Congrats to SpaceX on the first orbital flight of Starship, and its deployment of operational Starlink satellites. The vehicle still has testing to demonstrate reusability, but as an expendable vehicle, it is now the most capable operational rocket, with more payload capability…
— Not-So-OK Boomer (@Rand_Simberg) September 28, 2026
The decision to go for the orbital burn after loseing one vac engine had shades of Apollo heydays “work the problem, make a bold decision and press on” to me.
Wasn’t perfect, but good enough! Congratulations to SpaceX.
First operational deployment of Starlink V3 satellites as well.
So will booster catch be on the agenda for the next launch?
Or will Ship catch be deemed more important?
This either/or based on the assumption that either two catch towers will not be available in time or that there will not be enough orbits for Ship to allow recovery of both on a single tower. We’ll see…
The system obviously works, with just a few good-sized wrinkles to iron out. Engine restart is the big one. You’d be unhappy lifting off the Moon on the landing thrusters, only to have your main engines not start a minute later. You’d land again and then start looking at your supplies.
My guess is there’s a very good chance they’ll go for Booster catch on Flight 15. SpaceX has demonstrated successful and precise reentries of Ship several times. The real challenge they face at this point is more bureaucratic than technical. Reentry to catch will require overflying populated areas. Getting an FAA reentry permit to allow a catch is the biggest challenge, IMO.
Depending on the orbit, most of the descending node path would be over sparsely inhabited territory. But there’s no avoiding the last little bit.
SpaceX’s practice of using preburner gas for LOX tank pressurization is wildly impractical, putting H2O and CO2 into the LOX system. It’s the frozen contaminants that have been causing most of the engine malfunctions.
I have first-hand experience with LOX regen cooling- it works, and produces warm, clean, dry GOX.
Raptor should be redesigned with the last few inches of the nozzle cooled with a portion of the LOX. This is a large area but has low heat flux, well suited to oxygen’s poorer heat transfer characteristics. The thrust chamber would keep the same profile, but truncate the LNG passages slightly higher, replacing them with LOX slots. Only a tiny portion of the LOX is needed, around 0.5 percent, to provide the GOX. Instead of a heat exhanger against the hot turbopump exhaust (which is a heavy high-pressure device) the existing regen nozzle wall could be retasked with only a limited redesign. All the water and ice drains, screens, and elaborate prechill methods could be removed, and the engine starts made much more reliable.
To control the flow of autogenous gas, a portion of the warmed GOX can be bypassed into the hot gas manifold downstream of the turbine driving the LOX turbopump, while most goes up to pressurize the LOX tank. Clean, uncontaminated LOX FTW!
Which Doug Jones are you? Qualified to make those design decisions? SpaceX will have had a reason for making their design decisions. I’m just a science fiction writer (and long-retired software architect) who used to be a marine machinery mechanic working on nuclear submarines even longer ago. Show us your creds.
Nah, who cares. He is either right or wrong and seeing creative ideas kicked around is great.
I am more interested in your opinion of what he said than your opinion of his career.
I’d say that he’s the one that has done the hardware and bandaged the wounds that mistakes inflict. Probably too late for such a rational change though.
I’m the Doug Jones who was a key part of the design of 28 rocket engines, 13 of which made it to hardware hot fire test, two of which powered manned rocket planes. That Doug Jones.
How are the methane tanks pressurized?
Warm, clean GCH4 from the regen cooling passages, with no combustion product contamination.
I have no engineering credentials, but I’m solidly with Mr. Jones on this one. The current autologous pressurization system of both Super Heavy and Starship makes no damned sense whatsoever. I hold out hope it will be rationalized for V4.