Thread

SpaceX's Starship launching to orbit for first time ever today

304 points · 367 comments · geox

misiti3780 · 1790600110 · focus · HN ↗
Why arnt they doing a tower catch ?
1. Polizeiposaune · 1790604020 · focus · HN ↗
  They're being careful because they don't want to wreck their launch pad.
  On the previous flight, they were going for the same ocean soft landing as this flight, but several engines on the booster failed to start during the landing burn (reportedly due to ice clogging propellant feed). Had this crash not happened they likely would have tried for a tower catch today.
  They want to be sure the mitigation for this failure worked before they put the pad & tower at risk.
2. bell-cot · 1790604051 · focus · HN ↗
  Towers are expensive. Boosters are cheap. And the reliability metrics on low-serial-number Raptor 3's don't make the modest benefits worth the risk.
  1. misiti3780 · 1790604866 · focus · HN ↗
    I would have thought both were kinda expensive.
    bell-cot · 1790605432 · focus · HN ↗
    In one sense, yes. But Elon's PoV is "I have a big Booster factory, I'm a trillionaire, and my unit cost is under $50M." Vs. fixing a smashed Tower (and surrounding launch infrastructure) would likely cost him months.
  2. verzali · 1790801689 · focus · HN ↗
    Why bother reusing at all then?
3. verzali · 1790801657 · focus · HN ↗
  They seem to have given up on them for now.

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