Science Space Exploration megathread - Page 290

**DaFace** · 07:17 AM

Since a number of cool things are happening in space exploration these days, we'll widen the scope of this thread a smidge. Conversation about all things space exploration are welcome, whether it be from NASA, SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, or anyone else. Chances are most of the discussion will still be about SpaceX since they love to make things public and fun, but nothing's off limits. I'll eventually get around to modifying the OP to include resources for other companies too, but in the meantime, feel free to post any cool stuff you run across.

Lists of Upcoming Missions

Spoiler!

How to Watch a Live Launch

Spoiler!

Where to Learn More

Spoiler!

Glossary

Spoiler!

Space discussions tend to get a little bogged down in jargon, so here's a list of terms you might encounter. (Others, please let me know of others that should be added.)

ASDS - Autonomous Spaceport Droneship - The "barges" that they sometimes land rockets on.
Dragon - The cone-shaped capsule that sits at the top of the rocket for ISS-bound launches that holds the cargo (or, in the future, humans).
F9 - Falcon 9, the name of the rocket itself.
FH - Falcon Heavy, the three-booster version.
GTO - Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, a type of orbit that will eventually result in the satellite orbiting the earth as it turns so that it seems to be in the same spot from the ground (such as DirecTV or Dish satellites). These types of launches are particularly challenging because they require a lot of power to get them into the right orbit, leaving very little fuel left for landing.
HIF - Horizontal Integration Facility - the building near the launch pad where they put all of the pieces of the rocket together before rolling it out to the pad.
ISS - The International Space Station
JRTI - Just Read The Instructions, the name of the "barge" that they land on for west-coast launches.
LEO - Low Earth Orbit, a fairly low orbit shared by many satellites and ISS. These launches usually require less power to achieve the proper orbit, so the first stage can often be landed back on land rather than on a drone ship.
LZ1 - Landing Zone 1, basically a big open slab of concrete at Cape Canaveral where the first stage will attempt to land (for some launches).
NET - No Earlier Than, basically the date they're hoping to launch, but rocket launches have a tendency of getting delayed.
OCISLY - Of Course I Still Love You, the name of the "barge" that they land on for east-coast launches.
RTLS - Return to Landing Site, a mission where the first stage comes back and lands at LZ1.
Starship - SpaceX's next-generation rocket (and spacecraft) that will hopefully one day take us to Mars. Starship is the "second stage" that will carry cargo or people, but also refers to the whole system. (It's confusing, but think of it like the Space Shuttle, which was both the shuttle itself and the entire launch system.)
Super Heavy - The giant booster that will carry Starship to space.

**Donger** · 06-17-2021, 11:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaFace

I didn't catch it live, but aside from being a little off center, the landing looked OK to me. What am I missing?

The crowd reaction was a little odd, too.

Check out T+8:00 and on. The last landing, the drone ship was right under the first stage after the landing burn. On this one, the drone ship is way off to the left.

eDave · 06-17-2021, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Donger

Check out T+8:00 and on. The last landing, the drone ship was right under the first stage after the landing burn. On this one, the drone ship is way off to the left.

It's my understanding they all come in angled like that in case of an issue so it continues on into the ocean and doesn't damage the boat. We watched that happen once and it was explained then by Musk.

**Donger** · 06-17-2021, 11:05 AM

T+7:24 for comparison. I suppose it wasn't as far off after all...

**DaFace** · 06-17-2021, 11:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Donger

T+7:24 for comparison. I suppose it wasn't as far off after all...

Probably just differences in the launch profile. ISS-bound launches are relatively low energy (remember that they used to even bring them back to land), while GEO launches push the limits of what the F9 can deliver.

**DaFace** · 06-17-2021, 11:29 AM

Pretty crazy how fast they're launching this year. Obviously Starlink is the big driver, but still amazing that they're keeping up the pace.

Assuming the final upper stage burn goes well later today, SpaceX will have completed 19 Falcon 9 missions so far this year.

To put this cadence into perspective, SpaceX successfully completed 19 Falcon 9 missions from 2010 through 2015, a period of six years.
— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) June 17, 2021

**DaFace** · 06-17-2021, 11:29 AM

Pretty crazy how fast they're launching this year. Obviously Starlink is the big driver, but still amazing that they're keeping up the pace.

