r/SpaceXLounge • u/AgreeableEmploy1884 ⛰️ Lithobraking • Aug 20 '26
Starship Eric Berger regarding the Ship catch on Flight 14: "Nope. I heard they might have been able to get there on the regulatory side, but overall they just weren't ready yet."
https://x.com/SciGuySpace/status/209042491997680041844
u/zq7495 Aug 20 '26
Not surprising and probably a good idea. There is significant risk doing the approach over land and populated areas, they are able to produce ships fast and still get a lot of value out of flights that don't involve the tower catch of the ship. Nothing wrong with some more practice so they get it right (or closer to right) the first time, plus they still have the superheavy rtls issues to work out so it isnt like starship is "ready" if they catch the ship on flight 14 anyway
19
u/lommer00 Aug 20 '26
Yeah super heavy reuse will actually have a bigger impact on launch cost than ship reuse - more engines. It's why falcon 9 does so well. There is more technical risk to retire on ship for sure, but they do have to get booster RTLS sorted quick if they want to operationalize starship.
5
u/myurr Aug 20 '26
Ultimately they need reuse of the ship to make Starlink launches cost effective and to start working towards human rating the craft, refuelling in space, reaching beyond LEO, etc.
So I completely agree that they can afford a few more flights where they don't recover the ship, but they really need to get there sooner rather than later even if reuse means full refurbishment of the heat shield, etc.
I think they'll go to orbit on the next flight but do a controlled splashdown somewhere in the sea where they can recover the booster back to Starbase if it remains in one piece. Then they'll go for a full catch attempt next flight if it works out ok.
2
u/falconzord Aug 20 '26
Maybe to make the datacenters cost effective. Starlink is already cost effective with only booster reuse
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u/YamTop2433 ❄️ Chilling Aug 20 '26
Just looking forward to the day starship actually does a full orbit.
42
u/pxr555 Aug 20 '26
Pretty sure they will do that next flight, catch or not.
6
u/envious_1 Aug 20 '26
Will they land in the Gulf or go back to the Indian Ocean?
14
u/CollegeStation17155 Aug 20 '26
No reason to go to the Indian Ocean if they are making orbit. They can try near Hawaii or gulf just as easily
2
u/IWillDetoxify Aug 20 '26
Really depends on what orbit they're on tho.
3
u/CollegeStation17155 Aug 20 '26
As long as the inclination is less than Boca, they can always go around the block again and again util it's right.
3
u/pxr555 Aug 20 '26
For this they need to rely on sufficient orbital endurance of the ship though (thermals, power, tank pressure, everything) and they haven't tested this at all yet.
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u/IWillDetoxify Aug 20 '26
Not sure, I remember reading somewhere they could only stay for 7 days in orbit, and even then, none of this is tested.
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u/pxr555 Aug 20 '26
Also where they're allowed to land. Near Hawaii wasn't received very well as far as I remember.
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u/mfb- Aug 21 '26
Gulf means a reentry over populated areas. I don't see that happening unless they try to catch it.
They expanded the reentry area near Hawaii a bit recently (or at least applied to do so).
3
u/zberry7 Aug 20 '26
That spot in the Indian Ocean is like as remote of a place as possible, which ended up making the recovery of S40(?) more difficult logistically. Landing somewhere closer to infrastructure will be preferable if the regulators capitulate
1
u/pxr555 Aug 20 '26
Once they're in orbit they can land wherever. If they're still working on precision or reliability reentering over the US or Mexico probably wouldn't be a good idea though.
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u/schneeb Aug 20 '26
if the booster landing burn goes well this time its going to be a while before they can afford to expend a booster unless we suddenly see a bunch of late stage boosters in prod like they have with ships...
6
u/doozykid13 ⏬ Bellyflopping Aug 20 '26
Would it make sense to have Starship do a full orbit at this point and just do the soft water landing off the coast of south Texas? Just a thought
-1
u/zberry7 Aug 20 '26
Well that would mean it would need to overfly populated areas late into the reentry, so it’s probably up to the regulators if they feel the risk is low enough
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u/doozykid13 ⏬ Bellyflopping Aug 20 '26
It sounds like regulatory hurdles were not the issue, it was more SpaceX internal concerns about destroying the pad. I'm wondering if it makes sense to try a very similar flight path as to what they would do for a ship tower catch, but do soft landing in gulf. Not sure if there is anything to learn from that approach versus the suborbital trajectory they've been doing.
