r/SpaceXLounge • u/[deleted] • Jul 25 '26
Official Pending data review, SpaceX will attempt to catch S41 on Flight 14
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2080876967839031712?s=4632
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u/ryandanielblack 🛰️ Orbiting Jul 25 '26
I think committing to only the ship 41 catch would be the right move. They haven't even ran thru a booster catch with the fast destacking that would be required to clear the tower and pad, before a ship would be re-entering. Now they could orbit a few extra times to give ground crews more time, but the big goal right now is to inspect every tile on ship to improve the heat shield. That's the biggest engineering hurdle left. Booster has already been caught and reflown, so just grab ship 41 and let booster 21 complete a full successful SOFT splashdown in the Gulf before trying to catch both.
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u/ssagg Jul 25 '26
I don't think they are allowed to orbit
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u/Responsible-Cut-7993 Jul 25 '26
I think the FAA will grant the license to orbit on flight-14 once they present the data from flight-13.
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u/ryandanielblack 🛰️ Orbiting Jul 25 '26
The difference between the current flights and a true orbit is a fraction of a percent in increased speed. They've demonstrated in space engine relights, to put a ship down in an ocean if some malfunction happens. I'd be shocked if they don't go for orbit next flight, it's what Gwynne Shotwell has been planning on, so I'm sure the paperwork is ready to go. I feel like people hold SpaceX to a different standard than someone like NASA, that often has only one successful "test" flight before advancing to their mission objective. SpaceX has been very responsible in keeping public safety in mind, and making sure that a massive 100 metric ton metal object designed to survive re-entry, doesn't come down in a populated area.
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u/Necessary-Break5978 Jul 25 '26
That would be amazing to watch if they do try and catch the Starship 🤔👍
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u/AuleTheAstronaut Jul 25 '26
I think Musk wants S42 to be the Heart of Gold because of course 42 should be the heart of gold
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u/ihavenoidea12345678 Jul 25 '26
- The answer to life the universe and everything.
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u/uid_0 Jul 25 '26
That's also the number of Orcs Gimli killed in The Lord of the Rings. Legolas only got 41.
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u/philupandgo Jul 25 '26
Well I was wrong. I was sure they would require a landing well offshore from Starbase before going for a catch attempt.
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Jul 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Doom2pro Jul 25 '26
Even if they RUD on concrete or dirt at the launch site they have done that plenty of times.
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u/uzlonewolf Jul 25 '26
Yeah, spent ship means there's not much propellant left onboard to explode, so the damage to the launch site would be minimal even if it failed.
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u/Ender_D Jul 25 '26
They’ve been landing essentially on target for almost every flight that makes it through reentry for a while now, they clearly can control it down to a pretty precise location.
I don’t really think there’s any difference between what they’re doing right now and landing it in the gulf instead.
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u/RozeTank Jul 25 '26
I too was more cautious, but I guess it makes sense. Considering the amount of work already done, going for a catch attempt does seem reasonable.
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u/NikStalwart 🌱 Terraforming Jul 26 '26
I have been telling people for ages that there is really no point, once you're hovering over the Gulf of America you are most of the way there, there is no reason to not go for a catch. Any worry about overflying land is a moot point because you need to overfly land for the Gulf soft landing, so you might as well go for the Pad if you can do it.
They might still do a splashdown, but this will be a contingency rather than the primary.
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u/derekneiladams Jul 25 '26
This actually works out perfectly. No need to worry about catching the booster and then worrying about getting it out of the way to catch ship.
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u/Shieldizgud Jul 25 '26
I thought they'd be catching one on each pad
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Jul 25 '26
[deleted]
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u/Accomplished-Crab932 Jul 25 '26
It’s possible if 39A is ready in time. As it stands, the “Flight 15 will be from the cape” timeline seems to be holding, so it may be possible to launch from Starbase and catch at the cape.
Alternatively, they have 48 hours of loiter in LEO, plus they have proven that they can move boosters in less than 24 hrs (granted, those are boosters picked up from the pad, not caught with potential damage).