Assuming the final upper stage burn goes well later today, SpaceX will have completed 19 Falcon 9 missions so far this year.

To put this cadence into perspective, SpaceX successfully completed 19 Falcon 9 missions from 2010 through 2015, a period of six years.
— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) June 17, 2021

**Donger** · 06-17-2021, 11:32 AM

What's going on with Starship testing? Awfully quiet since SN15.

unlurking · 06-17-2021, 11:36 AM

Long, but really excellent review of Starship testing to date and moving forward (speculative).

**Donger** · 06-17-2021, 11:37 AM

Sorry if Max-Q...

Falcon Heavy’s first national security launch slips to October

https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/05/2...ps-to-october/

The next launch of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket has been delayed from July to October to await the readiness of its U.S. military payload, and the following Falcon Heavy flight has been rescheduled from late this year to some time in 2022, military officials said.

Col. Robert Bongiovi, head of the launch enterprise at the Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center, said Wednesday the USSF-44 and USSF-52 missions — both carrying U.S. military satellites — have been pushed back from their previous target launch dates in July and October.

The missions are the first two launches of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rockets to carry the military’s highest-priority national security payloads. The most recent Falcon Heavy launch in June 2019 was also for the U.S. military, but it carried a cluster of lower-priority experimental satellites into orbit.

The USSF-44 mission has moved from a launch date in July to October to “accommodate payload readiness,” according to Col. Douglas Pentecost, deputy director of SMC’s launch enterprise. The following mission, USSF-52, was previously scheduled for launch in October of this year, but has now been moved into 2022 “based on launch manifest priorities,” Pentecost said in a statement released to Spaceflight Now.

The Falcon Heavy missions are expected to be the fourth and fifth flights of SpaceX’s triple-core heavy-lifter. Both launches will take off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The Falcon Heavy will deliver multiple military payloads to a high-altitude geosynchronous orbit on the USSF-44 mission. The rocket’s upper stage will fire several times to place the satellites into position more than 22,000 miles above the equator.

The upper stage flight profile will include a coast lasting more than five hours between burns, making the USSF-44 mission one of SpaceX’s most demanding launches yet.

On the most recent Falcon Heavy mission, which lifted off in June 2019, the rocket’s upper stage completed four burns over three-and-a-half hours on a demonstration flight sponsored by the Air Force. The STP-2 launch in 2019 served as a pathfinder for the long-duration USSF-44 mission.

The complex orbital maneuvers during the STP-2 mission were required to place 24 satellite payloads into three distinct orbits. They also exercised the capabilities of the Falcon Heavy and its Merlin upper stage engine before the military entrusts the launcher with more critical, and more expensive, operational national security payloads on future flights, such as the USSF-44 mission.

SpaceX won a contract for the USSF-44 launch in February 2019. In the request for proposals for the USSF-44 launch, the military told prospective launch providers to assume the combined mass of two payloads assigned to the mission is less than 8,200 pounds, or about 3.7 metric tons.

The Space Force hasn’t said whether there are still two satellites booked on the USSF-44 mission, or if officials added more secondary payloads since the 2019 contract award. One of the spacecraft on the USSF-44 launch is a microsatellite named TETRA 1 built by Millennium Space Systems, a subsidiary of Boeing headquartered in El Segundo, California.

Military officials said in a statement the TETRA 1 satellite was created to “prototype missions and tactics, techniques and procedures in and around geosynchronous Earth orbit.”

The Space Force has not disclosed any payloads on the USSF-52 launch next year, but military officials wrote in a draft contract solicitation that the mission would deliver a heavy payload to a geostationary transfer orbit, an elongated path around Earth used as a drop-off point for many satellites heading to a circular geosynchronous orbit.

SpaceX has launched three Falcon Heavy rocket missions to date, all successfully. The company has at least eight confirmed Falcon Heavy missions in its backlog, including the USSF-44 and USSF-52 missions for the Space Force, and launches of a Viasat broadband communications satellite and NASA’s Psyche asteroid explorer, both in 2022.

Astrobotic announced in April that a Falcon Heavy rocket will launch its Griffin lander to the moon in 2023 on a mission to deliver a water-scouting NASA rover to the lunar south pole.

A single Falcon Heavy will also launch the first two elements of NASA’s Gateway lunar space station in 2024, and two Falcon Heavy flights will boost Dragon XL cargo missions to the Gateway later in the 2020s.

