I’ve been following closely the astounding progress in Boca Chica as SpaceX designs and builds their new Starship, all-purpose spacecraft. They’ve built 10 prototypes, 3 of which have already flown, constantly improving on the design and build process. Thanks to Gwynne Shotwell’s inspiring leadership and Elon Musk’s engineering genius, they’ve done this in a fraction of the time and cost that NASA takes for similar accomplishments. They have repeatedly said that they’re not building a Starship. They’re building a Starship factory. The focus is on the factory, not the ship.…
Read MoreDay: December 13, 2020
More about Starship Serial Number 8
This is a good, easily understandable overview of everything that happened with Starship Serial Number 8 the other day. Perfect for “amateurs” like myself. Turns out it did reach its goal of 12.5 kilometers and the engine failures during ascent were actually deliberate shutdowns so they could get more data about shutdown and restarts and how the other engines react to problems. There at the end something went wrong with the tank and the engines didn’t get the right mixture of fuel and propellant so it wasn’t able to slow…
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