One thing I haven't seen any discussion of - what happened to the IFT-4 starship? It landed in the Indian Ocean and just sank? But that thing has six of the world's most advanced rocket engines, if you're China or India why wouldn't you salvage that?
Somehow I'm pretty certain that USA has made sure those are useless. ITAR etc.
Hmm how? Doesn't seem like they triggered destruction of starship on the last launch unless it was after it hit the water.
Anyone know if that is done or even possible?
Probably hang around until it sunk too deep for recovery or used it for target practice…
Is too deep for recovery a thing? I believe even manned submarines have reached the deepest point in the ocean (which is much deeper than most of the ocean), seems like multiple countries would have recovery capabilities.
The flight termination system (remotely detonated explosives) were likely triggered after splashdown.
Range safety is not the same as protecting secrets. The "destruct" charge in Starship is just big enough to disrupt the fuel supply to the engines. Depending on when it is used, more or less of a deflagration would follow.
I can't wait to see the enthusiast livestreams of a massive rocket being towed into port.
Sounds like a test for the ability to transport military equipment from the US to Australia in one hour or so.
Can starship can deliver meaningful terrestial payload, it's also a huge target.
It's about the same as it's low earth orbit payload - 100 tons.
Seems harder to shoot down than a cargo plane.
Starship would probably follow a ballistic trajectory like intercontinental missiles, so i would suspect you could use the same intercepters.
I'm thinking more support infra vunerable, launch tower can't be repaired fast like runway. Also huge tempo limitations - too expensive to build many towers - runway can accomodate multiple strategic airlift planes. Multiple of C5s can do 130 tons each with tanking, unload pretty fast and get out of dodge. Doubt Starship can get unload to <1 hour, which is about how long it will take a hypersonic/ballistic missile to go from PRC to AU. Also doubt Starship can compete on cost unless eventually hit Musk's 2-3m per launch, (C5s 100k per hour), so whatever mission makes using Starship critical, is also going to be in scenario where hitting starship/landing site is worthwhile.
What could be the potential cargo?
“The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's conceptual "Rocket Cargo" program envisions using suborbital rockets to swiftly deliver military cargo around the world in 90 minutes, called point-to-point delivery. Some at the Pentagon viewed the June Starship test launch as a crucial demonstration of this program, according to U.S. defense officials.”
Hows the rocket going to be transported back to the US?
Can Maersk do it?
Refuel and launch it from Australia, of course :)
Basically it's just saying the next flight they plan to recover the rocket from out of ocean rather than letting it sink.
This was finally made possible because of the AUKUS agreement that is getting rid of the ridiculous ITAR roadblocks, at least between US, UK, and Australia.