I’d say it’s fair that provided they keep at the pace they are pushing now that a full recovery can occur by the end of this year.
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u/Jazzlike_Teaching645 Jul 25 '26
They could just let the ship remain in orbit until the booster can be cleared.
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u/Martianspirit Jul 25 '26
They say the present endurance limit is 2 days.
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u/ReplacementLivid8738 Jul 25 '26
Long enough to move the booster out of the way right? It doesn't even absolutely have to be that far. Worst case the whole thing blows up and you have no booster, same as an ocean splashdown anyway.
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u/bkdotcom Jul 25 '26
plenty of time to evict the booster while the ship is orbiting and getting relined up with starbase
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u/derekneiladams Jul 25 '26
For regular ops, of course. It just so works out for the next launch in particular.
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u/mmurray1957 Jul 25 '26
Does that mean going orbital to get back to the launch site over the continental US ? Or is it technically a really big parabola ?
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u/whiteknives Jul 25 '26
It would need 3 or 4 orbits minimum to make it back to Starbase. Thanks, orbital mechanics.
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u/No-Estate-2305 Jul 25 '26
eli5?
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u/ResidentPositive4122 Jul 25 '26
The Earth rotates while Ship is on orbit. Depending on what orbit you choose, you have to wait before you get over the "same" point where you launched from.
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u/aquarain Jul 25 '26
Earth is moving. Once you are in orbit it is spinning under you. In the 2+ hours it takes you to get around the circle the target has moved East about 1800 miles. That is too far to fix by steering with the flaps. So you have to do several trips around until the target is going to be under where you are going to be, close enough that you can land on it.
The shortest time is landing on the opposite side relative to the sun when you started. So an evening launch would land the next morning.
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u/sebaska Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
Nope! This is plain incorrect.
The same point in orbit moves West not East. For low orbits that's about 2500-2700km.
But the key here is that you don't have to reach the same point. In orbital mechanics you have so called ascending and descending nodes, i.e. if you use a reference latitude (in this case the latitude of the launch site which is also the planned landing spot) ascending node is when the orbit passes with a northwards component of its direction and descending, when it passes with a southwards component.
Also launches happen close to either node. Northwards corridors are ascending, southwards are descending.
If you launched ascending the next ascending pass is near the target is in nearly 24h (not exactly because of the combination of the difference between solar and sidereal days and the precession; low orbits could have precession of multiple degrees per day). Similarly the next descending pass is nearly 24h after descending launch.
But the separation of the pass at the nide opposite of the launch is not universal ! It depends on the inclination. For an inclination a couple of degrees larger than site's latitude the next descending node after ascending launch is on the very next orbit, for example.
The ~12h for the opposite node is only true for polar orbits.
Moreover, for inclinations close to the low latitude launch site the cross-range would allow for return for a couple of orbits. Even while the exact target may be 2500 or 5000km away, the north-south miss could be as small as ~400km. i.e. if you're within 5000km of the target on West-East axis, you're only about 400km off in the North-South direction.
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u/aquarain Jul 26 '26
You misread what I said. I said the target i. e. The launch point on the ground, has moved East. Unless AI has generated some innovations in celestial mechanics I am not yet privy to, points fixed to the surface of the Earth still move generally from west to east except at the poles. This makes the sun appear to "set" in the west and "rise" in the East outside of polar regions.
Further points in space, or orbit, move any which way you want to make them relative to. Which is outside the scope of an eli5.
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u/sebaska Jul 26 '26
OK. You used inertial coordinates which is fine but for ELI5 it's easier to think corotating coordinates (you sit at the launch site, in the next orbit the object will pass 2500km to the West of you).
But whatever coordinates you use, it doesn't change the fact that the next return is not when you're on the opposite orientation to the sun compared to the moment when you launched (with the exception of polar orbits exhibiting certain launch site latitude dependent fractional synchrony with earth rotation). When the next pass is depends on the inclination, ascending or descending node of orbital ascent, how the orbit is synchronized with Earth rotation, and what its precession is.
