8mo ago

Super Heavy-Starship launches on sixth test flight, skips tower catch

Super Heavy-Starship launches on sixth test flight, skips tower catch – Spaceflight Now

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A shame we missed the catch, but it's always cool to see big fiery explosions
Better to destroy one booster than risk the damage to the launch pad or chopsticks, I suppose. I'll be curious to hear what the cause of the abort was.
The reduced heatshield on the ship held up impressively well.
- Yeah my guess from the very limited information I have is the abort-to-spashdown decision was probably automated, so I'm extremely interested to hear why they aborted the catch. It feels a bit at odds with the ambition to catch a starship soon, but if their code is so conservative about aborted catches, it seems realistic to at least try
  
  I believe the booster can’t return to the pad unless it’s explicitly told to from the ground (so if it loses contact, it will crash safely).
  During the stream, they said that the very specific criteria for a recapture attempt were not met. They didn’t say what that criteria was.
Starlink v2 sats in the next flight? The micro g engine relight seemed to go ok, so orbital trajectories should be an option going forward.

6 comments