Starship – SN9 – High-Altitude Flight Test

Re:Starship – SN9 – High-Altitude Flight Test by ianai on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @04:01PM (#26006584)

Well apparently they’re looking into ways to catch the rocket with a landing arm looking platform. Really I think they need to get those engines to fire in any circumstance. But with N=2 it’s hard to know anything.

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Re:Starship – SN9 – High-Altitude Flight Test by emilecantin on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @04:16PM (#26006805)

That's for the booster. The goal is to skip landing legs for the booster, as it'll only operate around Earth, so it's "easy" to build infrastructure instead.

Starship (the 2nd stage) will always do that flip & land on legs, as it also needs to do it on Mars.

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Re:Starship – SN9 – High-Altitude Flight Test by jvzr on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @04:15PM (#26006783)

The catching arm is for the first stage, IIRC

Second stage has always been about that flip, be it on the Moon, Mars or Earth

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Re:Starship – SN9 – High-Altitude Flight Test by _jjkk on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @04:30PM (#26007008)

No flipping on the Moon since it provides no advantage there (No aerobraking)

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Re:Starship – SN9 – High-Altitude Flight Test by jvzr on Tuesday February 02, 2021 @04:34PM (#26007077)

That's a very good point. Looks like my brain also had a major malfunction ;)

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