Timeline for Why would Starship flight 3's Indian Ocean re-entry zone "maximize public safety" versus the Pacific Ocean re-entry zone?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
14 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 20 at 16:44 | comment | added | phil1008 | Thanks! Fixed it. | |
| Mar 20 at 16:44 | history | edited | phil1008 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Fixed links
|
| Mar 20 at 8:06 | comment | added | rghome | The "FAA Advisory" link just links to one of the images. | |
| Mar 15 at 21:00 | comment | added | phil1008 | @ErinAnne While "the same risk was present" may be true in a god's-eye-view sense, what counts is the risk assessment. For the earlier flights, they might have assumed, for example, that the engines would perform better, and there would be more propellant in reserve, thus lower risk. But, after IFT2, they had more empirical data on Starship's performance. This could have changed the outcome of the risk assessments between IFT2 and IFT3. | |
| Mar 15 at 20:50 | comment | added | phil1008 | For everyone's reference: IIP == "Instantaneous Impact Point" | |
| Mar 15 at 18:47 | comment | added | phil1008 | Good! I'll give it an upvote! | |
| Mar 15 at 10:56 | comment | added | The Rocket fan | I undeleted my answer since I think that it would be better if there is a combination of both your answer and my answer | |
| Mar 15 at 4:28 | comment | added | Erin Anne | You're right; I misread the concerns about landing on land. I still don't think they're valid--ascending to an orbital trajectory involves your IIP moving over a great circle in front of you, and that same risk was present before with the Pacific re-entry zone. But I still badly misread what you'd written and that's on me | |
| Mar 15 at 2:57 | history | edited | phil1008 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Added images from previous answer.
|
| Mar 15 at 2:33 | comment | added | phil1008 | @ErinAnne I don't quite understand your comment. I never mentioned any issue with what is further downrange from the landing site near Hawaii. If you can explain how you arrived at that interpretation, perhaps I can make some clarifying edits. | |
| Mar 15 at 2:27 | comment | added | phil1008 | @StevePemberton I don't think that IFT1 and IFT2 were necessarily unsafe if the fight termination systems were set to blow up the ships to avoid having them reenter over land. For those earlier flight tests, they may not have had enough data to predict whether the ships would make it as far as Hawaii. I think Elon's stating after IFT2 that the ship would have made it to orbit if it had had a payload is a bit of obfuscation though - I would like to see the evidence for that. | |
| Mar 14 at 22:06 | comment | added | Erin Anne | I don't understand why two people think that the previous Pacific hazard zone northwest of Hawaii is backstopped by land instead of the whole rest of the Pacific ocean to the east. | |
| Mar 14 at 19:48 | comment | added | Steve Pemberton | If that is the case that would mean the original plan for IFT1 and IFT2 was unsafe, and the change to a shorter flight for IFT3 made it safe. However neither the FAA or SpaceX has made any public comments about the previous profiles being unsafe (whether or not it was). Meanwhile SpaceX says the new profile change was because of the mid-flight burn they would be performing. The public statements (or lack thereof) doesn't disprove your theory, but it implies a bit of obfuscation by SpaceX, which of course is not impossible but harder to prove without evidence. | |
| Mar 14 at 19:08 | history | answered | phil1008 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |