It's going both way slower than expected, but progress is also super rapid. This is exactly what they needed to get going with the Artemis moon landing. Without this catch they'd never be able to refuel cost effectively.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)

It looks like some small pieces blew off the booster and there was a little fire at the end, but they recovered it and can work on solving that for the next flight. What a catch.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I wonder how much they'll be able to learn through thoroughly inspecting the flown hardware. That's not a luxury they've had up until now. I would imagine it's way easier to figure out exactly how minor issues manifested when they can go through the booster with a fine toothed comb.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Elon said they've done an initial inspection and it's looking great. Also already found some stuff to improve that they'd never know without the catch

A few outer engine nozzles are warped from heating & some other minor issues, but these are easily addressed.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I'm eager to see how they'll address the nozzle warping. I wonder if they would do a short reentry burn after all, or whether changes to the flight profile or engine shielding would be sufficient.

[–] NotMyOldRedditName 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

With the changes in raptor 3 getting rid of the heat shields I'm wondering what this means as well. It warped with a heat shield. Prior to this, they didn't think raptor 3 needed one, but does this change things?

[–] synapse1278 3 points 2 days ago

They won't have this chance with the starship, although they tried. The splash-down seamed relatively smooth, but the starship exploded soon after.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Can you imagine going back to the Apollo era and showing them this video and going just land it on the launch pad again. Obvious really.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 days ago

That's completely mental... Space X engineers are phenomenal.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Watching it was incredible, however not surprising. This is just an evolution of what SpaceX has gotten good at. They're "just" changed the point where it stops, with less stress on the rocket and less parts to fail (the landing gear). I know there's a lot of complexity behind it working, this isn't downplaying the effort. It's applauding how they're slowly making reusable rockets common.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

The thing is they're the only people working on reusable rockets even NASA have given up with the idea (after barely even trying).

So every milestone increases the likelihood that will get more reusable rockets now that they've proven the concept in sound.

[–] Dead_or_Alive 2 points 2 days ago

I wouldn’t say they are the only ones, New Glen is supposed to be a partially reusable rocket.

Others like Rocket Lab are working on smaller “printable” rockets. So there is definitely a lot of innovation going on in the industry.