YazataApr 14, 2023 11:19 PM (This post was last modified: Apr 15, 2023 02:15 AM by Yazata.)
Big news!!!
Reports just coming in that the FAA issued the license at 5:30 PM EDT!
SpaceX says Starship's first flight is on for Monday April 17, barring unforseen scrubs (which remain very possible). The launch window starts at 7:00AM CDT and runs for 150 minutes (2 1/2 hours)
Talk that at least one of NASA's WB-57's, based at Houston's Johnson Space Center, will be over the Gulf watching Starship's ascent, boostback and descent. Another may or may not be headed to Hawaii to watch Starship's reentry, assuming the mission gets that far. There's also talk that two NASA T-38 jets landed at Harlingen (the airport Mauricio of RGV flies out of). T-38's are typically flown by astronauts. It's known that NASA will have an official delegation on hand, as will the FAA. NASA is very interested in Starship, for obvious reasons.
YazataApr 15, 2023 05:46 AM (This post was last modified: Apr 15, 2023 05:49 AM by Yazata.)
Lots of information about Starship's flight plan in this FAA document.
The booster B7 will conduct boostback and landing burns and should impact the Gulf of Mexico at a low rate of speed, similar to Falcon9 landings except without the landing barge. It should topple over intact and begin floating. SpaceX proposes to scuttle and sink it by commanding its drain valves to open, flooding it.
Should Ship S24 survive reentry near Hawaii, it will not attempt a flip-n-burn propulsive landing in the sea. Instead it will do a belly-flop into the ocean at aerodynamic terminal velocity (perhaps 200 mph). This will rupture the vehicle, its residual methane and LOX will mix and it will explode.
So clearly, no attempt will be made to recover either the booster or the ship, which is kind of sad in my opinion. Apparently SpaceX will get all the data they feel they need from telemetry and don't believe they need to physically examine the vehicles after flight.
SpaceX photo. Starting tomorrow evening, Sheriffs and SX security will be clearing everyone off the beach and out of the exclusion zone. Build site is just visible in the distance.
Monday morning the second tallest structure in South Texas is going to try to launch itself into space!
"Teams are completing final checkouts and reviews ahead of Starship's first flight test attempt; weather is looking pretty good for tomorrow morning but we're keeping an eye on wind shear."
Photo by Mauricio (of RGV Aerial Photography) showing launch site (and location of today's build site in the distance) in 2018 and photo by SpaceX in 2023!
"Teams are completing final checkouts and reviews ahead of Starship's first flight test attempt; weather is looking pretty good for tomorrow morning but we're keeping an eye on wind shear."
Photo by Mauricio (of RGV Aerial Photography) showing launch site (and location of today's build site in the distance) in 2018 and photo by SpaceX in 2023!
Almost two years (May of 2021?) since the last skyward event? Hope that was just the coincidence of SpaceX truly needing to do all that work on the ground before the next test flight, rather than solely the handiwork of Biden Grudge Bureaucracy.
YazataApr 17, 2023 02:34 AM (This post was last modified: Apr 17, 2023 03:13 AM by Yazata.)
Elon's trying to manage expectations. He was just on a Twitter Spaces live appearance where regular people could talk to him live. And he said:
"Tomorrow will most likely not be successful. I want to set up expectations that we will be lucky if we reach space."
He also said that it might not get off tomorrow as unforseen technical problems appear that could very possibly lead to a scrub for the day. It's a very complicated piece of engineering out there.
Meanwhile Starbase is attracting crowds of space-nuts. NASA would never let the public get up-close-and-personal like this. It's kind of beautiful in a grass-roots sort of way!
The same spirit is obvious in how SpaceX is treating the media. When the exclusion zone goes into effect, SpaceX has designated the parking lot where LabPadre's old Padcam used to be, as a location where media can set up cameras. (They will have to be remotely operated, since it's deep in the exclusion zone.) The amazing thing is that satellite trucks from the establishment media like CNN are nowhere to be seen. The media that get access to that coveted close-in location are generally speaking the alternative specialist media like Lab, Tim Dodd, Nasaspaceflight.com, Felix, Mauricio and people like them. I expect that's Elon's doing.
"Is today the final day of the Before Starship Era? Because when this begins to work, it changes humanity's relationship to the sky forever. Mass, volume and cost have been ruthless adversaries to spaceflight. What happens when we start to beat them back?"
They are having some kind of employee party in back of the Mega-bay, with a laser light show projected on the side of the huge building. I've been watching it for an hour on LabPadre's Raptor Roost camera.
Photo by well known space-nut turned SpaceX employee Austin Bernard
Apr 14, 2023 11:19 PM
(This post was last modified: Apr 15, 2023 02:15 AM by Yazata.)
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