Space X

Ahh ffs, is that it? All I see on twitter is people fawning over the possibility of a launch on this date....

And the fact Elon made that prediction....

Well thanks for informing me anyway, was wondering what it was about...

So I see Starship nearly launched today.

And we wait...

lol @AMKC could we settle, 24/7 then 26/9 on the weekend :)

But looks like they are aiming for Thursday now, 2pm Irish for a 62min window. 48hrs to reload the prop tanks, insane they lost so much. Personally my prediction is another scrub before T-0, then scrub at T-0 due to engine issues (the static was only 31/33 and they said they want all 33), then launch.

@irishgeo and we're maybe all saved? TFR for Thursday is gone, waiting updates. Personally I miss the lock down days of 4am NSF streams watching a tank in baking texas sun.

UPdate (21/23/25th) new TFR dates

Still on track for today: "SpaceX reports go for propellant load".

Launch window opens around 14:30 Irish time.

Looking good so far 👌

Just home in time to hopefully to see history being made.....

Is this being spun as a success?

No separation of Starship from boost stage, entered spin and suffered a fabulous explosion.

Did Elmo launch fireworks for someone's birthday? Or just for the smokers🤔

It's the first integrated launch that reached the pre-separation milestone, so it's a partial success. Proof of concept, if you like.

There'll be a huge amount of data now concerning the forces on the Spacecraft itself and the separation infrastructure, to be used on the next test.

Well done to the scientists and engineers, onwards and upwards.

From looking at the footage of the camera tracking the launch, it looks as if some of the main boosters 33 motors either didn't ignite, or fizzled completely.

I'll see if I can snip the frame that shows the motors with apparent non burning motors.

Snipped from Everyday Astronauts stream. The house they were filming from was shaking. Wild.

"rapid unscheduled disassembly" 😄

Putting a cost on a single launch during the development phase is sort of missing the point. One of the goals of their approach to iterative design, production-line assembly and use of (relatively) low cost materials is that the cost of individual flights becomes near neglible versus the overall investment. There will likely be dozens of launches of this sytem, with issues encountered along the way, before its declared operational.

A bad result today would have been destroying what is currently their only laucnhpad (there is some damage but there has been before). Once they got past that, they were learning tonnes about their booster. Reaching Hawaii would have been a wonderful result but was a hell of a reach.

Apollo 4 made it on the first go. 🙂