That’s actually more complicated than one would think!
Here on Earth Starship lands using its atmospheric Raptor Engines (small nozzle) and bleeds most of its speed aerobraking, (doing the belly flop) so the engines don’t run very long. It also looses some of its heat by heating the air around it.
On the moon that’s impossible because there is no air for aerobraking. They have to brake using the engines, and they have to let them run for quite a bit (or more often), letting them run with low thrust doesn’t work as engines cannot be throttled down that low. They also have to use another Raptor design up there (the vacuum Raptor with the larger nozzle) and the engines are harder to cool (because there is no air). The fuel in the tanks also acts differently because of the lower gravity on the moon. All those things cannot be tested on Earth.
So that’s some of the reasons why they cannot just perfect it on Earth and then do it on the moon.
And I hear they are already preparing it for another launch.
Probably going to do a number of tests before, but it doesn’t look like they are cutting it apart (like most people presumably would, to learn about how well every subsystem worked and how it was affected) but pushing forward.
Holiday in Kauai, Hawaii and watch the orbital stage Starship come down in the ocean in front of you. Cool.
There is a really nice US Navy set-up on that island, so I guess they aim for that side (Barking Sands Pacific Missile Tracking Station, appropriate as 42,000 sq/nm military controlled airspace)
I’m really interested to see the Heavy Booster nail a landing on that new oil platform, as in, it’s going to ‘catch it in its arms’ sort of deal. Will be amazing if it works (or amazing anyway really). Let’s get those Heavy Boosters going up soon please!
Btw, is anyone else a bit sad that they apparently gave up on catching the fairings?
I am, because that was kinda awesome. Felt quite SciFi. But it seems that they can take the splash just fine so it isn’t worth it trying to catch them.
I thought the parachutes and big nets on those support boats looked a bit old-school to be honest. It was cool when it worked though. It felt like a catcher out on left field, leaping for the fence each time…
Yeah…that was one of the first times I can remember that we didn’t get a loss of signal for that last bit of landing burn. Usually it is a drop in the feed and you have to wait…then boom presto you see it sitting on the pad.
