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    Starship IFT-6 Livestream (liftoff at 4pm CT)

    (www.spacex.com)
    80 points grecy | 18 comments | 19 Nov 24 21:26 UTC | HN request time: 1.011s | source | bottom
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    marviel ◴[19 Nov 24 22:06 UTC] No.42188615[source]▶
    unfortunately they had to scrap the booster Catch, due to undisclosed factors.
    replies(4): >>42188635 #>>42188662 #>>42188677 #>>42188734 #
    1. the_king ◴[19 Nov 24 22:21 UTC] No.42188734[source]▶
    I would love to see the dashboard that the team that made the decision was looking at.

    I'd be interested to hear speculation by people who know about this as to what they think went wrong. Was it off course? Did the engines not relight in time? Did it not have enough fuel?

    replies(3): >>42188785 #>>42189633 #>>42190805 #
    2. ceejayoz ◴[19 Nov 24 22:29 UTC] No.42188785[source]▶
    They announced a no-go while it was still boosting towards space, so it won’t be a relight issue.
    replies(2): >>42188928 #>>42189695 #
    3. zamalek ◴[19 Nov 24 22:50 UTC] No.42188928[source]▶
    I wonder whether doing a catch without the catcher (rapid scheduled crash landing) would be feasible. Data is data.
    replies(2): >>42189155 #>>42189159 #
    4. mulmen ◴[19 Nov 24 23:24 UTC] No.42189155{3}[source]▶
    > Data is data.

    This is one of those cases where technically correct is not the best kind of correct.

    Not all data is useful.

    A billion rows of sensor output is data but without a timestamp it’s useless. Maybe you need more or less resolution, or additional dimensions.

    replies(1): >>42193426 #
    5. CompuHacker ◴[19 Nov 24 23:24 UTC] No.42189159{3}[source]▶
    That is what happened. It performs the maneuvers at a primary target site with no catcher, or terrain, or ground-based feedback; the Gulf; switching to an alternate site; the launch tower; if and only if all factors allow for a real catch.
    6. piombisallow ◴[20 Nov 24 00:34 UTC] No.42189633[source]▶
    Honestly showing that you can re-target it in flight is extremely impressive too. Like, it still soft-landed in water, it didn't blow up.
    replies(3): >>42189689 #>>42189746 #>>42191939 #
    7. TaylorAlexander ◴[20 Nov 24 00:44 UTC] No.42189689[source]▶
    Hah. I mean it did blow up (the booster), but not due to impact from a failed soft landing. The soft landing succeeded, then it blew up.
    8. cubefox ◴[20 Nov 24 00:45 UTC] No.42189695[source]▶
    > They announced a no-go while it was still boosting towards space,

    False. The booster was already coming back when the landing abort came through.

    replies(2): >>42190843 #>>42194579 #
    9. mempko ◴[20 Nov 24 00:53 UTC] No.42189746[source]▶
    The upper stage was also on fire!
    10. Prickle ◴[20 Nov 24 04:21 UTC] No.42190805[source]▶
    There was a picture showing a antenna bent at a roughly 30 degree angle, ontop of the launch tower. Not sure if that was the cause though.
    11. krunck ◴[20 Nov 24 04:34 UTC] No.42190843{3}[source]▶
    Indeed. It had just finished the boostback burn and jettisoned the hot staging ring when the divert was announced. I wonder if after the boostback burn they determined that there was insufficient fuel for a good safely margin when trying a tower catch.
    replies(1): >>42193441 #
    12. verzali ◴[20 Nov 24 08:46 UTC] No.42191939[source]▶
    It's not so much a retarget in this case. The water landing is the default path, they have to manually tell it to target the landing pad if it is a go for the catch.
    replies(1): >>42195683 #
    13. m4rtink ◴[20 Nov 24 12:42 UTC] No.42193426{4}[source]▶
    If the duty cycle is stable enough, you can reconstruct the timestamps in many cases based on the data. ;-)
    replies(1): >>42196002 #
    14. m4rtink ◴[20 Nov 24 12:43 UTC] No.42193441{4}[source]▶
    The catch attempt is actually a divert - IIRC both Super Heavy and regular Falcon 9 first stage target empty space by default and only divert for landing once all checks out. :-)
    replies(1): >>42215112 #
    15. ceejayoz ◴[20 Nov 24 15:14 UTC] No.42194579{3}[source]▶
    Shoot, I re-watched and you're right. Memory's a fickle thing.

    https://www.youtube.com/live/l7cM90N-CDc?feature=shared&t=23...

    https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-... does say this now, though:

    > During this phase, automated health checks of critical hardware on the launch and catch tower triggered an abort of the catch attempt.

    16. piombisallow ◴[20 Nov 24 16:41 UTC] No.42195683{3}[source]▶
    How does that change anything
    17. mulmen ◴[20 Nov 24 17:07 UTC] No.42196002{5}[source]▶
    “If” is doing a lot of work there.
    18. dotancohen ◴[22 Nov 24 16:24 UTC] No.42215112{5}[source]▶

      > target empty space by default
    Well, water.

    I see that you're a glass-half-empty guy ))