Talk:Starship flight test 6

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Flight profile

Should be updated to include raptor relight 73.210.30.217 (talk) 10:01, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Discrepency on SpaceX website

spacex/launches/ lists the date as "November 19", while the dedicated page lists November 18.

Should the NET be moved to November 19? Redacted II (talk) 02:13, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Nope. Based on that I would say it would be no earlier than the 18th, which would be inclusive of the 19th. RickyCourtney (talk) 02:33, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Probably the right call. Redacted II (talk) 02:35, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

On their general launches page it now also lists November 18. Joost van Assenbergh (talk) 08:54, 7 November 2024 (UTC)

Flight Sucess or Partial Sucess?

Do you think the mission was a Success or a Failure? As the booster didn't perform a catch although it wasn't a critical part of the mission. AllThingsSpace33 (talk) 23:22, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

IMO it was a success, the flight achieved most of the objectives it was set to complete. And can't forget that this is a test flight, they pushed it to its limits and that gave a lot of data.

The only thing that went wrong was the catch attempt. The in-orbit relight, steeper re-entry, and missing heat shield tiles all have shown what is possible with this ship. Joost van Assenbergh (talk) 23:27, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Despite the fact there was a bit of burn throught the ship still made it AllThingsSpace33 (talk) 23:56, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

IFT-3 was far less successful, and the consensus was in favor of success. Redacted II (talk) 23:49, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Fair AllThingsSpace33 (talk) 23:56, 19 November 2024 (UTC)

Jonathan McDowell (the self-appointed orbital police :-D) is calling Flight 6 a success: https://x.com/planet4589/status/1859011005252334076 RickyCourtney (talk) 00:18, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

I concur that this was a success. The catch would have been amazing, but it wasn't required. Arguably, they needed to demonstrate they could abort the catch attempt safely anyway. If the parameters weren't correct for a catch, the alternative was always planned to be a splashdown, ergo, this went 100% to plan (at least this portion). Buffs (talk) 16:15, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Divert to Splashdown

@RickyCourtney The diversion occured during the boostback burn. The failure should therefore be listed there as well, and as a partial instead of failure due to both burn being fully nominal. Redacted II (talk) 15:29, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

@Redacted II Agreed that a note can be added to the boostback burn, however I’d argue that it should continue to be listed as a success as it was fully nominal. As for the landing, the original stated goal was to attempt a catch, they failed in that attempt. As I said below, we shouldn’t be afraid of the word “failure.” Failure still provides valuable data in testing. RickyCourtney (talk) 15:46, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Failure is misleading in this scenario. Redacted II (talk) 15:48, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

How about this compromise: The status can be partial, but I feel strongly that the timeline event should continue to read "Super Heavy landing burn shutdown and catch" (as that was the original stated goal) and should not be changed to "Super Heavy landing burn shutdown and splashdown". RickyCourtney (talk) 16:10, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Agreed

(I had intended to change it back to catch mid edit but forgot to do so) Redacted II (talk) 16:13, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, you are correct in the way that the original plan to catch the booster was a failure since that was aborted, but to say that this entire landing was a failure isn't really the most accurate description, as the splashdown was a success. We could add a note there though.

Maybe a reasonable compromise would be to add the note to the boostback shutdown and having the original catch as partial with another note stating the splashdown diversion. User3749 (talk) 16:09, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

If a plane plans to go from point A to point B with C as it's divert option, when it lands at point C we don't call it a failure. "Success" or "Failure" are both misleading terms. They would have to prove them could do a water landing divert at some point anyway. Buffs (talk) 16:19, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Flight timeline

In my opinion the flight timeline should either…

• Be a list of events as they occurred, in which case we would need to remove the success/fail column
• Be a list of events as planned, in which case we can keep the success/fail column to compare

My biggest concern is that editors keep changing the timeline event "Super Heavy landing burn shutdown and catch" to "Super Heavy landing burn shutdown and splashdown". In my opinion, that’s essentially editorializing by moving the goalposts. The stated goal was to attempt a catch, they failed in that attempt. We shouldn’t be afraid of that word. Failure still provides valuable data in testing.

