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SUCCESS!!!! SpaceX's SN4 Starship prototype passes key pressure test

Hamartia Antidote

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Another big step closer

https://www.space.com/spacex-starship-sn4-prototype-pressure-test-success.html

Starship SN4 just took a big step toward a test flight.



The newest prototype of SpaceX's Starship Mars-colonizing spacecraft just passed a crucial pressure test, likely setting the stage for a test flight in the near future.

Starship SN4 survived a "cryo pressure test" late Sunday night (April 26) at SpaceX's South Texas site, near the village of Boca Chica, company founder and CEO Elon Musk announced.



Musk's excitement is understandable, for success was far from guaranteed. This trial, in which the vehicle is filled with frigid liquid nitrogen to simulate the conditions experienced during operational missions, which will use ultracold propellant, felled three previous prototypes over the past five months.

The SN4 can now progress to the next step of the development campaign: engine tests, which will culminate with a static fire of its single Raptor engine on the ground. In yet another late-night tweet, Musk said SpaceX aims to conduct the static fire later this week.

Provided that goes well, the SN4 ("Serial No. 4") will be cleared to fly, on an uncrewed test with a target altitude of 500 feet (150 meters) or so. SN4 would be the first full-size Starship prototype to fly, and the second of any sort; a stubby test vehicle called Starhopper got off the ground briefly last year but was soon retired.

Future Starship prototypes will go higher, powered by more Raptors. For example, the SN5 will sport three of the powerful, next-generation engines, Musk said in another tweet.

The operational Starship, whose design SpaceX is homing in on via rapid prototype iteration, will feature six Raptors. The 165-foot-tall (50 m) spaceship will launch off Earth atop a gigantic rocket known as Super Heavy, which will have room for 37 of the engines, Musk has said.

Both vehicles will be reusable. Super Heavy will come down to Earth for vertical touchdowns shortly after liftoff, just as the first stages of SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets do now. Each Starship, meanwhile, will be able to fly many missions between Earth and Mars, or Earth and the moon, or anywhere else people (or payloads) need to go. (Starship will be powerful enough to launch itself off Mars and the moon, which have relatively weak gravitational pulls. Super Heavy is needed to get the craft off Earth, however.)

And SpaceX will make many Starships, if all goes according to plan. Musk's long-term vision involves sending a huge fleet of the 100-passenger vehicles off to Mars every 26 months, when the Red Planet and Earth are properly aligned for interplanetary trips. He sees Starship and Super Heavy as potentially slashing the cost of spaceflight enough to make Mars colonization — a driving ambition for the billionaire entrepreneur, and the main reason he founded SpaceX back in 2002 — economically feasible.


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It would have been very worrying if they could not pass it the 4th time.

SpaceX blew up 3 prototypes before this 4th one worked. If the 4th one failed too, then people would have lost a lot of confidence in the safety of it.
 
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The pace SpaceX is achieving is remarkable. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they make it to the Moon before NASA/other agencies and be the first to land humans on Mars.
 
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The pace SpaceX is achieving is remarkable. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they make it to the Moon before NASA/other agencies and be the first to land humans on Mars.

Here in Orlando, we call it ScrubX.

If there's one thing you can count on, it's a delay from SpaceX. They are notorious for scrubbing launches. But Elon's companies are notorious for delays in general. Ask anyone who preordered a Tesla how long it took to deliver them.
 
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Here in Orlando, we call it ScrubX.

If there's one thing you can count on, it's a delay from SpaceX. They are notorious for scrubbing launches. But Elon's companies are notorious for delays in general. Ask anyone who preordered a Tesla how long it took to deliver them.

SpaceX is making innovations in space technology that no other country can even achieve, of course there will be delays, there has never been a development in technology that has went smoothly without any delays.
 
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It would have been very worrying if they could not pass it the 4th time.

SpaceX blew up 3 prototypes before this 4th one worked. If the 4th one failed too, then people would have lost a lot of confidence in the safety of it.

They went from nothing to jackpot in only a span of a few months. This is crazy fast development.
 
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SpaceX is making innovations in space technology that no other country can even achieve, of course there will be delays, there has never been a development in technology that has went smoothly without any delays.

Yes, but the timelines they use are completely made up and mislead people intentionally or unintentionally

They went from nothing to jackpot in only a span of a few months. This is crazy fast development.

Yeah well this is the space industry. There's no prize for doing it first, its about who can do it without blowing up and killing everyone inside.
 
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The pace SpaceX is achieving is remarkable. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they make it to the Moon before NASA/other agencies and be the first to land humans on Mars.

Not only that but the NSA is probably all giddy about the crazy sized payloads the Starship can launch with a 9m (27ft) diameter. Many of those past crazy ideas will now be very very very possible.

They can use heavy glass now at a much much higher resolution
https://www.darpa.mil/news-events/2013-12-05
First Folding Space Telescope Aims to “Break the Glass Ceiling” of Traditional Designs

From GEO, it is believed, a satellite using MOIRE optics could see approximately 40 percent of the earth’s surface at once. The satellite would be able to focus on a 10 km-by-10 km area at 1-meter resolution, and provide real-time video at 1 frame per second.

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If Musk builds Starship 2.0 with an 18m (54ft) diameter and 50m (150ft) length carrying capacity then geez they can put super crazy sized stuff up there. Definitely hardened against anti-satellite attacks.
 
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Here in Orlando, we call it ScrubX.

If there's one thing you can count on, it's a delay from SpaceX. They are notorious for scrubbing launches. But Elon's companies are notorious for delays in general. Ask anyone who preordered a Tesla how long it took to deliver them.

You called it ScrubX because they had to delay or stop the launch. That is normal. for all space companies or government agencies involved in launches. And considering that SpaceX launches more rockets, obviously it makes it look like they do it almost everytime. Perhaps you were disappointed having to spend time and money to watch them in person only to see it canceled.
 
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