SpaceX's 2nd Starship launch on Nov. 18: How it will work

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10 points·shaicoleman··5 comments

Any idea why they're not even going to try for a soft landing? If nothing else I'd have expected them to want to examine the returned vessel for any lessons they might pick up. ("Oh, gee, there's an unexpected burn mark here, I wonder if we can fix that before it becomes a problem.")

They haven't yet demonstrated that they can accurately steer it during reentry, nor that they can maintain communication with it in order to activate the FTS if they need to. So they're aiming it at a big empty patch of ocean, since aiming it at land would run the risk of missing the landing target by a significant distance and going somewhere populated.

Not that it changes your point, but I believe Starship is running an Autonomous Flight Termination System. This means that there is no communication required from the ground-side. If it goes outside its flight corridor the AFTS will terminate all by itself.

For traditional FTS the ground side is constantly sending the equivalent of a keep-alive message to the vehicle. If it loses that link the vehicle will terminate itself.

And I guess it's not worth hauling one of their landing boats off into the middle of nowhere, and then haul it back.

Thanks. That makes sense.

Additionally it’s cheaper to not risk a ship until they are relatively sure the boosters will be able to land on one, since it would need to be under the booster to try a landing.

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