Well that was awesome. Starship SN8 just made its first (and only test flight). Really does make a return to the Moon and on to Mars seem so much closer than the Team Artemis announcement.
T - 2m16s
That belly-flop was just awesome
Imagine that filled with a platoon of Imperial Marines!
Just about to touch down when the fuel pressure goes
OK so it didn't end well but it proved so much, just seeing the belly flop and swing actually work was quite something, and I'm sure SN9 will nail it on the next test.
Starship SN8 was finally assembled early on Friday morning (c. 0100 UK time) - bit annoying as I'd stayed up to midnight just before hoping to see it! Awesome photos that morning - screen-grabs from LabPadre's YouTube stream. Can't wait to see the 15km hop.
After at least 3 false starts and two 1 AM bedtimes SpaceX's Starship SN5 prototype finally made its first 150m hop. It really was quite awesome (just see Everyday Astronaut's cam for how he was reacting - I wasn't far off), and just like last year's Starhopper the SN5 flew "in exactly the same way that bricks don't". As the dust cleared we weer all hoping to see it upright - there'd been no bangs - and sure enough, there it stood as proud as punch on the landing site.
I watched Lapadre's Sapphire cam - probably had the best view - legs coming out clearly visible.
Official SpaceX video is here:
I know that Elon was giving it the "new era of spaceflight" speech when they welcomed home "Bob & Doug" from Crew Dragon Demo 2 - but the SN5 fight is far more the beginning of a new era as the complete Starship system promises to open up the inner solar system to us once he cracks in-orbit (or on-planet) refuelling.
It's been a long just-under-a-year since the Starhopper flight and we've seen Mk1 and SN1/2/3/4 all fall by the wayside, but hopefully SN5 and probably SN6 can prove the 150m hop solid (I expect Elon will test to destruction rather than retire SN5), and then it looks like SN8 is being prepped with cone and flaps for the 20km tests some time in the autumn.
It's also still less than 11 months since the Mk1 rollout and its worth revisiting what I thought there in terms of future timeline.
Nov 19 - first flight (10s of km) of Mk1 - 3Q20 with SN8
This year - 200km flight of Mk1 - 1H21 - SN12ish?
Mk2 then probably takes over testing, still suborbital, no heat shield
Mk3 makes first orbital flight ~ 2Q20 - Early 2022? SN15ish?
Mk4 joins testing programme
Work starts on the first Super Heavy booster - Looking like 2H20 with HighBay going up
Work starts on a "production" generation of Starships - 2022?
Lunar orbital flight ~ 2021 - Late 2022/Early 2023?
Lunar landing ~ 2023 (prob before NASA) - ~2024 (prob as part of NASA Artemis plan)
Unmanned flights to and landing on Mars (and return?) before human landing
Of course sending a rocket straight up and down is something Elon's being doing reliably with Falcon for ages now, and Blue Origin has done the same, but the mass of Starship will be on a totally different scale, and with his rocket factory behind him he may well get to the Moon and Mars before NASA does (or with NASA hitching a ride). And I'm still taking bets that the Perseverance sample containers will be plucked off the Martian surface by the gloved hand of a SpaceX astronaut!
Spent a fair chunk of the weekend watching the live coverage of the SpaceX/NASA Demo-2 mission with Crew Dragon heading up to the ISS. Just as Musk intended the whole thing looks worthy of a "modern" spaceship, and it as fascinating to watch the crew pretty much do the whole thing with their arms crossed, and then give a tour of a half-empty capsule.
Great to see the actual control screens, still haven't played the docking simulator, and the over-the-shoulder view above could be from any SF movie. I assume someone somewhere on the Internet has documented all the screens shown and tried to enhance the text on them!
Despite all the talk about this being "the beginning of a new era", that new era is really of the principle of commercial spaceflight, not of Crew Dragon - it's Starship that will user in the real "new era". Just a pity that SN4 blew up - and about 30 secs after I stopped watching the static-fire live feed! But SN5 pretty much good to go, SN6 almost built and SN7 started. As Musk has said, it took at least 4 goes to get Falcon to orbit, and the hard thing is building a rocket factory, not just building the rocket.
Spent most of the last week watching the Lapadre Live YouTube feed of the assembly of the SpaceX Mk1 Starship. All week it seemed like they were about to mate the two halves, and you've never seen so many cranes and in the end I managed to be out at the shop for the 5 minutes it took to lift the nose section up!
This is just before assembly as they put the 2nd canard on the nose cone. That big yellow crane in the middle was used to do the main lift. Great (clean) chatter on the YouTube channel with all the cranes named and the different types of worker.
The finished result the next day after Elon Musk's presentation where the forward plan seems to be:
Nov - first flight (10s of km) of Mk1
This year - 200km flight of Mk1
Mk2 then probably takes over testing, still suborbital, no heat shield
Mk3 makes first orbital flight ~ 2Q20
Mk4 joins testing programme
Work starts on the first Super Heavy booster
Work starts on a "production" generation of Starships
Lunar orbital flight ~ 2021
Lunar landing ~ 2023 (prob before NASA)
Unmanned flights to and landing on Mars (and return?) before human landing
That Starhopper flight was just awesome. May take was obviously the same as Scott Manley's - it hung in the air in exactly the same way that bricks don't (TM Douglas Adams). As with most things that Eoln Musk does it looked like something straight out of SF (50s SF at that), and you can just imagine a bunch of Imperial Marines storming out into the dust cloud as it lands! Can't wait for the 3-engined Starship launch, hopefully this side of Christmas.
SpaceX finally got their rocket to orbit at the fourth attempt. Mind you they got to orbit at about 300km, 3 times as high as Spaceship One/Virgin Galactic.
Well that was awesome. Starship SN8 just made its first (and only test flight). Really does make a return to the Moon and on to Mars seem so much closer than the Team Artemis announcement.
