The Astronomy Thread

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Kajiimagi

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I totally forgot about this and saw it on a news app. Glad they finally got it all working.
 

Lambourne

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Launch window for Starship test 4 opens 25 minutes from now. Livestream on spacex.com
 
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Cybsled

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Currently at t-minus 15 until possible launch

If their website is buggy, everyday astronaut is also doing a stream

 
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Sanrith Descartes

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They intentionally messed with the heat shielding to test what happens if there is an issue during flight and reentry.

 

Cybsled

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Nice, they stuck the landing in the water (or looks like it anyways) of the booster
 
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Sanrith Descartes

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Amazing they can have engines not fire and everything keeps flying. One heavy engine failed to fire on launch and then one failed to fire during landing burn and its still able to land correctly.
 

Cybsled

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Looks like it landed in the water - camera got fucked up so the visuals were bad
 
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Captain Suave

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Amazing they can have engines not fire and everything keeps flying. One heavy engine failed to fire on launch and then one failed to fire during landing burn and its still able to land correctly.

My cousin wrote the failure case throttle control algorithms. He must have been sweating bullets.
 
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Kharzette

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Re-entry is cooooooooooooool, pretty colours!

Amazing they could still control it with those cooked flaps.
 
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Cybsled

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Ya the plasma shots are awesome. I know someone who many years ago did a lot of science studies about plasma formation in the upper atmosphere, I always keep forgetting to ask him about his thoughts on these videos
 

Tuco

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During the initial plasma phase it's remarkable to me that a ship can generate plasma without slowing down. The ship is descending as it exits orbit, so the energy of gravity is equivalent to the friction generating plasma and the air is so thin that even if there is a lot of bright plasma there's not much mass to collide with at ~90km. They said the ship is at peak heat at around 70km, where it's only decelerating at like, 20kmh/s or half a g from what they said.
 

Tuco

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lol @ 38:47 in my vid when that busted ass flap lowers despite being melted to shit.

200w.gif


Watching the Starship get toasted to fuck for 10 minutes really illustrates the challenge. It's not just some momentary brake you need to survive through but 600+ seconds of hades where any failure lets a plasma jet stream punch a new butthole in your spaceship.

Seeing the booster gracefully touch down on the water like an expertly driven helicopter was great to see. I wonder when they'll land it in stage 0 and we can see some chopsticks.
 
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Tuco

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Elon mentioned he wants to try booster recovery with the grabber thing next attempt
Wow. I'd bet against that being attempted all the to the catch attempt. Destruction or damage of stage 0 could set them back. Maybe they'll "attempt" it with a likely abort like they did so many times with the falcon landing adjacent to the landing craft.
 

Cybsled

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They reportedly are building a 2nd launch tower, so they'll have redundancy in the event the booster recovery fails/doesnt go as planned