• @rImITywR
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    6 months ago

    the explosion, which took place at its Boca Chica Starbase facilities

    The raptor testing stand at McGregor experienced an anomaly

    Well, which is it? I’m going to trust NASASpaceflight over this article and go with it was a McGregor. No where near Starbase. And that means it will likely have no effect on IFT4 as this article says.

    edit: Adding to this, the author of this article has no idea what they are talking about.

    The Raptor engines that are currently undergoing testing are SpaceX’s Raptor 2 engines

    So clearly nothing to do with IFT4, as Ship 29 and Booster 11 are already outfitted with their engines, non of which are Raptor 2s.

    On its last flight test, IFT-3, Starship finally reached orbital velocity and it soared around Earth before crashing down into the Indian Ocean. On the next flight, SpaceX aims to perform a reentry burn, allowing Starship to perform a soft landing in the ocean.

    IFT3 burned up on reentry, maybe parts of it made it to the ocean, but it was not crashing into the ocean that was the problem. IFT4 does not plan on doing a reentry burn. No one does a reentry burn from orbit. Starship uses a heat shield like every other orbital space craft. They are planning to attempt a landing burn, that is probably what they are talking about.

    • @[email protected]
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      746 months ago

      It waw McGregor. And while the explosion was spectacular, it happened on the test stand, so not much damage was done actually.

      • astrsk
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        6 months ago

        Yeah anyone following space YouTube has seen this a dozen times already and knows that it was a deflagration likely due to busted lines and not a detonation. The test stand is likely undamaged (In anysignificant way at least) and it was just an engine test of likely raptor 2 design. This has nothing to do with IFT4 or starbase as far as we can tell.