Pretty spacey- Space X ship getting ready to flip directions for landing (2 pix)

[SteveG]

It's easy. First you let it drift with engines off, then you use small tail rockets to maneuver it into position for vertical landing.





See, easy-peasy.

[NewtonMP2100]

....kevin....spacey.....??

[cbelt3]

Dang it ! Landed a bit hard at the end.
[spoiler=Spoiler]
OK, it blew up with a very Michael Bay class explosion. Damn !
[/spoiler]


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap-BkkrRg-o&feature=youtu.be&t=6462&ab_channel=SpaceX

[Paul F.]

cbelt;

Yeah... but, it was a 99% perfect flight of a totally crazy idea... They've got SN9 maybe a week behind (maybe a bit more if they include some improvements after SN8's flight), and SN10, SN11, and SN12 under construction.

They'll have that "hard" landing worked out soon enough.

[ztirffritz]

That flight had many firsts for Starship. They'd never burned an engine that long, they'd never re-lit an engine at all that I'm aware of. In this test they staggered lighting and re-lighting multiple engines multiple times.

[DeusxMac]

ztirffritz wrote:
That flight had many firsts for Starship. They'd never burned an engine that long, they'd never re-lit an engine at all that I'm aware of. In this test they staggered lighting and re-lighting multiple engines multiple times.

Falcon 2nd stage engines restart regularly.

[Paul F.]

DeusxMac wrote:
[quote=ztirffritz]
That flight had many firsts for Starship. They'd never burned an engine that long, they'd never re-lit an engine at all that I'm aware of. In this test they staggered lighting and re-lighting multiple engines multiple times.

Falcon 2nd stage engines restart regularly.
Different engine, different fuel, WHOLE different pressure regime (the Raptor runs at 300 bar), and the Raptor is electrically ignited, not ignited with TEA-TEB hypergolics.

[DeusxMac]

Paul F. wrote:
[quote=DeusxMac]
[quote=ztirffritz]
That flight had many firsts for Starship. They'd never burned an engine that long, they'd never re-lit an engine at all that I'm aware of. In this test they staggered lighting and re-lighting multiple engines multiple times.

Falcon 2nd stage engines restart regularly.
Different engine, different fuel, WHOLE different pressure regime (the Raptor runs at 300 bar), and the Raptor is electrically ignited, not ignited with TEA-TEB hypergolics.
True, but ztirffritz didn’t specify a “stage”, just that SpaceX had “never re-lit an engine at all”.