It’s the structure that rolls under the rocket to allow techs to work on the engines and stuff while it’s vertical. It rolls out of the way, behind some heat shielding, before and during launch. Looks like the heat shielding failed or it moved, either way it got cooked.
becausechemistry
joined 10 months ago
A redneck missing half his teeth can make meth in a Gatorade bottle in a Wal-Mart bathroom. I could probably figure it out. But that would be pretty bad for my career.
As an actual professional organic chemist, ironically, these make my eyes hurt.
Reusable
Let’s save that term for hardware that’s demonstrated reuse in operational flights. So far, I think it’s only Falcon 9, New Shepard, and Electron that have launched paying customers on a reused booster.
In this case, they tried to weaponize the law against an enemy and it didn’t work.
Let’s see what they do next. Do they drop it? Does he suddenly fall down some stairs or shoot himself in the back of the head three times? Basically, are they wannabe fascists or the real thing?
Well, my rocket can get 250 tons to LEO. It’s also just a CAD model but like 75% of these are too.
SpaceX was founded in 2002, and announced Falcon 9 in 2005. By 2010 they launched, in 2013 they started propulsive landing experiments, and in 2015/16 they landed on a pad / a drone ship. About 13 years from founding to reuse, and ten years from F9 announcement to reuse.
Blue Origin was founded in 2000, declared first stage reuse a priority in 2013, announced New Glenn in 2016, launched in early 2025, and landed in late 2025. 25 years from founding to reuse, and 9 years from NG announcement to reuse.
I guess the difference is that SpaceX was making money in those intervening years, and Blue was content to, uh, do a lot of simulations I guess.
I am once again begging people to not post headlines that start with “Trump, 79,” that doesn’t end with. Well. You know.
I am once again begging people to not post headlines that start with “Trump, 79,” that doesn’t end with. Well. You know. The start of the party.
The view from the NSF stream right now looks like the lower section blew open sideways. Maybe they were pressure testing the methane tank and it didn’t go well?
So that’s a proposed upgrade from about 2,460 kN to 2,847 kN per BE-4, or about 15-16%. If nothing else it’ll help NG do something other than crawl upwards off the pad. (For reference, Wikipedia says Raptor 1 was 1,810 kN, R2 is 2,260 kN, and R3 will be 2,750 kN.)
Also, this part about the heavy variant just bugs me:
The vehicle carries over 70 metric tons to low-Earth orbit, over 14 metric tons direct to geosynchronous orbit, and over 20 metric tons to trans-lunar injection. Additionally, the 9x4 vehicle will feature a larger 8.7-meter fairing.
Rocket companies saying their paper rockets do something (in the present tense) is terrible. It does nothing yet. It’s a design, not a vehicle. But BO can’t even keep that present-future tense consistent within the same paragraph.
Graduate students famously never make mistakes (like including their own hair in samples) and also never smoke weed. So that couldn’t be it.