The Falcon Heavy is made up of three modified Falcon 9 first stage boosters connected together in a triple-core configuration. The rocket’s 27 Merlin main engines produce some 5.1 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, more than any other currently operational rocket.

All of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy missions currently under contract will take off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the company plans to construct a vertical integration building and shelter to accommodate future Falcon Heavy payloads.

SpaceX will use three newly-manufactured boosters for the USSF-44 mission, and the challenging launch profile will leave no leftover propellant to recover the center core of the Falcon Heavy, according to the Space Force. The core stage will be expended on the launch, while the rocket’s two side boosters will be recovered on two SpaceX drone ships positioned downrange east of Cape Canaveral.

The Falcon Heavy will get more U.S. military launch contracts in the coming years.

The Space Force last year announced multibillion-dollar contracts to fly the military’s most critical national security payloads on United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rockets and SpaceX Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launchers through 2027.

Space News reported Thursday that the Space Force and ULA have agreed to move the first military mission assigned to a Vulcan Centaur rocket to an Atlas 5 rocket. That mission, designated USSF-51, is scheduled to launch in 2022.

The Vulcan Centaur’s first national security launch is now scheduled for early 2023 with the USSF-106 mission, Bongiovi said Wednesday. That flight will follow two certification launches of the Vulcan Centaur rocket carrying commercial payloads.

**Donger** · 06-17-2021, 12:47 PM

https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-sta...l-launch-prep/

SpaceX has moved its newest finished Starship straight from its Boca Chica, Texas factory to a nearby ‘rocket garden,’ all but guaranteeing an early retirement.

Built as the first of several planned backups to Starship SN15, which debuted a number of significant upgrades in April and May, it appears that Starship serial number 16 (SN16) has been retired to a display stand after its only sibling became the first full-size prototype to successfully survive a launch and landing on May 5th. SN16 actually reached its full height before SN15 lifted off and was more or less complete by May 10th. Since then, the prototype has remaining more or less untouched, seemingly waiting for SpaceX to decide its fate in lieu of Starship SN15’s major success.

Ultimately, with SN16 now sitting side by side with SN15 at what will likely become a sort of open-air SpaceX museum, it appears that the company has made up its mind.

**DaFace** · 06-17-2021, 01:10 PM

Bizarre. My post earlier is in the thread twice, but it's literally the same post ID in the database. If I delete one of them, it deletes them both. Oh well. Guess I'll leave it.

unlurking · 06-19-2021, 08:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Donger

What's going on with Starship testing? Awfully quiet since SN15.

Haven't been paying much attention lately, but really seems like we won't be seeing anymore solo Starship test flights. Efforts now seem to be on full stack testing. Latest RGV video shows the landing pad covered with parts for finishing the launch tower. Combined with the SN-15 through SN-19 end I'm guessing we don't see another launch until the full stack is ready to go. I thought we'd see at least one or two BN-x test flights, but maybe not.

**Donger** · 06-29-2021, 10:12 AM

Falcon 9 Block 5 | Transporter 2
LZ-1
Tue Jun 29, 2021 1:56 EDT
SLC-40, Cape Canaveral SFS, Florida, USA

MagicHef · 06-29-2021, 11:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Donger

Falcon 9 Block 5 | Transporter 2
LZ-1
Tue Jun 29, 2021 1:56 EDT
SLC-40, Cape Canaveral SFS, Florida, USA

Did it get moved up? Everything I saw had the window opening at 2:56 EDT.

**Donger** · 06-29-2021, 11:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MagicHef

Did it get moved up? Everything I saw had the window opening at 2:56 EDT.

Sorry, my error.

