The Planet

DID Y'ALL SEE IT

I'M GONNA HAVE TO GET CLIPS AND STUFF BECAUSE THAT WAS A HECK OF A ROLLER COASTER

edit: This guy is putting up some great photos on twitter

I'm still listening to the I-think-NASA video feed commenters and I think the guy I posted the twitter of up there is the one talking right now and he's talking about Cowboy Bebop and I'm like ah yes my people

Geez I swear nobody I know except J cares about space technology. I even tried to start up a convo in map chat while waiting for Teq last night and the only response I got was a couple people saying it "wasn't their thing" and thinking the purpose of watching such a thing is "the entertainment value" and I'm like, clearly this is not my people lmao

ANYWAY just in case anyone's curious, this is how it went down. It was a test flight, which means its purpose was to test out as many of the different systems and procedures they're developing as they could, and holy shit did they get a GREAT test flight.

So first, they had the vehicle launch itself, which went beautifully and was relatively straightforward, as such things go. The stuff involved in a successful rocket launch is pretty well understood so that part is more a test of the construction design of the parts than anything else.

Second off was a velocity control maneuver which HOLY SHIT Y'ALL. Okay so these Starship designs include three completely separate thrusters instead of one, which is relevant because what happened is they took off on all three engines, and then partway up turned off one of the engines. And then as they approached their target altitude of 10k, they turned off a second engine. And they held it there on one engine. THEY HELD IT. IT WAS MAINTAINING A NEARLY STABLE ALTITUDE Y'ALL IT WAS A FUCKING SPACE ROCKET HOVERING IN THE AIR.

Okay so that part they tested and it worked out beautifully and it was amazing to watch but then they tested what they were calling the "bellyflop maneuver" which involved the thrusters kicking the base out to the side, just enough to lay out the rocket horizontally. It's got these fins on the side of it that are intended to stabilize it so it doesn't start spinning out of control.

It worked. They kicked it out sideways, turned off the engines, and then the rocket started slowly dropping down towards the ground while maintaining the intended orientation.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE. The last step was landing the thing, which required reigniting the engines, kicking the nose back up vertical, and cancelling out the downwards velocity, then turning two of the engines off one at a time and slowly lowering down on the last engine. AND THIS ALSO WORKED.

The landing legs didn't work right - they deployed and everything but they appear to have crumpled and the rocket landed sort of leaning over a bit, at which point followed an intense few minutes as we all were sitting there watching and just waiting for the rocket to finally tip over and fall. Which... didn't happen, because when it landed, it started a fire on the ground, and after a few minutes of peaceful quiet, the fire got into the methane tank and the whole thing blew in a giant fireball. It was the most incredibly dramatic ending to an otherwise AMAZINGLY successful test flight and we all just flipped out lmfao

ANYWAY SO YEAH IT WAS INCREDIBLE

lmfao I was wondering how everything could've gone right and well it does sound cool af

Bee wrote: ↑

Thu 04 Mar, 2021, 5:59 pm

lmfao I was wondering how everything could've gone right and well it does sound cool af

They've tested this maneuver a couple times before and I think the last time it blew up in mid-air so the fact that it didn't explode until after it successfully got through the whole procedure is a HUGE success.

It does mean they aren't gonna be able to reuse the rocket for a second test lmfao

The people commentating the stream kept making jokes about its "second launch", it was great

okay damn this is a great poster

Bee wrote: ↑

Thu 04 Mar, 2021, 6:17 pm

okay damn this is a great poster

HOLY SHIT THAT'S AMAZING I HADN'T SEEN THAT ONE!!! LOOK AT HOW CLOSE TO THE LAUNCH PAD IT LANDED!!!!!!!