Nothing to do with the Crew Dragon launch, of course.
Note that SpaceX’s approach with Starship development is that the hardware is cheap. The materials are cheap, as are the production techniques. This is their 5th (ish) prototype, but the 6th is almost ready and the 7th is partially done. The main structure is made from nearly identical rings of stainless steel, easy to produce and stack.
The loss of a Raptor engine is a bigger deal, but they have >20 of them at this point in various stages of refinement, and are also looking to mass-produce those.
As long as they keep human safety as the top priority (and no one has been hurt in any of these incidents), taking a “hardware rich” approach to development is the right choice.
Quick question…when the launch vehicle is jettisoned, will it land like we see in the youtube videos…sort of a backwards takeoff? If so, where will it land?
Storms at the cape which the talking heads are saying is a good thing as they have a better chance of moving off by launch time. All systems go, downrange weather go. Only no go is weather at the cape.
The 1st stage, the long, tall tube like thing, is scheduled to return to earth on the drone-barge about 200-300 miles offshore. Won’t be landing on land at LZ1 (Landing Zone 1) at The Cape like some have. Why, is a function of fuel remaining after launch. Some payloads require more fuel to go where they’re going and only have enough to land on the barge, named… “Of Course I Still Love you,” like this launch.
After the launch takes place keep watching SpaceX for the 8 minutes it takes for the 1st stage to return to earth. There are cameras on the rocket as it falls to earth. Very cool.
I’m glad that they have a real countdown instead of the goofy shuttle countdown where they would do the “T Minus 9 minutes and holding” for hours before the launch. I never understood that.
Weather guys last Wednesday said if they could have done a 10 minute hold they thought they might have been able to launch. This mission must go at the exact second the launch is scheduled due to it’s mission of having to catch… rendezvous, with the space station.
Yes. You can watch any number of 1st stage barge landings from previous launches on the SpaceX Youtube channel. Well, you usually don’t get to see landing itself, because the barge gets shaken around enough by the rocket exhaust that the satellite uplink is usually lost for a few seconds, and even if that doesn’t happen the camera is too close to see much besides a giant plume of fire and smoke, but hey.
Yes. And a few days later it comes into Port Canaveral pulled by a tug boat right between the cruise ships. It’s vertical and there are burn marks on the paint from the rocket burns that slow the rocket’s return to drop like a feather. They change the spark plus, air filter and launch it again.
A few other Fun Facts… The Dragon, that is, the capsule or space ship that holds the crew and the supplies they’re taking to the space Station, will arrive at the space station 19 hours after launch. Bob and Doug… (not McKenzie) unload the stuff and go into the space station and join the other 3 guys who are already there and will stay for 1 to 3 months. Then they’ll detach the Dragon and return to earth with parachutes only 25-30 miles off shore.
