R.I.P. Scout26
What is the scope of this flight? Are they going to orbit or just going high, flying around, and coming back down?
Weather Forecast During LaunchThe forecast calls for a temperature of 66°F, clear skies, 10% cloud cover and a wind speed of 1mph.MissionIntegrated Flight Test 2Type: Test FlightSecond test flight of the two-stage Starship launch vehicle. The booster is expected to separate 170 seconds into flight and return to land approximately 32 km off the shore in the Gulf of Mexico. The second stage will follow a suborbital trajectory and perform an unpowered splashdown approximately 100 km off the northwest coast of Kauai (Hawaii).TrajectoryView the rocket launch trajectory, velocity, altitude, thrust and much more at FlightClub.io
NSF is live on the matter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB_FzncBgq0They even did calculations on the chance of Starship hitting a whale.
Maritime and marine mammal impact analyses are actually a standard part of all spacelifts and missile tests.
I figured but what are the odds of SS hitting a whale?
I wonder what the odds of hitting a whale with a spaceship launch would be if that was their goal?
Chris Bergin - NSF@NASASpaceflightShip Quick Disconnect (SQD) has retracted ahead of destack. LR11000 is going over to the launch site to follow up with removing the Hot Staging Ring.http://nsf.live/starbase
Didn't Gewehr98, a former member here, fly on an air force anti-submarine aircraft of some sort? I bet those craft could deliberately hit a whale with an air deployed depth charge or bomb or torpedo.
Chris Bergin - NSF@NASASpaceflightSlip to Saturday official now, as Elon has noted and cited the issue is with a grid fin actuator.Meanwhile, can you spot the human for scale!
Gewehr flew on Air Force RC135s and other Air Force variants that did different snooping missions. BobR OTOH flew on US Navy P3 Orions performing maritime surveillance and patrol (lots of ASW during the cold war) for quite a few years. I imagine we could target a whale if we wanted but close targeting isn't really necessary when you have the capability to use nuclear depth charges. bob