Another concern I have is with marking “Success” next to timeline events like “Starship is subsonic.” It feels strange to be saying that it was a success next to a measure of speed and time. It’s not exactly like this was a test. The only success was that the vehicle continued to exist. RickyCourtney (talk) 15:33, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Given that SpaceX wasn't expecting the ship to survive at all, the vehicle continueing to exist is absolutely a success Redacted II (talk) 16:20, 20 November 2024 (UTC)

Suborbital

At what point before entry was S31 suborbital? @SpaceNerd13

The relight boosted the orbit Redacted II (talk) 20:34, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

No it didn't and you still have found no reliable source, while just removing my citation needed tags. This is just vandalism to me. 47.64.128.79 (talk) 20:58, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Source is sufficient.

Relight did boost the orbit (perigee went from 8 km to 50 km, apogee 190 to 228). Redacted II (talk) 21:21, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

I think you're misunderstanding the terms. Because the perigee altitude (the nearest point of its orbit around the Earth) was positive, the orbital regime of this flight was a Transatmospheric Earth orbit (it made an orbit that intersects with the atmosphere [<100 km on Earth]), not suborbital (a flight that would not make a complete orbit around the Earth). -- RickyCourtney (talk) 22:16, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

That is why I'm asking the editor who added the suborbital claim to the infobox. Redacted II (talk) 22:17, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

Apologies, I misunderstood the thread. -- RickyCourtney (talk) 22:22, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

The mistake you tried to correct is also being made here.

(The other editor there has refused to accept that a source citing a perigee of 50 km means that the flight was transatmospheric) Redacted II (talk) 22:26, 21 November 2024 (UTC)

The source did not "cite" anything, this private website just states some parameters without any sources or explanations given. wp:rs. And to interprete that into orbital regimes, by cherrypicking the definition of "orbit" that someone likes best, is wp:OR at it's worst. Nowhere is a source that explicitly gives either orbital or suborbital, we don't even have a SpaxeX statement that anything apart from the FAA licenced suborbtial flight was even tried, not to mention verifiably achieved.47.69.168.221 (talk) 11:44, 22 November 2024 (UTC)

The source that Redacted II put into several articles yesterday, "Starship's Most Daring Flight Yet! | This Week in Spaceflight", like here, clearly says at timestamp 2:30, while IFT-6 did a test for deorbit capabilities, "the ship was not in an orbital trajectory" !

Even stating that only "Flight 8 will be orbital".

But despite that clear statements out of his own source, he still put "Transatmospheric", linking falsely to "transatmospheric orbit" (which is not the same!), into several articles, implying having reached or reaching for an orbit, including List_of_Starship_launches for Flight 6 + 7, but NOT flight 8... Cherrypicking at it's best. 47.69.162.76 (talk) 11:29, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

How is transatmospheric not the same as transatmospheric?

Please do elaborate. Redacted II (talk) 12:42, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Not everything that is "transatmospheric" is in an "orbit", as I explained several times before. You did not even cite me correctly. Maybe you could inform yourself somewhere else (as you don't listen to me anyway)? And then stop putting half-truisms as OR into articles. 47.69.162.76 (talk) 13:45, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Transatmospheric, as has been established many times, is orbital. Redacted II (talk) 13:48, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

It is NOT. Could you please inform yourself instead over and over repeating your erroneous understanding of "transatmospheric"? New Shepard, for example crosses the Karman line and therefore gets transatmospheric, but does not enter an orbit, thus it gets transatmospheric but suborbital. Again: Not everything that gets transatmospheric also gets orbital. You stubbornly refuse to distinguish between "transatmospheric" and "transatmospheric orbit", and put that misunderstanding into various articles. This seems to be a basic linguistic problem, like your non-discern between "HLS depot" (that nobody ever proposed) to a "Starship depot" that likely will launch 2025. 47.69.162.76 (talk) 15:28, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

You are confusing suborbital and transatmospheric.

Both pass 100 km.

Suborbital has a perigee of 0 km or less. Anything with a perigee of >0 km is orbital (unless its going faster than escape velocity)

Transatmospheric has a perigee of 100>x>0 km.

IFT-6 had a perigee of 8 km. After the relight, this became 50 km.

100>50>0. Thus, IFT-6 was transatmospheric, and not suborbital. And since it was not suborbital, and it was not on an escape trajectory, it is orbital. Redacted II (talk) 15:43, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

Your understanding is incorrect. New Shepard reaches space because its apogee is above the Karman line. However, at no point in a typical NS mission does the capsule reach actual orbital velocity. Starship (flight 6 in this case) on the other hand, does actually reach orbital velocity, despite the transatmospheric trajectory. Any trajectory with a perigee above 0 is considered an orbit even if it is unstable. User3749 (talk) 15:44, 25 November 2024 (UTC)