Ya, those 2 V2 failures that were the same was pretty brutal.
They are testing out new things on all those descents, and ya, I think they we’re surprised it survived some of them as well. They talk a lot about changes to the heat shield, moving flaps to different locations, and how they even remove tiles from critical areas to see if it will survive or not. That SS is doing a pretty good job on surviving, ignoring the impacts on any cargo/human inside.
Making that ship survive re-entry in a re-usable manner is going to be their biggest challenge I think, and if they can’t, that will really limit what they can do. They could still send stuff to orbit, but then they might need to deorbit every starship into the ocean then? That would be a really bad look. Refuelling wouldn’t be practical anymore as each refuel would waste a ship.
Edit: If memory serves, they want to land 2 in the ocean again, in a row and have it be precise, and if they can do that, try landing one back at starbase, so we’re at a bare minimum, 3 launches before they can even inspect a starship that survived and see what needs to be done, and if it’s even remotely close to being reusable or wrecked in ways they don’t know yet. For all we know that heat shield is completely destroyed and they have to go back to square 1.
Ya, those 2 V2 failures that were the same was pretty brutal.
They are testing out new things on all those descents, and ya, I think they we’re surprised it survived some of them as well. They talk a lot about changes to the heat shield, moving flaps to different locations, and how they even remove tiles from critical areas to see if it will survive or not. That SS is doing a pretty good job on surviving, ignoring the impacts on any cargo/human inside.
Making that ship survive re-entry in a re-usable manner is going to be their biggest challenge I think, and if they can’t, that will really limit what they can do. They could still send stuff to orbit, but then they might need to deorbit every starship into the ocean then? That would be a really bad look. Refuelling wouldn’t be practical anymore as each refuel would waste a ship.
Edit: If memory serves, they want to land 2 in the ocean again, in a row and have it be precise, and if they can do that, try landing one back at starbase, so we’re at a bare minimum, 3 launches before they can even inspect a starship that survived and see what needs to be done, and if it’s even remotely close to being reusable or wrecked in ways they don’t know yet. For all we know that heat shield is completely destroyed and they have to go back to square 1.