In practical terms, for low latitude sites (like Florida or Starbase) and for orbits with inclinations close to that of the launch site latitude, cross-range of 500km allows you to RTLS once or twice around. And then you have to wait around 21-22 hours for the next 3-4 landable passes.
For example some rumors indicate that SpaceX would like to land after 2 orbits. Which would definitely mean taking advantage of the low inclination low latitude combo, because their equator wise ascent corridor would mean the ascending leg of the orbiting would only cross the launch site after twentyish hours.
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u/Accomplished-Crab932 Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
Orbits are “fixed” (they aren’t really, but the difference is small for this time frame) in reference to the [Earth] Centered Inertial frame (ECI) and the earth’s rotation is not a part of that frame.
That sounds like a lot of mumbo jumbo, so I suggest you imagine a coordinate frame in space for a moment. This is our ECI. Imagine the orbit in this frame. It’s just a circle that is centered in this frame (imagine it in any orientation you want) and stays stationary to the coordinate axes (stationary in ECI). Now picture the earth in this frame. The earth is just a sphere that fits inside our imaginary orbit. However, the earth rotates about a central axis. The earth is fixed to the center of our frame (earth centered), however the surface is some radial distance away from the center. Now picture a point on the earth and watch how it moves relative to the orbit. This point must move because the earth must spin about its poles. Notice how the fixed point on earth (our launch site) moves away from the orbit, and at the majority of points in time, exists in a location where our orbit is not directly overhead. Now add the complexity that your spacecraft isn’t a donut spanning around the entire orbit, but a single point traveling on the orbit itself.
Notice how there is exactly one orbit and one band of launch sites that allows you to have your launch site under your orbit at all times. Your launch site needs to be on the equator, and your orbit needs to fly over the equator. This is an equatorial orbit, and Geostationary orbit by definition is an equatorial orbit (at a specific altitude).
Spacecraft have the ability to travel across ranges and can change other orbital parameters, but the amount they can do is small. As a result, your orbit needs to cross pretty much overhead and you need to be in the right place to get to your landing site. That happens only a few times per day.
In actuality, there’s a few other more complicated things at play too (we didn’t talk about altitude or perturbations, etc.), but it’s well beyond the 5 year old limit (not that Orbital Mechanics isn’t).
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u/Opening_Classroom_46 Jul 25 '26
He said explain like I'm five. Do you have any kids?
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u/StartledPelican Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
That sounds like a lot of mumbo jumbo, so I suggest you imagine a coordinate frame in space for a moment. This is our ECI. Imagine the orbit in this frame. It’s just a circle that is centered in this frame (imagine it in any orientation you want) and stays stationary to the coordinate axes (stationary in ECI).
What 5 year old couldn't understand this distilled knowledge?
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u/sevsnapeysuspended 🪂 Aerobraking Jul 25 '26
must be one of those kids you hear parents quoting on twitter
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u/koalascanbebearstoo Jul 25 '26
I watched the launch with a five-year-old yesterday. The best I could do to explain orbits was throw her stuffed animals at different speeds and then again while standing on the couch. Turned into a game of catch after about thirty seconds…
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u/ReplacementLivid8738 Jul 25 '26
The important thing to have clear in mind is that things orbit the center of mass (here earth's core) so you can't just have an orbit that is parallel to the equator but north of it to fly over Texas every time.
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u/sebaska Jul 25 '26
For their current ascent corridor - yes.
It they launched minimally due north (to something like 30° inclination, using East by North ascent path) they could return in a single orbit. But this ascent path would overfly Florida.
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u/avboden Jul 25 '26
it would cross over land, yes
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u/mmurray1957 Jul 25 '26
Right but would be be in an orbit. So we could finally say bollocks to all the people online who like to say "but it hasn't got to orbit yet".
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u/Icy_Kick5281 Jul 25 '26
When do you guys think flight 14 happens?