**Donger** · 06-29-2021, 12:00 PM

T-55:00

06-01-2014, 09:40 AM
DaFace Kind of a mod Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Donkey Land Casino cash: $116899	Space Exploration megathread Since a number of cool things are happening in space exploration these days, we'll widen the scope of this thread a smidge. Conversation about all things space exploration are welcome, whether it be from NASA, SpaceX, ULA, Blue Origin, or anyone else. Chances are most of the discussion will still be about SpaceX since they love to make things public and fun, but nothing's off limits. I'll eventually get around to modifying the OP to include resources for other companies too, but in the meantime, feel free to post any cool stuff you run across. Lists of Upcoming Missions Spoiler! General lists: https://nextspaceflight.com/ http://spaceflightnow.com/launch-schedule/ SpaceX specific list: https://spacexnow.com/upcoming.php How to Watch a Live Launch Spoiler! SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com/launches/ ULA: https://www.youtube.com/user/UnitedLaunchAlliance RocketLab: https://www.youtube.com/user/RocketLabNZ NASATV will also cover some launches (primarily ISS resupply missions): https://www.youtube.com/user/NASAtelevision Where to Learn More Spoiler! Some cool pics... https://www.flickr.com/photos/spacex/ https://www.instagram.com/spacex/?hl=en Twitter feed is usually interesing... https://twitter.com/SpaceX https://twitter.com/elonmusk The SpaceX sub is a great source of info... https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/wiki/index And for a more forum-style discussion board... http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php#c17 And there are plenty of YouTube channels with great content... Joe Scott - Lost of "future" discussion. Some about rockets and space. Much that goes beyond. Scott Manley - Super smart dude (engineer) who reviews a lot of major events in space exploration. Frazer Cain (Universe Today) - Podcast-style videos that go in-depth into space topics. Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut) - A "random dude" who got really into space (particularly SpaceX). He's a great resource for simple explanations of this stuff, as well as live hosting launches. USLaunchReport - Lost of videos of the more mundane stuff (e.g., booster recovery operations). Not a ton of commentary. NASASpaceFlight - Live hosting of most launches including a ton of video of Starlink operations. Glossary Spoiler! Space discussions tend to get a little bogged down in jargon, so here's a list of terms you might encounter. (Others, please let me know of others that should be added.) ASDS - Autonomous Spaceport Droneship - The "barges" that they sometimes land rockets on. Dragon - The cone-shaped capsule that sits at the top of the rocket for ISS-bound launches that holds the cargo (or, in the future, humans). F9 - Falcon 9, the name of the rocket itself. FH - Falcon Heavy, the three-booster version. GTO - Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit, a type of orbit that will eventually result in the satellite orbiting the earth as it turns so that it seems to be in the same spot from the ground (such as DirecTV or Dish satellites). These types of launches are particularly challenging because they require a lot of power to get them into the right orbit, leaving very little fuel left for landing. HIF - Horizontal Integration Facility - the building near the launch pad where they put all of the pieces of the rocket together before rolling it out to the pad. ISS - The International Space Station JRTI - Just Read The Instructions, the name of the "barge" that they land on for west-coast launches. LEO - Low Earth Orbit, a fairly low orbit shared by many satellites and ISS. These launches usually require less power to achieve the proper orbit, so the first stage can often be landed back on land rather than on a drone ship. LZ1 - Landing Zone 1, basically a big open slab of concrete at Cape Canaveral where the first stage will attempt to land (for some launches). NET - No Earlier Than, basically the date they're hoping to launch, but rocket launches have a tendency of getting delayed. OCISLY - Of Course I Still Love You, the name of the "barge" that they land on for east-coast launches. RTLS - Return to Landing Site, a mission where the first stage comes back and lands at LZ1. Starship - SpaceX's next-generation rocket (and spacecraft) that will hopefully one day take us to Mars. Starship is the "second stage" that will carry cargo or people, but also refers to the whole system. (It's confusing, but think of it like the Space Shuttle, which was both the shuttle itself and the entire launch system.) Super Heavy - The giant booster that will carry Starship to space. Last edited by DaFace; 10-13-2024 at 07:17 AM..
Posts: 52,532	1 0

06-17-2021, 11:05 AM	#4338
Donger "Think BOOM!" Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: 33.675° N 106.475° W Casino cash: $8559900 VARSITY	T+7:24 for comparison. I suppose it wasn't as far off after all... __________________ I think the young people enjoy it when I "get down," verbally, don't you?
Posts: 187,110

06-17-2021, 11:29 AM	#4340
DaFace Kind of a mod Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Donkey Land Casino cash: $116899	Pretty crazy how fast they're launching this year. Obviously Starlink is the big driver, but still amazing that they're keeping up the pace. Assuming the final upper stage burn goes well later today, SpaceX will have completed 19 Falcon 9 missions so far this year. To put this cadence into perspective, SpaceX successfully completed 19 Falcon 9 missions from 2010 through 2015, a period of six years. — Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) June 17, 2021
Posts: 52,532	2 0

