U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said the Navy's Pacific Missile Range Facility on Kauai "is in discussions (with SpaceX ) for limited support and use of their range " for the ocean landing.
PMRF "is included in discussions with SpaceX and the Federal Aviation Administration on plans for a mission to terminate in waters NW of Kauai, " spokesman Tom Clements said in a statement in response. "The FAA has the lead on licensing, including the environmental review, and public safety."Clements said PMRF "is providing details on capabilities related to conducting a safe operation. All customers of PMRF must meet stringent safety requirements in order to receive our support."
I'll be very disappointed if SpaceX doesn't at least try to recover the upper and lower stages from this launch. If nothing else, I'm sure they learn a lot more from actual recovered stages than they do from telemetry.
Quote from: Greg Hullender on 07/03/2021 04:52 pmI'll be very disappointed if SpaceX doesn't at least try to recover the upper and lower stages from this launch. If nothing else, I'm sure they learn a lot more from actual recovered stages than they do from telemetry. Assume perfect landing of SH and/or SS to the water. Then, the question is, whether they can survive the belly flop into the water intact. (If I remember correctly, the Falcon 9 stages could not.) If anything remains floating, then SpaceX will be obliged to deal with it - otherwise it would become a navigation hazard. There are two options: (1) activation of the range safety explosives to guaranty sinking, or (2) sending boat(s) to tow it into harbor. The first option is the simpler, but the second one is the nicer.Any thought?
This might be a stupid question but recently I haven't followed SpaceX very closely so I don't know:Is it likely that the first orbital launch will carry actual starlinks for deployment?I know that SN24 has the payload deployment mechanism ("pez dispenser") but don't know if they're going to try to launch an actual satellite. Since there are major changes in the new satellite version and they can't be launched with Falcon there is significant value in testing them on orbit as soon as possible, even if you lose a few of them. And failure on ascent hasn't even happened for any starship prototype yet.
The first flight will deliberately be not quite orbital. SN24 will re-enter the atmosphere and come down near Hawaii without need for a de-orbit burn even if for some reason something goes wrong and it cannot relight its engines. Good for safety, good for testing, bad for placing satellites into orbit.
Quote from: DanClemmensen on 07/06/2022 01:12 pmThe first flight will deliberately be not quite orbital. SN24 will re-enter the atmosphere and come down near Hawaii without need for a de-orbit burn even if for some reason something goes wrong and it cannot relight its engines. Good for safety, good for testing, bad for placing satellites into orbit.I haven't a clue really but ...It would only take ullage release to circularise startship orbit, so that sounds like it wouldn't take much to circularise and achieve orbit. If they release Starlinks well before apogee when starship has necessary speed but wrong direction (gaining altitude) releasing starlinks into a more circular orbit direction and start the ion drives on the starlinks as soon as they possibly can, could that be enough to keep them in a low orbit? Even if possible, it would presumably take a lot of their fuel so they couldn't reach operational altitude, nor last very long, but for a bit of testing it could be useful? If that is not possible, just testing the pez dispenser with dummy/mass simulator Starlinks might be useful?Otherwise why put the pez dispenser in ship 24?
Quote from: crandles57 on 07/06/2022 01:47 pmQuote from: DanClemmensen on 07/06/2022 01:12 pmThe first flight will deliberately be not quite orbital. SN24 will re-enter the atmosphere and come down near Hawaii without need for a de-orbit burn even if for some reason something goes wrong and it cannot relight its engines. Good for safety, good for testing, bad for placing satellites into orbit.I haven't a clue really but ...It would only take ullage release to circularise startship orbit, so that sounds like it wouldn't take much to circularise and achieve orbit. If they release Starlinks well before apogee when starship has necessary speed but wrong direction (gaining altitude) releasing starlinks into a more circular orbit direction and start the ion drives on the starlinks as soon as they possibly can, could that be enough to keep them in a low orbit? Even if possible, it would presumably take a lot of their fuel so they couldn't reach operational altitude, nor last very long, but for a bit of testing it could be useful? If that is not possible, just testing the pez dispenser with dummy/mass simulator Starlinks might be useful?Otherwise why put the pez dispenser in ship 24?If they circularize Starship's orbit they lose the failsafe re-entry and risk an uncontrolled reentry of the massive SS at a later time. If they were going to take that risk they would have put it in a higher orbit in the first place.I speculate without any input that they built SN24 as a full-up Starlink carrier because that's the most critical design for SpaceX. They want to test its launch, dispensing, and EDL performance. I also speculate that they will dispense a few dummy Starlinks, but I'm not sure about this because those are 1250 kg chunks that would come down in the same area that SN24 come down, or if they use thrusters would maybe come down in the wrong place. Maybe they could build dummies that will completely burn up, like with most of the mass being a bottle of water.
an uncontrolled reentry of Starship would be terrible for SpaceX's reputation.
SpaceX has submitted new FCC filings for Starlink communications during the Starship orbital test flight. Multiple terminals will be mounted on the ship and the booster to ensure clear views with the constellation through all phases of flight. https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/els/reports/ViewExhibitReport.cfm?id_file_num=1169-EX-ST-2022&application_seq=116809
Flight profile details:- Booster will either do a partial return and land in the Gulf of Mexico or do a full return with a catch attempt- Ship will reach about 250 km in altitude, then powered landing in the Pacific
Starlink will allow "high-data rate communications" and remove telemetry blackouts during reentry.
Super Heavy catch attempt profile.
I've tried to fiddle with Google Earth to get similar view as in the SuperHeavy catch profile and it looks like it's going to stage around 150km downrange. Isn't that very very early? A partial fuel load?
Quote from: JayWee on 07/09/2022 12:56 pmI've tried to fiddle with Google Earth to get similar view as in the SuperHeavy catch profile and it looks like it's going to stage around 150km downrange. Isn't that very very early? A partial fuel load?or a very steep trajectory.
