SpaceX Declared This After Seeing Booster 12 Grid Fins During Hot-Staging of Flight 5!
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 18 окт 2024
- After SpaceX’s 5th flight of the Starship Super Heavy, I believe it has truly become a beacon of hope and innovation, not just for the space community but for technology as a whole. When Elon Musk first started the development of Starship, especially during its initial test flights, there were many doubters who said it wouldn’t work. I still remember hearing people question how this design could ever succeed in the world of rocketry, especially when compared to traditional rockets. But look at where they started and where they’ve gotten-with the very same design some called “foolish.”
While aerodynamics plays a role during the re-entry and landing phases, Starship is primarily built for vertical ascent through the atmosphere and space. Its design focuses more on successful vertical launches and spaceflight than on aerodynamic efficiency. If vertical ascent is a primary focus, all the components that support that function must be strong and reliable, right? However, there’s a problem.
During the 5th flight, after Starship’s Super Heavy stage separation, the grid fins became deformed! I’m not sure if you caught this during last Sunday’s flight, but it’s an issue the entire space team is closely examining. It seems that a significant improvement is needed, either with the grid fins or the hot-staging mechanism.
Among all the systems onboard, the grid fins-often overlooked-are crucial for maintaining the vehicle's stability during re-entry and landing. Recent events, especially involving the B12 prototype, have highlighted both the strengths and the shortcomings of the grid fin system. This serves as a reminder that further refinement is essential as SpaceX continues its journey toward full reusability.
So, what are Grid Fins and Why Do They Matter?
Well, Grid fins are aerodynamic surfaces that help control the descent of Starship during the final stages of its flight. Unlike traditional fins, grid fins are perforated structures that allow air to pass through them, minimizing drag while providing precise control. Positioned near the top of the booster, these fins are deployed after re-entry, helping guide the vehicle to a pinpoint landing.
The grid fin system has been critical to the Starship program’s success, ensuring that the booster remains stable during descent and can be guided to its intended landing site. Despite their essential role, the grid fins have been somewhat overshadowed by the larger technological innovations-such as the Raptor engines and hot-staging techniques-that have garnered more public attention.
#starshiplaunch #starship #ift5
If you think some minor warping is going to slow down Spacex development while they fix it, you’re out of your mind. It’s a minor problem that could be fixed immediately if they dropped the use of ‘hot staging’. This was a test, and engineers more experienced than the narrator will assess how to go forward.
they plan on using hot staging for the rest of the development, after the first flight they realized it was best option for it. Hot staging will be taller on the next booster
Simply aligning the blank parts of the spacer with the grid fins should probably solve the problem.
it's even easier. They planned to use titanium, but not at test phase, because it's not worth the money. They fact it landed on iron/steel grid fins is great.
Once it's actual production, titanium most likely will fix it and it's gonna be one time cost.
Secondly, they can change the channeling of hot stage ring so it directs the exhaust everywhere but to the places where are the grid fins.
First, the hot staging ring has to stay, otherwise there’s no separation, or without some kind of active force to push them apart. Since anything is going to add weight, the easiest way is to fold the grid fins.
And whereas the damage was “minor”, over multiple launches, it will continue to degrade until a complete failure of the grid fin. That’s a real flight safety issue. And yes, they will fix it rapidly. That’s the point of these test flights. SpaceX is already way safer and successful than NASA was during the Saturn development program.
It looks like they have to overcome an awful lot of “minor problems” before this (don’t get me wrong, impressive booster) becomes the fast turn around vessel Musk has promised us. I’m still having my doubts about the entire concept. I’m convinced the booster will be able to take some serious loads to orbit, but launching it again in hours? As for starship, that’s even more troublesome. It partially burned up this time as well and exploded on landing.
Did this negatively affect steering or the catch landing, No. This is an inspection list item and does Not invalidate it's design.
SpaceX has and is obviously very capable of improving what needs improving. Never in history has something this complicated been done this effectively and efficiently in the time frame that SpaceX has been doing this.
They are by far the most innovative, capable and dependable company in this field the world has ever seen.
Agreed. Personally I'm not even convinced the warping is even a problem that needs fixing. Titanium is incredible strong and doesn't lose it's strength after being heated and cooled like this. The warping doesn't negatively effect the control authority of the grid fins and they aren't any weaker for it. The exhaust from hot staging is used by the grid fins to steer the rocket away and flip around so I feel like this is just expected wear of a designed feature.
