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Honda conducts successful launch and landing of experimental reusable rocket

(global.honda)
1355 points LorenDB | 1 comments | 17 Jun 25 15:02 UTC | HN request time: 0.382s | source
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robszumski ◴[17 Jun 25 15:57 UTC] No.44300646[source]▶
For reference, Rocket Lab's Electron has a wet mass of 13,000 kg. This rocket is much smaller at 1,312 kg wet mass.
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delichon ◴[17 Jun 25 16:49 UTC] No.44301143[source]▶

  Falcon 9           433k kg  
  Atlas V            547k kg
  Starship         1,200k kg
  Starship Booster 3,600k kg
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Certhas ◴[17 Jun 25 17:07 UTC] No.44301330[source]▶
k kg is a funny unit... Much more readable than Mg of course. Tonnes would also work...
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overfeed ◴[17 Jun 25 17:43 UTC] No.44301719[source]▶
Tonne is unfortunately overloaded, the US and the UK have their own versions, but for the rest of the world is on metric, and a tonne is 1000 kg. The Falcon 9 weighing "433 t" reads way more elegantly to me.
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pseudocomposer ◴[17 Jun 25 19:07 UTC] No.44302699[source]▶
Unless https://www.math.net/pounds-to-tons is severely wrong, a US ton is 2200lbs, UK 2240lbs, metric 2204lbs. Put a different way, US to metric is a <0.2% difference (the smallest), US to UK is a <2% difference (the biggest).

At a scale of 433 tons, it doesn’t really matter much which kind of tons (unless you’re actually doing the rocket science, of course).

replies(1): >>44302745 #
nneonneo ◴[17 Jun 25 19:11 UTC] No.44302745[source]▶
US ton is 2000 lb, not 2200. I spent some time in the US and had never heard of a ton meaning 2200 lb. Unfortunately, that's a 10% error off of a metric ton.
replies(1): >>44303020 #
1. jjj_throw ◴[17 Jun 25 19:39 UTC] No.44303020[source]▶
US short ton is 2000lbs, long ton is ~2200.