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Comment by russdill | Hacker News Reader

It's for the starship test flights. Given the nature of the program, the areas are currently "large":

https://x.com/planet4589/status/1765586241934983320/photo/2

It says they had to delay several flights over a period of a few weeks. Starship isn’t flying anywhere near that often. These are routine Falcon 9 flights and they should be able to have very tight windows in time and space.

My reading is that SpaceX was loose with their windows because it’s easier and they didn’t think it mattered in a remote part of the ocean. Now that there’s an actual reason, they’ll probably tighten it up.

No, these are delays for anticipated Starship reentries over the Indian ocean. Falcon 9 doesn't reenter there. They keep on scrubbing and rescheduling the launch, that's why it's been several times in the past few weeks.

Don't they typically dispose of falcon 9 second stages over the Indian Ocean? That would be happening much more often than test flights.

Those probably already have the tight reentry corridor the parent comment requests

I don't think they can get that tight, it's impossible to predict exactly how it's going to break apart.

Second stage and satellite disposal target is typically Point Nemo in the Pacific Ocean, 2688 kilometers away from the Pitcairn Islands, Easter Islands and Antarctica.

Nobody is flying or sailing at Point Nemo. The keepout zone typically has a massive 1000km diameter, but approximately 0 impact on anybody.

Second stages definitely are getting dropped elsewhere, commonly the southern Indian Ocean, as well. Point Nemo doesn't always or even often line up with the target orbit, and you can't keep second stages in space for extended periods of time, because the propellant needed to deorbit boils off.

> Nobody is flying or sailing at Point Nemo.

It looks like this flight is maybe a bit south of Nemo, but in the relative vicinity.

"Santiago Chile to Sydney AUS, 2-3x a week" [0]

https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/QFA28

0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42715277

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