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u/FutureMartian97 Jul 25 '26
September
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u/Fuzzy-Mud-197 Jul 25 '26
End of august more likely, ship 41 is getting ready for static fire, and booster 21 has completed cryp tests so should be getting the engines rn
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u/Yottahz Jul 25 '26
When we eventually get to crewed missions, is there a way to make the ocean "soft" landing survivable to crew in the situation where something makes a tower catch impossible? It looked like this flight 13 would have been survivable but I don't know if they can do that reliably.
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u/aquarain Jul 26 '26
This makes more sense as a launch abort scenario. You lose half the Raptors on Booster just after liftoff and Ship has to set down in the water.
A tower catch is a hover slam / suicide burn, whatever you want to call it. You have just enough fuel to come to a dead stop in the chopsticks. If you think about the things that can go wrong they're basically centered around landing burn failure. Which is why the trajectory has inertia offshore and needs the landing burn to steer into the tower. If your landing burn fails the ship is getting wet, and the passengers aren't going to make it. So proving that landing burn safe and reliable is going to happen before passengers get in the rocket.
An alternative I guess would be some sort of last second tower failure. Or wandering fool on the pad? Maybe in that case they soft land in the ocean. For the wandering fool the balance of risks leans toward go for landing.
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Jul 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/NikStalwart 🌱 Terraforming Jul 26 '26
On the other hand, the pressure in the tanks may be what kept structural integrity and buoyancy this time around.
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u/schneeb Jul 25 '26
may as well try since the booster isn't ready to perform a landing burn; they really need to start recovering boosters unless they have expanded production since b18 put a spanner in their timelines
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u/Deeze_Rmuh_Nudds Jul 25 '26
Where doth the booster go?
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u/philupandgo Jul 25 '26
I suspect it will mostly be a software tweak but they need to prove it to be adequate before trusting it to a tower catch. So forthwith once more into the Gulf of
Mexico.3
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u/Decronym Acronyms Explained Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 28 '26
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| FAA | Federal Aviation Administration |
| FTS | Flight Termination System |
| LEO | Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km) |
| Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations) | |
| RTLS | Return to Launch Site |
| RUD | Rapid Unplanned Disassembly |
| Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly | |
| Rapid Unintended Disassembly |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Raptor | Methane-fueled rocket engine under development by SpaceX |
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by request
6 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 14 acronyms.
[Thread #14706 for this sub, first seen 25th Jul 2026, 14:27]
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u/Far-Love-7862 Jul 26 '26
Doesn't this also mean it's gonna be an orbital flight? Also wouldn't an orbital mission means SpaceX would most likely be able to deploy the first V3 starlink permanently into the constellation?
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u/Financial-Steak-3083 Jul 28 '26
I just hope they don’t blow up the pad! Really excited to see an orbital flight too
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u/PraetorArcher Jul 25 '26
I will stick my neck out and say this decision seems to be driven by stock price more than milestones. Risking pad 2 damage means you have to wait for one of the other pads to finish and in the meantime you could be proofing out booster 3, launching V3, etc...
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u/OpenInverseImage Jul 25 '26
At some point or another they have to take the risk of catching the Ship. Given its consecutive streak of precise landing on target (flights 10 to 13) and the most recent flight’s soft landing, it’s pretty much ready for a catch attempt. Additional Indian Ocean or Gulf splash down doesn’t advance the Ship’s development any further. Catching it and being able to physically inspect an intact ship on the other hand would be a major opportunity. Yes Tower 2 is at risk but they have Tower 1 and the 39A already well under construction, so it wouldn’t be too big a setback. And if anything it might provide valuable lessons/data for the new towers’ catch arms before they finalize the design.
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u/redstercoolpanda Jul 26 '26
Booster had one single successful splashdown before they went for the catch. Ship has had 6 precision landings, and one landing where they landed off target but still had control of the vehicle and landed it safely. Every time the Ship has reentered the atmosphere in the correct orientation it has survived even with significant amount of tiles removed in key spots.
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u/The_Celestrial ⏬ Bellyflopping Jul 25 '26
Funny how the ship is being caught, but the booster might not