I love that you 'get it'. I agree with all you say.
Elon has already out done Nasa by a long shot.
Around 53% of NASA employees are unionized. No surprises there.
Not yet honestly. In a couple years they will
@texasbrisket7725 if you take in account the money to progress, in an equal time frame, they very much so have outshined NASA. I would have to give a majority of the credit to the difference in the ways they come at the industry. One is no failure ever attitude, and the other one, learn from the failures. That's government vs private company though. Advantage to SpaceX.
HONEYCOMB (HEXAGON) PATTERN GRID FINS WOULD BE STRONG AND COULD HELP STRENGTHEN THE FINS INSTEAD OF WARPING.
Grid fins are a minor issue at this testing phase , recovery of super heavy provided a treasure trove of information for future innovation of every component of the booster 💪
Phase
Your English teacher must be so proud (Not). Phase and trove are the proper words that you were looking for.
@@EssGeeSee
No comment on his thought process? Just spelling criticism?
@@jamesradford9098
It didn’t spoil his message, did it.
so what if he mispeled it. You still understood what he write
This is why is called a test article. To find things wrong and fix or upgrade them.
Can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to the next flight
I think SpaceX knows more about the grid fins than we do and they are very proactive . They are not waiting on our opinion.
Yes you are quite right, but seeing the way the fins were made from flat plate it has no strength laterally especially when extreme temperatures hits them from near freezing to very very hot, but interesting to see how they resolve it, it's brilliant to see each progress especially after the return and catch of the booster. 🏴👍
I see no reason why SpaceX should pay attention to my opinions about rockets...
@@yootoober2009It's good to show interest. 😊
Opinions are like assholes.
We all have one !! 😊
True. But our speculation is part of our keen interest in the program. Honestly, I doubt SpaceX even looks at these posts. Only fans are really interested in these comments.
If you look at the official renders of the upcoping boosters of Starship V2 and V3 from this years starship update, you can see that they're planning to put the grid fins a little lower than on this version. And additionaly they are redesigning the hot staging segment already. So I don't see a big problem here.
I’m sorry but what is the issue exactly? They are already working on new grid fins and a new hot staging system. Also they could easily paint the fins with thermal paint or even just replace the fins after each use. Melt down the old ones and recast a new set. The refurbishment process can address all of this. Yet again let me ask what is the issue?
The issue with some people is SpaceX having no issues 😉
The problem with this argument, about deformed grid fins, is the fact they are still robust & resilient to work as aerodynamic control surface. They do not have to be pretty, and they don't have to have straight lines. So long as they have control authority during booster descent, then they are working as designed. You could have made remarks about the material design using stainless steel vs something else like titanium grid fins used in Falcons. There are weight considerations vs the grid fins working good enough. At this stage of the starship early development, it might be a design detail left for the final phases towards completion.
That is not a real problem. This gridfin deformation is the typical pattern of expanding struts that are constrained in a grid. The struts expand because of the heat. As soon as they cool down they shrink again and the deformation disappears.
My only concern is that there the expansion clearly isn't uniform - so there would be stress cracking going on with repeated expand/contract cycles. On a one-off vehicle - no problem - but on a reusable craft - that's a MASSIVE maintenance issue. If you have to X-ray the grid to check for cracking after such-and-such number of flights - that's VERY bad news!
The deformation didn't disappear.
Im willing to bet $1.00 that there are multiple other issues that they are working on, this is the 5th iteration.
Yeah, I agree with you. I’m worried about the starship itself: warping of the engine bells for instance. SpaceX development is iterative. I’m quite certain that this has already been or will be mitigated with relative ease.
That is the intent of iteration. Spend time and money fixing stuff that doesn't work, while keeping all the stuff that did.
So you win your bet!
@@christophernickell5744Remember the Booster is generation 1 of 3, and that version 2 is being built.
This is no more than an approximation of the Superheavy that will launch humans.
One of the reason why SpaceX is ahead of the pack is that they do not let any stone unturned. Any component is a top priority and every component is critical. We need to realize that this IFT especially the IFT5 and all upcoming IFTs are all checkboxes that SpaceX needs to do to perfect the Starship. Even the rocket boosters are now in gen3, the staging ring is still in the early development and still undergoing procedural transformations in every flight before the final design is ready...
