Like catching a literal flying multi-story building with a 500 foot hugely beefed up tower. I can’t believe that this now is possible. Imagine telling someone from the 1930s that we’re about to do this. They wouldn’t know how to comprehend it. I don’t even know how to comprehend it….
So many doubting debbies flapping their pie holes. What will they pivot to after SpaceX manages to catch a booster? I can't wait to find out, because they always pivot and pick a new thing to caw about. One day catching a booster and reusing it the same day will just be another boring day to them, just like Falcon9 landings have become routine and boring.
“But they didn’t reuse the booster” “But it took a month to reuse the booster” “They said it would be a 24 hour turn” “Some of their goals included three launches per day” There will always be “it isn’t what they said it would be” dickheads out there
12 launches for one moon shot. No tanker variant. No orbital fuel depot. No lunar lander. No successful landings demonstrated. Dumping your bird in the drink isnt landing
A failure would not be good however not that bad as the booster will be almost empty and mostly an empty shell. Repairs wouldn't take more than month or so.
Agreed. Worst case six months minimum. Tower, arms, QD, tanks, piping…the damage could be substantial. Then there is the FAA and the bird people. They have to resolve the engine catching on fire before snatching that thing out of the air.
I see how slowly and carefully the tower arms handle the boosters and Starships when simply moving them into positions. Then I try to imagine the power, speed and varied elements of all the systems involved, and my mind is boggled by how much more there will be to deal with in a catch. I hope for the best, but if such care is needed on the ground.....
Convert to Elon time, and the second tower will be ready to catch IFT-5. Can´t imagine they would risk the current Stage-0 for this... It only needs the tower and mechanics to catch...no other Stage-0 equipment would need to be installed for an attempt.
I'm pushing 80 years old and have watched the the whole space program progress. Absolutely amazing. Wish I was going to still be around to see what happens in the next 20 and 50 years.
The current tower is a prototype with a long list of damage and mods - better to attempt a catch now and use data to perfect the next tower rather than go with a potentially flawed design
On the other hand, they don't need an OLM to catch the ship. Just a tower with catch-arms. The full set of ground support equipment doesn't even need to be there. If it isn't there, it can't get damaged. Better to catch with the 2nd tower before all the GSE is in place. Unless of course they have a long list of mods they need to apply to tower 1 anyway, so wrecking it on a landing attempt doesn't really matter, as long as tower 2 is fairly far along & would be ready for the next launch attempt.
Much better off using the new one. It’s further away from the tanks. A problem might not cause an issue for the current tower or tanks and might not interfere with further launches.
I'm guessing that the booster water landing went VERY well, if SpaceX is prepared to push ahead with a tower catch. The approach angle and speed, and the accuracy of both landing position and rotation, must have been absolutely spot on.
That is a good point although the second mechanical is already in pieces at Starbase. I don’t doubt they could get a seconds tower up with just the catch arms before IFT5
@@connorfitzgerald9523 How long would it take to make a new one, I wonder? 6 months including investigation? Better to keep flying the next one or two. That way they can fly a few more to perfect flight and orbits.
I’d prefer “later” if the second tower won’t be complete until late this year. As someone who has no insight on the data, the rational thing to do is to wait for tower 2 to complete and try to catch it there instead of the fully built out OLM. If shit hits the fan on a bare tower, that sucks. If it hits the fan on the OLM, that’s a longggggg delay.
I knew they were going to try it when I learned that the launch date for IFT5 had moved to "late July". If SpaceX were willing to give up on the possibility of a quick FAA license (or if the FAA told them it wouldn't happen in "one month"), that could only mean they were going to go ahead and modify the flight profile for the landing attempt. Once I saw that they were willing to take the time to retrofit an old Block 1 ship with new tiles, even though those new tiles won't prevent the fin melting issue, that just validated things for me.
@@Fyrem0th-was-taken Yeah I'm sure it will "help" but we have to be realistic about this. The most important fix for the fins has been in the workings for years and we'll see it on Block 2 towards the end of the year. That would be when they move the front fins backwards from the belly and shrink them a bit. But they're going to have to redesign all the hinges, not just those on the forward flaps. They won't bother with this for the Block 1 vehicles-Ships 30+. There are three of those remaining, although SpaceX may scrap one. The ablative layer won't prevent tiles from being blown off, and there's nothing to say the ablative layer won't likewise be blown off in the same way. It's probably best just to expect those flaps to continue melting until Block 2 arrives.
I expect the catch attempt to go well. meaning, either a successful and safe abort to sea, or a mostly successful catch attempt. I don't expect it to miss the tower.
i've seen some people suggest that a booster failure during a catch attempt wouldn't damage the tower significantly because it would be similair to a empty tin can crashing into a block of concrete. as always, we'll have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry
But there is still very little propellant and oxygen in the tanks. So there would be an explosion but no were near to damage stage 0. Just electrical and cables. The tower would have to be a massive explosion to damage it. Those beams used minimum 2 inch thick and thicker for building
Makes sense, throwing away 33 engines with every single flight just isn't sustainable, the sooner they can catch the booster the sooner they can reuse them.
It didn't take them long after flight 1 to add a deluge system which involved digging up the ground and putting in significant infrastructure + fixing the damage that was done. I couldn't imagine a nearly empty rocket exploding would cause damage that would take any longer to fix. Plus they are already building their second tower.
It never ceases to amuse me that whenever it's time to bring in stock footage of Raptor landing on a drone ship, the clip that every channel shows is the very first successful landing. The one where the booster drifts conspicuously along the ship's platform before coming to a halt.
