SpaceX Starship - Orbital Test Flight - Starbase TX

Launch Date: April 20
Launch Window: 8:28am CDT (6:28am PDT, 13:28 UTC) - 62 minute window
Launch site: LC-1? - Starbase, Boca Chica Beach, Texas
Core Booster Recovery: Expended in Gulf
Starship Recovery: Water landing near Hawaii
Booster: Super Heavy Booster 7
Starship: Starship 24
Mass: No mass simulator mentioned
Orbit: LEO-ish
Yearly Launch Number: 26

A SpaceX Super Heavy and Starship launch vehicle will launch on its first orbital test flight. The mission will attempt to travel around the world for nearly one full orbit, resulting in a re-entry and splashdown of the Starship near Hawaii.

Webcast:

 

[bxr140]

I find it ridiculous that the FAA has taken so long to issue the license for something that they have known is coming for many many months now.

Outrage is confusing here.

1. It’s always been obvious that the approval was never going to hold up launch.
2. It’s always been obvious that approval was always going to come ~weeks before a credible launch attempt.

 

[mongo]

Trending to later in April

https://twitter.com/x/status/1645418134021500933

 

[Donuts]

Trending to later in April

https://twitter.com/x/status/1645418134021500933

4-20 is a good bet

 

[mongo]

Teams are focused on launch readiness ahead of Starship’s first integrated flight test as soon as next week, pending regulatory approval – no launch rehearsal this week http://spacex.com/launches/

https://twitter.com/x/status/1645875678657810439

 

[mongo]

Timelines and write up
SpaceX

 

[mongo]

Awe...
For the first flight test, the team will not attempt a vertical landing of Starship or a catch of the Super Heavy booster.

 

[ecarfan]

Timelines and write up
SpaceX

Wow, love the level of detail SpaceX is now providing!

I was always expecting that there would be no chopsticks catch attempt for the booster, but it looks like a soft water landing will be attempted, presumably with a full hover before splashdown. But am surprised that the ship landing attempt will be a “bellyflop” and not a vertical flamey-end-down landing. Why not try that? The graphic shows that they expect the ship to be subsonic at splashdown, and the last second “flip” maneuver has already been demonstrated in the suborbital hop tests. Or am I misinterpreting the flight test timeline information and the ship is not planned to go subsonic?

 

[mongo]

Wow, love the level of detail SpaceX is now providing!

I was always expecting that there would be no chopsticks catch attempt for the booster, but it looks like a soft water landing will be attempted, presumably with a full hover before splashdown. But am surprised that the ship landing attempt will be a “bellyflop” and not a vertical flamey-end-down landing. Why not try that? The graphic shows that they expect the ship to be subsonic at splashdown, and the last second “flip” maneuver has already been demonstrated in the suborbital hop tests. Or am I misinterpreting the flight test timeline information and the ship is not planned to go subsonic?

View attachment 927299

Guessing ship gets slowed down and then they smash it into the ocean to break it up.
Heck, could even fire up the engines to speed things along and drain the tanks.

 

[ecarfan]

I think the diagram I posted above, from SpaceX, contains an error. Probably I am misunderstanding something (how could they get this wrong?) but compare it to the F9 booster flight path, shown below.

In the new diagram of the Starship launch test flight, for the boost back burn it shows the engine end of the vehicle pointed away from the landing zone. That seems wrong to me, and is the opposite of what the F9 booster does, as shown below in this SpaceX graphic.

 

[ecarfan]

Guessing ship gets slowed down and then they smash it into the ocean to break it up.
Heck, could even fire up the engines to speed things along and drain the tanks.

Okay, but why do that? So they don’t have to plan for figuring out how to tow an intact (or mostly intact) ship to Hawaii or the West Coast?

But they are going to have to deal with the booster landing in the Gulf. If it’s a true landing test, it will be a soft landing and then it will tip over. Could also be messy.

 

[mongo]

I think the diagram I posted above, from SpaceX, contains an error. Probably I am misunderstanding something (how could they get this wrong?) but compare it to the F9 booster flight path, shown below.

In the new diagram of the Starship launch test flight, for the boost back burn it shows the engine end of the vehicle pointed away from the landing zone. That seems wrong to me, and is the opposite of what the F9 booster does, as shown below in this SpaceX graphic.

View attachment 927300

Yeah, SH boostback orientations are wrong (worse on desktop mode)

 

[mongo]

Okay, but why do that? So they don’t have to plan for figuring out how to tow an intact (or mostly intact) ship to Hawaii or the West Coast?

But they are going to have to deal with the booster landing in the Gulf. If it’s a true landing test, it will be a soft landing and then it will tip over. Could also be messy.

Gulf has resources for dealing with boosters and it's a lot closer to the continent.
Starship has no tow hooks and isn't going to be reused.

 

[ecarfan]

Yeah, SH boostback orientations are wrong (worse on desktop mode)

That’s what I thought, thanks.

No one on NSF has noticed that yet. Kind of embarrassing for the SpacerX graphic designer…

 

[Grendal]

The picture does show that SpaceX intends to do a SH booster landing burn for a soft landing in the gulf. There is a tiny flame shown on the booster with the description of a "water landing."

 

[ecarfan]

The picture does show that SpaceX intends to do a SH booster landing burn for a soft landing in the gulf. There is a tiny flame shown on the booster with the description of a "water landing."

Yes and that is going to be very exciting to watch! At that location, the live feed from the booster should be uninterrupted and unless there are very low clouds we should have external views as well.

I am assuming that we will also very likely have live feeds from the ship during descent as well, unless of course it disintegrates during re-entry.

 

[Electroman]

You are right. The booster flight path and the orientation makes no sense.

 

[scaesare]

Timelines and write up
SpaceX

T-0: Excitement Guaranteed!

Can't wait!

 

[Electroman]

Hope not a RUD.

 

[scaesare]

Hope not a RUD.

But what a glorious RUD it would be!

 

[ecarfan]

New video from NSF covering the latest info SpaceX released about the test flight. Most of what the video covered won’t be news to those on this thread, but there were a couple of things I noted:

1) Elon told this to Tim Dodd two years ago but I had forgotten; For SH/Starship there is no “pusher” stage separation mechanism, instead there are three “latches” that will be released and then “conservation of angular momentum” will “separate the stages” in the same manner as payloads are released from an F9 second stage adaptor (I hope I am understanding this correctly).

2) NSF expects all 6 Starship engines to be ignited once stage sep has occurred, based on the Starship engine burn time specified.

3) No mention by the NSF narrator of what I considered to be an error in the SpaceX test flight diagram; the booster orientation shown during the boostback burn. It’s hard to believe that NSF didn’t notice the booster orientation shown at that point: is the diagram actually correct? The NSF Forum thread on the test flight makes no mention of it. Perhaps I am wrong; my spouse noted it would not be the first time.