Talk:Starship flight test 6

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Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:SpaceX Starship integrated flight test 4 which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 01:06, 30 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Flight profile

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

@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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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)[reply]