I think one of the simplest fixes would be to rotate the grid fins into a vertical alignment thus only exposing the side of the grid fin. This would leave you with one surface that you could easily reinforce. I have seen people suggest folding them down like falcon9 but that adds parts and complexity two things Elon Musk and SpaceX hate as this just creates a new point of failure.
Vertical alignment would add an additional possible failure point. What if one sticks in vertical position or only rotates a 1/4 or half way to horizontal, or two or three do? Like I said above. They cold do a short 2 second burst for sep, then go full throttle or move the fins Dow one meter. Thoughts?
Yeah - that's a good idea. My concern would be that un-rotating them while in free-fall would have to be carefully handled to avoid inducing high-speed, unwanted rotation. But Musk has said (on several occasions) that he wants to get rid of them altogether - or (at a minimum) have fewer (and smaller) fims...so perhaps nobody cares because it's all going to change anyway.
They already showed the block 2 booster renders with the fins moved further down. That's all that needs to be done is move them down
The most impressive technical achievements of recent years for me:
Nudol launch and Starship landing
Yeah if you keep the grid fins parallel to the side of the rocket like the falcon 9 booster and only activate them after hot staging they can avoid a lot of the deformation issues
Great point!
However you add another component and point of failure. You would be better served by rotating the grid fins to a vertical position exposing only the side of the grid fin to the blast
They removed the folding portion because it's an additional point of failure and weight.
No matter what they do something additional will need to be added whether it's a grid fin or hot stage update.
I’m quite certain space x hasn’t thought of that! Amazing that some random dude on RUclips figured out the problem before the hundreds of engineers at space x!
The stillshot at 4:35 of an engineer working inside the top of the booster gives a good idea of the sheer size it.
I think that's just the force of the 2nd stage bending the inner grid rather than anything melting. Maybe increase the thickness a little bit.
Thermal expansion seems like the most likely cause for the warping - if so, they'll contract again and straighten out as they cool...but then you'd have to be concerned over cracking over many, many flights.
Falcon 9's grid fins were steel at first. their are plenty of pictures online of them scorched, warps and patched up. they now use titanium, which might be to expensive for super heavy. i know that the falcon 9 ones are/were the largest anyone titanium product machined from a single block.
So was it the titanium grid fin we watched deform in this clip?
probably they arent using the final titanium fins becouse they know its still a prototype and they will use good ones in the final product
@@JaggedJack1 Super heavy has steel grid fins.
true, I really don't think it's a big problem for them on those Grid Fins and pretty sure they already knew about it. They're probably only waiting till the booster is as reliable as F9's
Exactly this is no big deal they didnt want to loose expensive titanium grid fins every test flight
I bet Spacex had a design for a more heat resistant grid fin before this thing ever left the ground. But why use the heavier more durable version if you don't need to? This is a minor fix for Spacex. I still can't believe they caught that thing as if it was nothing!
I think, from the camera angle, that SpaceX wasn't all _that_ surprised.
They clearly wanted to look at how the hot staging affected the grid-fins.
I think it's important to not skip over the question of "Is this actually even a problem?" At first sight, it seems like it might be a problem because they obviously didn't intend for it to happen. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they didn't expect it. It doesn't mean that this is considered "damage", and it doesn't mean that the grid fins aren't strong or reliable. I assume the warping goes away after it cools back down. Either way, it didn't stop the booster from making a perfect landing. My only question would be how will the grid fins hold up to these repeated thermal stresses over dozens of flights. I wouldn't be surprised though if that's a question SpaceX has already asked, analyzed, and green lighted. It's not like there aren't lots of other components on the ship and booster that operate within design tolerances. Maybe this is just one of them.
I'm not saying that it's definitely not a problem, but I'm extra skeptical about this because you titled the video "SpaceX Declared This...", but then never actually quoted anything directly from SpaceX on the subject. You just said a bunch of things in your own opinion, and in my mind, that's very untrustworthy.
You cannot stop steel from warping if heated and cooled unevenly. Plus those minor warps were they are will not effect it enough to worry about
It's a closed-loop control system - so you move the fin a bit - measure how much it changed the orientation of the booster - then move them a bit more or a bit less until the booster is aimed in the right direction. Do this like 100 times a second. Something like that will automatically compensate for warping or damage or unpredictable airflow, etc.
You can minimize the warping by making slight changes to the interior bars to minimize their axial stiffness. A. make the bars wavy to reduce axial stiffness, or B. Make bars parallel to those along edges, or do nothing if it does not effect functionality.
