Yes, on both tests, it seemed that the sequence to return the ship to vertical and slow descent happened too late and not powerfully enough.
Can't afford the paint.
That's right. The first stage is much more simple and they already have plenty of experience with flying and reusing first stages of the Falcon 9
The original idea was to use carbon fibre. They pressure tested a big CF tank. They even leased a factory and built a great big rotating lay-up tool for building whole tanks in one piece. But then they made an abrupt pivot to stainless steel. It's heavier, but it's much more robust. Needs less heat shielding, so the weight saved there makes up for the higher density. It also gets stronger when cooled to cryogenic temperatures. The same damage that destroyed the alumtinium framed shuttle Columbia would have been survived by Starship. But most importantnly steel is dirt cheap, and skilled welders are far more common than people familiar with building very large carbon fibre tanks. They can build these things for 1/10th the price of a CF equivalent, and much faster.
Any guesstimate for launch o’clock?
Always looks worse once the sun shines sideways
Permitted launch hours are 9am-6pm local time, which is 15:00-00:00 UK time.
Oooooooh
I was wondering if it was aluminium, apparently traditional aluminium isn't compatible with space flight, although I read some engineers are pioneering a treatment for it.
Most rockets are made of aluminium alloys of some kind. Stainless steel is very unusual.
Oh, ok, I thought (for some reason) that aluminium was affected by cosmic radiation or something?
Rate they're going through them, probably a waste of effort make them look too smart.
Not that I've heard of. The main hull and the exterior shielding on the ISS are aluminium.
Hi Crispy, it was this article: Alloy could launch manned spacecraft made from aluminium | The Engineer The Engineer
Maybe. Looks like it's almost gone on satellite view
Yes, mine too Grr.. EDIT: This is exactly dinner time in my house
No signs of frost or venting on the starship itself yet so I think you'll be OK.Fuel tank farm recondenser is venting, which means we are potentially 30m away
EDIT: This is exactly dinner time in my house
