One of the awkward things about trying to keep on top of space news is that everyone expects you to know everything about all space news at all times, and it’s becoming very difficult to do that these days with companies like SpaceX making so much news on a daily basis.
Especially re. Starship. The pace of development is so rapid that I’ve not even really bothered to try and keep up - hence why I’m starting this thread! Feel free to post your own updates, thoughts and questions in here.
This is a thread devoted to discussions about the Starship developments.
There’s a good reap detailing the progress of all Starship vehicles so far, from SN1 to SN9 (to date) by Everyday Astronaut here.
The most recent flight was SN8, and it was one that made big news in the mainstream media because it was explosive. That said, it was a success given what they were trying to test. We’re lucky that we got to see an incredible light show at the end. 🤷♂️
So basically it was a huge vehicle, about 12 stories tall, and it launched to an altitude of 12.5km, before returning back to earth. Unlike the Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavey, the Starship has do an impressive ‘belly flop’ maneuver to maximise the surface area as it plummets back to earth, in an attempt to passively show it down before it rights its self and uses thrusters to actively slow it down. The landing attempt for SN8 (as I understand it) was a bonus, and it was almost successful.
Yesterday, SN9 went through a few static test fires (basically where they lock down the vehicle and ignite the engines) and it was all good apparently.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/01/spacex-hot-fire-tests-its-starship-vehicle-three-times-in-four-hours/
Hopefully, we get to see a successful SN9 launch and landing soon. It will so the same thing as SN8 but this time it should land safely.