SpaceX knew perfectly well the fins were going to melt. They went through the steel Grid fins melting thing with Falcon development. The solution is titanium grid fins. Doubtless when they start building boosters they actually intend to reuse they will switch to Titanium. In the meantime steel is much cheaper and works fine for a single use.
A new day, a new future.
My idea: fold in the grid fins before take-off. This even improves the aerodynamics during ascent. The fins can then be unfolded immediately after hot staging. No motors are needed for this, just some hydraulics. It could be that after the booster has turned, the air pressure and gravity also help to unfold the fins. And they should research better alloys. They could also think about using graphene as heat insulation.
unexpected problems are always something you'd look forward to specially considering SpaceX's rocket tests before this where the rapid unscheduled disassembly term came from
I find it somewhat difficult to believe that I am the first person to notice that SpaceX has shown a potentially adequate inclination toward overcoming technical difficulties.
I do like this video, I like seeing all the details. I like thinking that many engineers will smile as they watch videos like this one.
I expect they will find a way to eliminate parts and improve reliability. It's habit they picked up somewhere.
SpaceX has already stated that since this is the development phase they are using Stainless steel because it's cheaper. Once they know they can recover the booster every time they will switch to Titanium like they use on the falcon boosters. This is the SpaceX way.
Great details video to show the damages of the grid fins during hot stage
It's an easy fix but interesting damage nonetheless
The grid fins were made from stainless steel to save cost thus this deformation was expected and not an issue. If I recall correctly, Falcon 9's grid fins were also stainless steel until they proved themselves then they were switched over to much more expensive but durable titanium.
That what testing is for under real condition … they doing an impressive development work; and we can watch from the comfort of our couches each milestone they achieve.
CRAZY IDEA-- --> Just slit alternate fin mid-segments with an angular slit that will allow for expansion and contraction. 😊
The grid fins are hold over from falcon because it's something that they understand. It wouldn't surprise me if they replaced them with strakes, similar to what blue origin uses. They would have more aero authority, and the leading edge could be covered with tiles. That also would reduce weight, as they would only need two.
Well, this is a test program and these are prototypes. Nothing about these early launches are about trying to make the next flight a commercial launch. They've been able to retain a booster in tact for the first time and have surveyed it, inspected it and are learning tons from it. I think they could try to catch both the booster and the ship in the next test. They have Starship perform a 2nd burn to stabilize its orbit while the boosted is moved off the pad and down the road. Then validate the pad is good to go and deorbit the ship for a catch attempt. Having landed 2 of them in the ocean shows that even if it is damaged it can maintain control. Just like the booster they can have it perform its default landing in the water instead of redirecting to the pad.
Maybe they can shield the areas where grid fins are on the hot staging ring
Each of the individual grid sections are in fact wings. They provide "lift" in a direction and pressure that depends on its angle to the wind. Because there are so many of the wings that any angle of attack can be corrected by rotating the grid.
The fins will work well, even if many sections are bent or distorted.
Additionally, they are readily accessible if they need to be changed.
Elon Musk has said that 'hotstaging' is a temporary solution for originally separation from Booster is intended without that idea.
Very cool. You catch on something others missed and this is not a repetative report reported already by 20 AI videos.
Guys, we can wait. After watching that last show we're good to go for quite a while so fo ahead and fix whatever you need to and we'll be patiently awaiting your next launce.
There is an easy fix here, altering the vent holes in the hot stage ring so the gases are not directed into the fins, this is a cheaper solution than altering the fins themselves selves.
Can anyone think straight yet? It's now the 17th and I _still_ can barely even tie my shoes right. This completely scrambled my brain...
A leafing edge profile change is all thats needed vs blunt flat bars
Gridfins Solution: Rotate the gridfins 180 degrees for separation; the gridfins are designed to take stress/airflow in that direction, not from the reverse.
A simple flame deflector on the hot staging ring above the grid fins would help...
A deflector on the hot stage at the specific point of the fins could prevent direct heating of the fins. A quick fix that could probably be welded on the hot stage with no other changes.
when it has a retracting swiming pool and bendy palm trees I'll give musk credit
2:37 “ These fins are deployed after re-entry”
Wrong, unlike the Falcon boosters Super Heavy fins are not stowed for launch. The thinking being that the weight of the stow and extend mechanism is more of a penalty than the aerodynamic drag during launch. This of course may change if they were damaged by the hot staging.
