March 14, 7:00 a.m. CT: Starship's third flight test
twitter.comI'm very excited about this test! A few observations that will hopefully get you excited:
1. Starship is, by far, the most powerful rocket ever launched. At T-0 its engines thrust with over 7,000 metric tons of force--twice the Saturn V. Imagine bolting together two Saturn Vs side-by-side and launching them--that's how much power will be in tomorrow's launch.
2. Starship is on the critical path for the next US crewed moon landing--the first in more than 50 years. Why did NASA choose to depend on Starship? Of all the proposals, Starship offered the most capability (100 tons delivered to the moon's surface) for the lowest cost (about $3 billion). A less powerful rocket would have been enough for NASA to land 2 astronauts on the moon, but NASA took the long-term view that funding Starship would enable far more ambitious plans for much less money.
3. For this IFT-3 test, Starship will attempt to move cryogenic (super-cold) propellant between two internal tanks while in orbit--something that has never been done before. This test will allow Space X to develop the ability to refuel Starship while in orbit. With orbital refueling, Starship will be able to travel almost anywhere in the solar system.
4. Starship has thermal-protection tiles, like the Space Shuttle. Ultimately they hope that it will be able to survive re-entry and return to its launch pad. If Space X succeeds in re-using Starship for a reasonable cost, it will dramatically reduce the cost of space travel.
Sadly, I'm on the US West Coast, which means I'll have to get up at 5 AM to tune into the launch!
> Sadly, I'm on the US West Coast, which means I'll have to get up at 5 AM to tune into the launch!
Roughly 12.5 hours from my comment, for anyone playing along. 11pm AEDT tonight, or a reasonable 8pm AWST.
Could proving out this technology make SpaceX the most valuable company on Earth, for a while? They invested early in “cheap” tech for rockets, which seems to be paying dividends in spades. One company owns most of the active satellites in orbit.
Why would it? What SpaceX does affects very few people on the planet, compared to almost any company in the Fortune 500. Valuation of a private company is also hard to determine.
Even with owning most of the active satellites in orbit they only serve 2.6 million customers with Starlink. Those satellites are also designed to turn into trash in 5 years.
Here is the time conversion:
https://time.is/0700_14_Mar_2024_in_CT?Starship%27s_Third_Fl...
For everyone who knows their timezone offset, that's 2024-03-14 12:00:00 UTC.
Is there any way to watch the official livestream without signing up for something?
You can watch the Twitter stream using the embedded card on the SpaceX website[0]. Just click the Watch button and it will open the player, no account required.
[0]: https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-...
YouTube livestream I believe?
SpaceX stopped streaking on YouTube and now only stream on Twitter. Twitter is not a good video streaming platform. I prefer watching Everyday Astronaut's stream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixZpBOxMopc
Was just watching YouTube stream on “SpaceX” channel and right at launch a QR code cryptocurrency scam replaced the SpaceX feed. Not sure who fucked up but I’m guessing the marketing folks at SpaceX lost control of their YouTube creds.
I think SpaceX is now only streaming on X.com, not YouTube. Perhaps you were watching a copycat channel.
The channel name was “SpaceX”. Are these not unique in YouTube? Can you add spaces or other hidden characters to the beginning or end of a channel name?
Nope, channel names are not unique. Channel IDs are, which show up in the url of the channel