SpaceX fires up Starship SN4 prototype yet again (video)

Sam

Jan 5, 2020
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No flames this time after shutdown. The flames from the burn off stack got so large that they were hitting SN-4 it looked like. They have been working on the nosecones. I read somewhere that Musk said no wings, so they are plugging holes where the wings were I think. The body is so large he may think wings are not needed on Earth. Might need them landing on Mars because of the thin atmosphere however I suppose.
 
No flames this time after shutdown. The flames from the burn off stack got so large that they were hitting SN-4 it looked like. They have been working on the nosecones. I read somewhere that Musk said no wings, so they are plugging holes where the wings were I think. The body is so large he may think wings are not needed on Earth. Might need them landing on Mars because of the thin atmosphere however I suppose.

They are likely aiming at some form of hop, since they seem to have put a mass simulator were later SNX's will get their nosecone (now inclusive a LOX header tank mass and - looks like - integrated cold gas thrusters). Nosecones look awful right now, and they have scrapped some early production pathfinders.

The actuators are not aerodynamic wings but skydiver steering brakes, they are AFAIK minimally needed in atmospheres to help push the Starship quickly from skydiver to tail landing position. (The 3 movable sea level engines as well as thrusters contribute too).

I think the perspective in cameras situated hundreds of meters away comes out as terribly fooling. [Someone should do software that reinsert a closer perspective. Same with "unfishing" fish lens distortions.] IIRC someone mentioned that the burn stack is 100 meter away and the Starship similarly distant from the rest of the ground installations. (Which isn't a lot of leeway if a 50 m craft on top of a test rig falls over ... but anyway.) IIRC Musk tweeted that a cooler for methane recycling is on its way.
 

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