SpaceX Starship: Orbital Test Flight (launch: April 17, webcast link)

[UtwigMU]

Looks like Elon will launch and remove blue checkmarks tomorrow.

[Dr Mordrid]

About half of all test flights fail, so successful flight would be clearing the tower and getting some flight data to inform the next attempt. Anything beyond that is sauce for the goose. If successful, the Starship will belly flop into the Pacific Missile Range off Hawaii. The booster will attempt a water landing in the Gulf of Mexico, similar to the water landing tests done with Falcon 9 before attempting to land on a barge or land.

The notes on the video stream say 08:45 Eastern, webcast will probably start 45 minutes before that.

https://www.youtube.com/live/-1wcilQ58hI

[Dr Mordrid]

That went a lot better than many people thought it would. Clearly, they need to work on separation and why there were engine outs, but still a good day.

With the next flight's already upgraded vehicles produced, they need to check the pad, learn the lessons, make some mods and fly again.

[Dr Mordrid]

Washington Post space reporter

https://twitter.com/wapodavenport/status/1649075451350904832

Christian Davenport @wapodavenport
Well that was a successful failure, as they say. FAA confirms no reports of any injuries. SpaceX and NASA pleased with the test flight

[Dr Mordrid]

https://twitter.com/airandspace/status/1649059534558871552

National Air and Space Museum
@airandspace
Congratulations to @SpaceX on today’s launch of Starship, the tallest & most powerful rocket ever launched!

Although Starship experienced a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” before stage separation, the test provided good data to the Starship team to prepare for the next one.

[Umfriend]

They'll get there.

[UtwigMU]

Getting rocket right is extremely tough with all extreme conditions during launch. I watched Russian documentary on N1 rocket which had 3 failed flights. One guy who worked on project said they would have needed 2 more flights to be successful.

[Dr Mordrid]

Launch pad repairs are almost completed, and they started to install the plumbing for the deluge and water cooled plate under the pad. They have also tested a new flight termination explosive system, looked like it was successful. They've also selected Booster 9 and Ship 25 for Flight 2. Booster 9 and Ship 25 have been upgraded to use electric thrust vector control actuators rather than hydraulic with an HPU (which failed during the first flight). Once pad upgrades have been completed, probably the end of June, they will do a few weeks of tests before launching again.

Musk also posted information about Raptor 3; they did a successful firing at 350 bar chamber pressure (269 metric tons of thrust), and upgraded Starship's performance to 200 tonnes to LEO with reuse, 300 tonnes expendable..