Saturday, November 2, 2024

Landing the Starship coming up soon







Could there be a problem in catching the Starship at the Tower, as was accomplished recently with the booster? There's been some talk about the possible damage to the heat shield. The chopsticks brush up against the side of the booster when catching. If the tiles get in the way, they'll be shorn off. That would delay processing the ship for fast turnaround. Is there another way?

Keeping it simple may be better than adding more complexity. Perhaps SpaceX could just land the ship at a concrete pad, as they did with the early prototypes. The method for doing this is pretty well practiced by now, and so there should be no problem. All that would be required for the ship would be some landing legs. The prototypes didn't use very big ones at all.

If stability is desired, perhaps the complexity can remain on the ground. Just add some stuff to the pad, and land it on the pad, with some sort of mechanism that would secure it rapidly.

SpaceX could even have the Starship land on one of their transport stands. The Starship could be moved quickly after landing, thus giving the quick turnaround time that they seek.

Perhaps even a portable flame diverter could keep the concrete from being split apart under the heat and pressure of the rocket exhaust.

But all this is speculative. There is no indication that SpaceX will do anything like this. However, the heat shield needs to be protected. At the very least, some different kind of method needs to be developed in order to catch the Starship.






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