06-17-2021, 11:29 AM	#4341
DaFace Kind of a mod Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Donkey Land Casino cash: $116899	Pretty crazy how fast they're launching this year. Obviously Starlink is the big driver, but still amazing that they're keeping up the pace. Assuming the final upper stage burn goes well later today, SpaceX will have completed 19 Falcon 9 missions so far this year. To put this cadence into perspective, SpaceX successfully completed 19 Falcon 9 missions from 2010 through 2015, a period of six years. — Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) June 17, 2021
Posts: 52,532	2 0

06-17-2021, 11:32 AM	#4342
Donger "Think BOOM!" Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: 33.675° N 106.475° W Casino cash: $8559900 VARSITY	What's going on with Starship testing? Awfully quiet since SN15. __________________ I think the young people enjoy it when I "get down," verbally, don't you?
Posts: 187,110

06-17-2021, 11:36 AM	#4343
unlurking MVP Join Date: Aug 2003 Casino cash: $7737309	Long, but really excellent review of Starship testing to date and moving forward (speculative). __________________
Posts: 10,620	1 0

06-17-2021, 11:37 AM	#4344
Donger "Think BOOM!" Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: 33.675° N 106.475° W Casino cash: $8559900 VARSITY	Sorry if Max-Q... Falcon Heavy’s first national security launch slips to October https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/05/2...ps-to-october/ The next launch of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket has been delayed from July to October to await the readiness of its U.S. military payload, and the following Falcon Heavy flight has been rescheduled from late this year to some time in 2022, military officials said. Col. Robert Bongiovi, head of the launch enterprise at the Space Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center, said Wednesday the USSF-44 and USSF-52 missions — both carrying U.S. military satellites — have been pushed back from their previous target launch dates in July and October. The missions are the first two launches of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy rockets to carry the military’s highest-priority national security payloads. The most recent Falcon Heavy launch in June 2019 was also for the U.S. military, but it carried a cluster of lower-priority experimental satellites into orbit. The USSF-44 mission has moved from a launch date in July to October to “accommodate payload readiness,” according to Col. Douglas Pentecost, deputy director of SMC’s launch enterprise. The following mission, USSF-52, was previously scheduled for launch in October of this year, but has now been moved into 2022 “based on launch manifest priorities,” Pentecost said in a statement released to Spaceflight Now. The Falcon Heavy missions are expected to be the fourth and fifth flights of SpaceX’s triple-core heavy-lifter. Both launches will take off from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Falcon Heavy will deliver multiple military payloads to a high-altitude geosynchronous orbit on the USSF-44 mission. The rocket’s upper stage will fire several times to place the satellites into position more than 22,000 miles above the equator. The upper stage flight profile will include a coast lasting more than five hours between burns, making the USSF-44 mission one of SpaceX’s most demanding launches yet. On the most recent Falcon Heavy mission, which lifted off in June 2019, the rocket’s upper stage completed four burns over three-and-a-half hours on a demonstration flight sponsored by the Air Force. The STP-2 launch in 2019 served as a pathfinder for the long-duration USSF-44 mission. The complex orbital maneuvers during the STP-2 mission were required to place 24 satellite payloads into three distinct orbits. They also exercised the capabilities of the Falcon Heavy and its Merlin upper stage engine before the military entrusts the launcher with more critical, and more expensive, operational national security payloads on future flights, such as the USSF-44 mission. SpaceX won a contract for the USSF-44 launch in February 2019. In the request for proposals for the USSF-44 launch, the military told prospective launch providers to assume the combined mass of two payloads assigned to the mission is less than 8,200 pounds, or about 3.7 metric tons. The Space Force hasn’t said whether there are still two satellites booked on the USSF-44 mission, or if officials added more secondary payloads since the 2019 contract award. One of the spacecraft on the USSF-44 launch is a microsatellite named TETRA 1 built by Millennium Space Systems, a subsidiary of Boeing headquartered in El Segundo, California. Military officials said in a statement the TETRA 1 satellite was created to “prototype missions and tactics, techniques and procedures in and around geosynchronous Earth orbit.” The Space Force has not disclosed any payloads on the USSF-52 launch next year, but military officials wrote in a draft contract solicitation that the mission would deliver a heavy payload to a geostationary transfer orbit, an elongated path around Earth used as a drop-off point for many satellites heading to a circular geosynchronous orbit. SpaceX has launched three Falcon Heavy rocket missions to date, all successfully. The company has at least eight confirmed Falcon Heavy missions in its backlog, including the USSF-44 and USSF-52 missions for the Space Force, and launches of a Viasat broadband communications satellite and NASA’s Psyche asteroid explorer, both in 2022. Astrobotic announced in April that a Falcon Heavy rocket will launch its Griffin lander to the moon in 2023 on a mission to deliver a water-scouting NASA rover to the lunar south pole. A single Falcon Heavy will also launch the first two elements of NASA’s Gateway lunar space station in 2024, and two Falcon Heavy flights will boost Dragon XL cargo missions to the Gateway later in the 2020s. The Falcon Heavy is made up of three modified Falcon 9 first stage boosters connected together in a triple-core configuration. The rocket’s 27 Merlin main engines produce some 5.1 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, more than any other currently operational rocket. All of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy missions currently under contract will take off from Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the company plans to construct a vertical integration building and shelter to accommodate future Falcon Heavy payloads. SpaceX will use three newly-manufactured boosters for the USSF-44 mission, and the challenging launch profile will leave no leftover propellant to recover the center core of the Falcon Heavy, according to the Space Force. The core stage will be expended on the launch, while the rocket’s two side boosters will be recovered on two SpaceX drone ships positioned downrange east of Cape Canaveral. The Falcon Heavy will get more U.S. military launch contracts in the coming years. The Space Force last year announced multibillion-dollar contracts to fly the military’s most critical national security payloads on United Launch Alliance Vulcan Centaur rockets and SpaceX Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launchers through 2027. Space News reported Thursday that the Space Force and ULA have agreed to move the first military mission assigned to a Vulcan Centaur rocket to an Atlas 5 rocket. That mission, designated USSF-51, is scheduled to launch in 2022. The Vulcan Centaur’s first national security launch is now scheduled for early 2023 with the USSF-106 mission, Bongiovi said Wednesday. That flight will follow two certification launches of the Vulcan Centaur rocket carrying commercial payloads. __________________ I think the young people enjoy it when I "get down," verbally, don't you?
Posts: 187,110