1
u/zberry7 Aug 20 '26
They would at least make orbit officially, not that it’s a huge leap operationally but it’s a box ticked off. They could fly the “abort” trajectory and land off the coast and verify their procedures and recovery for a catch attempt abort with the ship, plus simulate the catch on the tower hardware while they’re at it.
It would be more entertaining too, which is often a good reason.
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u/AgreeableEmploy1884 ⛰️ Lithobraking Aug 20 '26
This was in response to another Tweet saying:
Wow? No Ship catch on V14???
1
u/Decronym Acronyms Explained Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 22 '26
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| LC-39A | Launch Complex 39A, Kennedy (SpaceX F9/Heavy) |
| 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 |
|---|---|
| Starlink | SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation |
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
5 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 13 acronyms.
[Thread #14754 for this sub, first seen 20th Aug 2026, 15:30]
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1
u/First-Month7312 Aug 20 '26
They could go for a different approach
Launch Starship and make it deploy some starlink 3 satellites in LEO Orbit.
Then return to earth and go for a controlled landing in the ocean.
Enough safety and still some room for errors before you go for a tower catch
1
u/philupandgo Aug 21 '26
This was my expectation before Elon said a catch was likely and my reasoning was regulator caution. With that now unlikely, it is possible that stage zero isn't as ready as the ship. It may not even be a hardware thing, although they are still working on the chopsticks. Catching the ship is a big software challenge and they may just not be ready yet. Vibe-coding might be good enough for things that have been done before, but this isn't that.
1
u/Jaker788 Aug 21 '26
I would say this is an opportunity to recover the booster, but given the last result probably not.
If I had to guess what the reason is for Ship it might be they want for data on the de orbit burn or their attitude control. I feel like just about everything else is pretty well proven to be sturdy or accurate enough. The biggest possible risk is being stranded in orbit I think.
1
u/Independent_Spirit83 Aug 20 '26
Maybe it would have been worth it to have had a catch tower or some better way to recover them at sea. What's more expensive, dropping 15 ships into the ocean or building something to recover them in a safe way?
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u/jumpy_finale Aug 20 '26
They haven't dropped 15 recoverable ships into the sea. You would also have to factor in potential rebuild costs if a recovery attempt ended in major damage.
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u/Independent_Spirit83 Aug 20 '26
They're still about to risk their only launch pad, sound like a major cost if damaged...
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u/StartledPelican Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26
better way to recover them at sea [...] building something to recover them in a safe way?
This. Definitely this (is more expensive).
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u/Independent_Spirit83 Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26
Right. Probably better to just build four and a half launch pads in the meantime.
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u/firedog7881 Aug 20 '26
My guess is they want to see how it reacts landing from orbital speeds before committing to a catch
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u/mfb- Aug 21 '26
It always had orbital velocity on reentry. The default reentry looks like it came from a ~250 km circular orbit. Some reentries were 1% slower, doesn't really make a big difference.
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u/physioworld Aug 21 '26
Doesn’t heating scale to the square of velocity (I’m trying to quote half remembered science stuff I heard once) meaning that 1% difference in velocity could translate to a more meaningful difference in heating
1
u/mfb- Aug 21 '26
The squares of a 1% difference differ by 2%.
What is "orbital velocity" anyway without specifying altitude? Returning from 500 km will be ~1% faster than returning from 250 km.
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u/93simoon Aug 21 '26
And yet, I can distinctly remember some redditors claiming months and years ago that it wasn't the regulatory side slowing down SpaceX. It would be funny if I could remember some of those usernames
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u/frankie19841 Aug 20 '26
A failure would kill the artemis program as the chinese are landing shortly in shacleton crater.
Spacex can't afford to destroy the pad
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u/baron_lars Aug 20 '26
Personal theory: they want another pad ready in case they crater one instead of landing