Elon said early on they are using steel now because it’s cheap to use in prototypes. I’m sure they will use titanium in final design.
Details that must be taken into account for future releases, thus increasing the reliability of a good design, whose purpose is reuse. Buen video.
I honor of the "most fantastic thing we've ever witnessed; I declare all Waffles be made 12" X 12: square and called: Space X Waffles. I'm getting hungry.
The heat will obviously cause the metal to expand - and because of it's shape, differential heating will cause warping. What's unclear is whether hot staging is here to stay. Having the non-reusable hot staging ring MUST be a temporary measure...which means that the present scheme isn't their long-term solution. The point of doing hot staging was to reduce or eliminate the amount of time that StarShip is in free-fall following stage separation and before main engine start. That saves fuel and therefore improves payload capacity...but perhaps with Raptor-3 engines. that won't be necessary...perhaps they can add a permanent structure at the top of SuperHeavy that could deflect the Ship's exhaust away from the grid fins...seems like there are multiple possible solutions here. The Grid fins seemed to work just fine with deformations - so maybe SpaceX don't care? Musk has also said (on many occasions) that he's like to get rid of the grid fins altogether (that was in one of those long interviews with Everyday Astronaut) - and that reducing to two large fins and one small one would be OK. They could also move the fins further down the structure (at some cost to control authority)...there are LOTS of ways to fix this.
The little warping that I see does not concern me.
Yes, however if they do it multiple times as day, which is the plan, it will get worse
Just switch to silicon containing high temperature titanium alloy, and presto, problem solved.
NO BIG DEAL....
Basic materials science: Grid fins are a trivial fix, there are definitively more expensive, higher temperature materials available. Spacex is just gonna have to balance a cost vs performance.
I would wager that's internal stresses built up in the metal during fabrication of the fins. The flash heating from the hot staging soften the metal just enough for the strain to deform the metal. Preheating the metal before and during fabrication should prevent it.
Maybe they can rotate the grids 90 degrees for that moment of exposure to the stage separation, then cycle them back to the perpendicular position after separation?
An upgrade to hexagonal, smaller and thus a more rigid structure could mitigate the warpage. Slightly more weight but manageable.
I’m tired of seeing these satellites over my house. It’s throwing off the Star vibes when I sight see
If I remember correctly when the hot staging ring is permanently mounted on the booster. The grid fins will be lower
No issue. Fins can work like this many lanches after. It's more an estetical and psychological issue.
Minor issue. Effective surface area probably not changed. Maybe heating has enabled normalisation of areas of stress
Yeah maybe the heat deformed them a bit but not enough to not function anymore. This would be a small damage if you think of the damage to the flaps on Starship while reentering the athmosphere.
It was like watching someone jump the Grand Canyon on a tricycle. I mean, I get it but even after watching it I _still_ can't really believe it. I _know_ he had a big ramp and a V8 on his tricycle but my brain just can't make sense of it. The _Grand Canyon..._ A _Tricycle..._ Yeah, I just can't...
Great video.
NASA, $20M refit, SpaceX, $25K.
Talk about a storm in a teacup. The fins worked perfectly, even if they were a bit warped. Swap out after each flight, recycle the old ones and Robert’s yer mother’s brother.
Why not just design the grid fins as pre-heat-treated fins? Include a tensile reverse-deformity as part of the design so that they keep their nice standard shape after applying heat. I'm sure they will show something that has to do with the fact that they are tightly constructed in a grid shape which caused this. These metals get longer when they are heated, so perhaps they can be designed with slides at key points in the fin to still allow it to have structural integrity.
Booster never went to outerspace. Why the grid fin damaged? Is it because of hot staging burn?
elon just needs to invent replusor's already come on man i want flying motorcycles!
Now your talking, excellent idea. 👍🏴
right. well, number one, the grid fins are made from titanium and can withstand far more then a split second of rocket exhaust. two, the blast the grid fin received was on purpose as a way to help the booster execute the flip maneuver. it actually actuates to encounter more exhaust pressure than it otherwise would if it didn't move at all. three, the warping of the lattice work is absolutely negligible. if it had warped at the frame and curved like a banana, you might've been on to something. so yea, good try.
Why separation is not helped by simple Relaxed Strong Springs attached to the 1st stage ??
