Right, it looks as if they couldn’t have caught it even if they wanted to.
At least the upper stage didn’t explode on landing this time.
So… a qualified success. They’re still a long way from reusability, though.
Is this the first time the Starship itself launched and landed successfully?
They had some tests about 4 years ago where the ship stage launched by itself (no booster), went up several miles and then successfully landed.
This is the first time the ship section of the full stack has landed without exploding, though.
Still, dropping it into the sea is a long way from rapid reuse.
I was under the impression they’ve always wanted that rapid scheduled disassembly, to aid in disposal.
Is the debris recyclable, though? 
Did the Starlink satellites get to their stations? I understand they’re an heavier iteration that Falcon 9 can’t launch.
Assuming the water touchdown was at a nominal condition within the parameters needed for a catch (IOW on target with near-zero velocities in all 3 dimensions & correct orientation), then what happens after engine cutoff is sorta immaterial.
It’s not like they designed what happens after it tips over powerless. Maybe something fractures from the sideloads, maybe something fractures from thermal shock, maybe it leaks energetics, maybe it doesn’t. It’s all luck at that point.
As you suggested, they may learn more from one that floats serenely for a few minutes before sinking. But IMO other than that small incremental gain, SpaceX is indifferent to the post touchdown events.
They weren’t meant to reach permanent stations: the ship was in a suborbital trajectory.
This was just a proof of concept.
Are they planning to try to recover it for study? It would make sense, but I don’t know if the resources they have at the touchdown point have the capability?
Ah, they kept saying that they were “deployed” and gave the impression that these were operational versions rather than test dummies. Any reason to spend money on burning up working versions?
To give them credit, I don’t think they ever claimed that those were going to be an an operational part of the network. The sats themselves were functional: but not long term components.
Going back to the original title, though.
They still haven’t made it to to actual orbit yet. They still don’t seem to be anywhere close to a completely reusable system. The original claims were obviously pie-in-the-sky. A nice idea… but can it be made to work?
As of now the jury is still out… but it’s not looking very promising after 4 years?
Imagine how long the in-orbit tanker refueling is going to take to master. Another 4 years?
Probably not. Orbit itself is easy; it’s transitioning between planet and orbit (in either direction) that’s hard. My guess is that once they’re able to reliably orbit and de-orbit, they’ll either ace the refueling on the first try, or find assorted small odd issues the first time and ace it the second.
But I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that “once they’re able to reliably orbit and de-orbit” takes another four or eight years.
Right. There is nothing in physics that forbids it.. but the engineering challenges are formidable.
At least. A lot of people who have read sloppy soft SF perhaps have the idea that a spaceship is just a slightly futuristic airplane. It’s routine, we get on and off we go.They don’t realise that the energies involved to get off-planet are many orders of magnitude greater…
It would be relatively trivial for a Starship to boost a little longer to establish a circular orbit; there’s just no point in doing so right now because 95+% of what they’re trying to test can be tested by a suborbital trajectory.
The biggest two problems are how reliably the rocket works on launch, and surviving reentry in one piece. Working the kinks out the plumbing, the telemetry, the engines, etc. is a matter of test launching and addressing problems as they arise. Reentry is the indispensable element of the entire Starship concept, which revolves around full reusability. We know from the Shuttle program that ceramic tiles can adequately protect an orbiter from reentry heating; the question is whether tile shielding can be made reliable and rapidly refurbishable enough to keep Starship flying instead of being relegated to a hanger queen like the Shuttle was.
At least going by where they’re putting their money, SpaceX believes that Starship can be made to work. They’ve invested billions in creating an infrastructure intended to mass produce Starships.
You contradict yourself here. Reliability on launch and surviving reentry both require getting all the way to orbit in order to test them.
That isn’t really correct. They’re reaching orbital velocity, just the “orbit” they’re in happens to have a perigee in the atmosphere. The only difference between the launches they’ve been doing and a get into stable orbit launch is a slightly different vector on the final part of the second stage burn, and possibly a slightly longer burn. Likewise, re-entry from a suborbital trajectory at orbital velocity is no different from re-entry from orbit. In fact, a typical re-entry from orbit will have as its first step a burn that will modify their stable orbit into a suborbital trajectory nearly identical to the re-entries of these test flights.
That would be a lower velocity than the one for a circular orbit. Technically, you can go into an orbit with a perigee that intersects the Earth just by jumping off a chair.