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Starship Flight 7

(www.spacex.com)
649 points chinathrow | 4 comments | 16 Jan 25 21:25 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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mmaunder ◴[16 Jan 25 21:41 UTC] No.42731271[source]▶
Anyone care to give the non spacey folks like me the highlights of this launch?
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1. why_at ◴[16 Jan 25 21:52 UTC] No.42731390[source]▶
It's similar to last time if you saw that, the first stage will come back towards the launch site and they will try to catch it with the landing tower chopsticks, while the second stage does a soft landing in the ocean after going halfway around the earth.

As far as new stuff, they are trying to deploy some simulated satellites from the second stage and will try to relight one of the engines.

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2. ericd ◴[16 Jan 25 21:55 UTC] No.42731421[source]▶
I also saw mention somewhere that this is V2 of Starship upper stage? Somewhat longer, and I’m sure a bunch of other changes to enable mass simulator deployment.
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3. wongarsu ◴[16 Jan 25 22:13 UTC] No.42731585[source]▶
Yes, about 2m longer. Also some modifications to the heat shield, including testing new types of heat shield tiles. Also non-structural versions of new catch pins to see how they perform on reentry

Edit: also, they are reflying one of the raptor engines that was on the previous flight (Engine 314, because pi).

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4. ericd ◴[16 Jan 25 22:19 UTC] No.42731640{3}[source]▶
Thanks, they also mentioned that they moved the upper flaps to reduce heating on them during reentry.