I like the video. I was not aware of the grid fins warping before seeing this. Thanks very much for putting together a competent and informative piece. Certainly this affects the reusability as suggested. However, I don't think putting the brakes on things to solve the grid fins warping is going to happen. All evidence of SpaceX operations to the contrary. Look how far they have come because they are unafraid to test, because they are not inclined to slow down. I also don't think they will do away with hot staging. I think they will solve it. For all we know they have already solved it. Every iteration of super-heavy and starship has come with a plethora of upgrades and fixes.
We'll see. We still don't know what it's payload to orbit is.
This seems like a very minor issue that I am sure will be rectified.
SpaceX will address that before their next flight test, maybe they could copy the falcon 9 booster that grid fins are folded during ascent n is unfolded right before descent, yes it will add weight due to additional gears n mechanism but it will save the grid fins for future flights my opinion...😊
Why in the world would you claim that everything on the booster has to work perfectly in order to catch it? You just told us how dangerous the deformation of the grid fins we just witnessed is and yet the tower caught it nearly flawlessly. Just curious how you think 🤔.
And by the way, an orange loosely formed flame like that is not nearly hot enough to melt titanium only mildly soften it. If not for the extreme aerodynamic force on that area you would never have noticed anything.
are the grid find aluminium or titanium?
it is no problem . in the 2 version the grids are lower . so they will survive better .
i am worried more about the tower and the arms . it was not a safe catch . the arms can bend and the truster can slide out .
Wait, people think the ship landing in the ocean is 'part of the plan'? It's for current testing purposes as that is where it lands with it's fuel usage and consumption. Lol. The plan isn't to ALWAYS land in the ocean. JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZ
Here is my idea for the fins. If they stay in the closed position until the booster is separated. Them open up after while in a zero G environment.
They would have to add that functionality to it because right now they don't have a closed position. It's hard to imagine that they would do that though because it would probably add a lot of complexity and weight. I'm guessing that they will figure something else out like redesigning the grid fins in a way that allows for more expansion without warping, or modifying the hot staging ring, if it turns out that this is even a problem.
MY IDEA: again I’ll say it, is it a bad idea to let’s say for the next couple flights, instead of landing the ship, we load it with fuel for the payload, launch it and set it in a LEO 🤷♂️ that way we don’t waste anymore ships and we have fuel reserved in space for farther destinations!! 👌💯
it part of the game to improve every launch
Those fins could be easily made out of expensive composites or titanium. But not now before booster recovery is robust. It will be a waste to ditch titanium fins in the ocean. Better have them replaced for now.
Whatever happened to those grid fins didn't see it. Even so it's probably the cheapest thing to be replacing on that thing so make a bunch of them and replace them after each run.
To answer the question, no, I don't believe you'll see any change to the grid fins in the near term because there's no significant advantage from it. There's no point in optimizing a system that's still in development and can have significant changes occur in the design. You optimize the system when the design is stable, not when it's fluid. There may be changes done to the grid fin system to make them more robust when the boosters are actually being reused. However, there's no real value prior to that.
Grid fins act like feathers on an arrow
They could just make the area on the hot stage ring above the fins solid instead of slotted.
Grid fins are used as supersonic control. Thee are several papers on these devices.
The block 2 booster render shown litterally last year simply moves them down and out of the way of the superheated gas. This is a moot point
I think they need to turn grid fins vertically during hotstage
I think that they should try to land, not catch the ship next time. They could just build a concrete pad in Australia and try to land it there like they did with SN15. Not in an attempt to re-use the ship but to be able to inspect it to check for wear which will help improve the design. Especially looking at the heat shield post flight would be very beneficial.
You expect starship to simply land his many tons of steel, oxygen and methane on his engines softly and not explode instantly? there will not be much to check for wear after that "landing"
Can they? Yes. But the fly in the ointment is the residual fuel when the ship topples over, rupturing the tanks and explodes. A really big bang.
to by museli nainštalovať nohy a to je zbytocna zatay teraz je dolezite nauciť raketu lietat a pristavať na palicky.
Why not use landing legs/struts like on the Falcon 9?
Are they not titanium grid fin so for them to warp !
I don't see how these rockets are very green. When is Elon going to make electric spaceships?
When you put a cutting/blow torch on metal……ta dah !
I think this is totaly to be expected. if you think that they didn't account for thermal expansion you are well... you know.
They’re made of titanium. What do you, diamonds?