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Starship's Tenth Flight Test

(www.spacex.com)
364 points metalman | 2 comments | 26 Aug 25 23:22 UTC | HN request time: 0.401s | source
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2OEH8eoCRo0[dead post] ◴[27 Aug 25 00:05 UTC] No.45033871[source]▶
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sbuttgereit ◴[27 Aug 25 00:18 UTC] No.45033968[source]▶
I think Scott Manley's position on the "still hasn't gotten to orbit" take is probably still the best and most accurate:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8htMpR7mnaM&t=420s

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pclmulqdq ◴[27 Aug 25 00:45 UTC] No.45034151[source]▶
What Scott is missing is that the only reason "it did not get to orbit" is of interest at all is that SpaceX keeps claiming they got to orbit with starship. I believe that the trajectories have all been suborbital by design, but it still pisses me off that they keep claiming they got to orbit.

The reason this matters is that if they get into an orbit in a short test, they need to exit that orbit with some sort of active system. So the statement "we got to orbit" implies a lot more technology development than the current flights actually show. I agree with Scott that Starship can easily enter LEO, but I am not so sure it can exit gracefully.

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rlt ◴[27 Aug 25 01:10 UTC] No.45034304[source]▶
What exactly do you think is the “more technology development than the current flights actually show“ needed to get into and out of orbit?

My impression is they just need to leave the engines on a little longer to get to orbit, then turn them on again with the ship pointed in another direction to get back to the suborbital trajectory they’ve already demonstrated deorbiting from.

The hard part is reentering through the atmosphere without burning up, flipping, and landing, which they’ve already demonstrated multiple times. There’s no additional atmosphere between where they’ve flown and “orbit”.

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bagels ◴[27 Aug 25 01:18 UTC] No.45034354[source]▶
A little more longevity and one more engine restart, unless the suborbital is very suborbital, then it also means a lot more delta v. It doesn't seem that far away at all.
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sbuttgereit ◴[27 Aug 25 01:36 UTC] No.45034475[source]▶
What's surprising is that people are still resorting to this silly complaint about not reaching orbit when there's a perfectly sensible complain they could be making instead: that SpaceX hasn't yet demonstrated that they can reach orbit and return safely. The safe return is important because I would expect a failure to return safely to be a big deal: it's not like this thing is going to completely burn up if they don't have control during a deorbit. The inadequate retry thermal protection is a large issue even if the Ship has managed to get to the landing areas on target and soft land in the right spot: the burn through on the control surfaces seems to mean that was as much luck as good engineering that the thing didn't crash somewhere less intended.

I appreciate none of that is as pithy as saying it simply didn't reach orbit, but it's a real concern versus something that is really irrelevant.

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bryanlarsen ◴[27 Aug 25 02:22 UTC] No.45034786[source]▶
Starship returned safely. Safe return of orbital generally means a splashdown within 1500 miles of Point Nemo. They just demonstrated that they can splash down within meters of their target buoy. Even if the flaps failed completely they still would have been far less than 1500 miles off target.
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1. sbuttgereit ◴[27 Aug 25 03:00 UTC] No.45034993[source]▶
They've done so more than than this time, too. Granted, with a little less "Ship" than they left with on all occasions I know of.

No one (at least not me or anyone I take seriously) is arguing whether or not these suborbital profiles are designed to be safe even under adverse or full failure conditions; though the Caribbean air corridors might have been managed a bit more gracefully on some previous flights... still...

Nonetheless there is a valid criticism that in ten flights they still haven't mastered keeping the control surfaces of the space craft whole during the reentry phase of flight. 1500 miles isn't going to cut it as a safe return zone when they try bring this in for a catch. While I'm as impressed as anyone that they've hit the mark with compromised Ships as many times as they have, neither Port Isabel nor Titusville are 1500 miles from their nearest Ship catch towers and I wouldn't support any attempts for a catch until they can get the whole Ship back in good working order... reliably. While I'm a advocate for this program and SpaceX... I'm not such a fanboy that I can't see there are issues with this aspect of the program. This is ignoring the impact on rapid reusability and simply focusing on the basic safety of the program.

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2. bryanlarsen ◴[27 Aug 25 14:22 UTC] No.45040137[source]▶
Port Isabel is 6 miles away from Boca Chica. They demonstrated on a previous mission that they can land within meters of their target despite burnt out flaps. If SpaceX tries to catch Starship their launch tower might not be safe, but Port Isabel would be safe.

But they haven't tried to catch Starship yet and likely won't for a while, so you're arguing a silly hypothetical.