SPACE X JUST CAUGHT A ROCKET, IN MID-AIR, ON THEIR FIRST ATTEMPT ! !
(www.youtube.com)
LET'S GOOoOoooo!!!
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (38)
sorted by:
How high up did it go before it came back down? Seems like there might not have been enough fuel to go up and down if it had flown into outer space.
That was the booster of a two stage rocket. The rest of the rocket went into orbit after detaching from the booster.
The booster's mission is to push the ship up above the atmosphere, where the ships more efficient engines and lower fuel load can take it into orbit. So the booster does go into "space" but not for long
Yeah, but the craziest thing is that fucker TURNS AROUND and goes back to the pad from which it launched.
Yes, but this isn't totally new. Spacex has been landing falcon 9 boosters RTLS for nearly a decade.
Don't get me wrong, it's incredible. It's a huge step, but for spacex it is also a baby step. With starship they have effectively eliminated the landing legs vs f9 and eliminated the need to put the booster back on its launch mounts. Rapid reusability. The booster can be fully fuelled in 40 minutes and there can be another starship waiting to be stacked by the chopsticks, so theoretically they will be able to launch 200T to LEO every hour or two (per launch tower) with the same reliability and safety as a modern airliner (not Boeing, though)
Peak altitude for the booster was 96km. Starship obviously went much further after separation.