriage the arms move up and down the tower on are currently on a barge headed to Port of Brownsville.

All of the piles for the tower foundation are in and lots of rebar has been laid for pouring the concrete pile cap.

Edit They are busy pumping concrete into it as I write this. What's more, pieces of a Sarens cc8800-1 have started to arrive, one of the largest crawler cranes on Earth. (These super-cranes are so big that they are transported in pieces and assembled by smaller cranes at each job site.)

Mauricio (RGV Aerial Photography) has an aerial photo of the new tower foundation taken soon after Flight 4:

After Ship 29's surprisingly successful flight, major modifications are underway with Ship 30, the Flight 5 ship.

All of its heat shield tiles are being pulled off, to be replaced with an improved heat shield design. This will consist of thinner tiles, backed up by a new thermal layer beneath them.

And changes are underway to address the intrusion of hot plasma into the flap hinges.

Full resolution of the hinge issue might have to wait for the next Starship variant though, as one of its changes will be moving the flaps a little ways towards the leeward side of the ship. This should take their hinges out of the direct airstream to a position better protected by the body of the ship.

The FAA has just released a statement saying that a mishap investigation will not be necessary for Flight 4. So presumably they can move directly to license issuance for Flight 5.