06-17-2021, 12:47 PM	#4345
Donger "Think BOOM!" Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: 33.675° N 106.475° W Casino cash: $8559900 VARSITY	https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-sta...l-launch-prep/ SpaceX has moved its newest finished Starship straight from its Boca Chica, Texas factory to a nearby ‘rocket garden,’ all but guaranteeing an early retirement. Built as the first of several planned backups to Starship SN15, which debuted a number of significant upgrades in April and May, it appears that Starship serial number 16 (SN16) has been retired to a display stand after its only sibling became the first full-size prototype to successfully survive a launch and landing on May 5th. SN16 actually reached its full height before SN15 lifted off and was more or less complete by May 10th. Since then, the prototype has remaining more or less untouched, seemingly waiting for SpaceX to decide its fate in lieu of Starship SN15’s major success. Ultimately, with SN16 now sitting side by side with SN15 at what will likely become a sort of open-air SpaceX museum, it appears that the company has made up its mind. __________________ I think the young people enjoy it when I "get down," verbally, don't you?
Posts: 187,110

06-17-2021, 01:10 PM	#4346
DaFace Kind of a mod Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: Donkey Land Casino cash: $116899	Bizarre. My post earlier is in the thread twice, but it's literally the same post ID in the database. If I delete one of them, it deletes them both. Oh well. Guess I'll leave it.
Posts: 52,532

06-29-2021, 10:12 AM	#4348
Donger "Think BOOM!" Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: 33.675° N 106.475° W Casino cash: $8559900 VARSITY	Falcon 9 Block 5 \| Transporter 2 LZ-1 Tue Jun 29, 2021 1:56 EDT SLC-40, Cape Canaveral SFS, Florida, USA __________________ I think the young people enjoy it when I "get down," verbally, don't you?
Posts: 187,110

06-29-2021, 12:00 PM	#4351
Donger "Think BOOM!" Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: 33.675° N 106.475° W Casino cash: $8559900 VARSITY	T-55:00 __________________ I think the young people enjoy it when I "get down," verbally, don't you?
Posts: 187,110