Watching the launch of Starship/Superheavy
Click for original image.
UPDATE: Launch scrubbed. To get to new links for watching the live stream in the second launch attempt, now scheduled for April 20, 2023, go here.
Original post:
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The first orbital test launch of SpaceX’s massive Superheavy first stage with its orbital Starship spacecraft stacked on top is now scheduled for a launch in a two-and-a-half hour long launch window beginning at 8 am (Central) on Monday, April 17, 2023.
I have embedded SpaceX’s live stream of that launch below, which will begin around 7 am (Central). You can also see an independent 24/7 live stream from LabPadre, showing the launchpad from many different angles and available here. NasaSpaceFlight.com also has a 24/7 live stream showing multiple angles here. Though both of these independent live streams provide alternative view angles of the launch, both will rely on SpaceX’s main live stream, embedded below, for actual updates on the countdown status.
If the launch is scrubbed on April 17th, SpacX has backup dates on April 18th and 19th. The flight plan and time line is shown in the graphic above.
The monumental significance of this rocket cannot be overstated. It is the most powerful rocket ever built, capable of putting more mass into orbit than either the Saturn-5 or NASA’s new SLS rocket.
It took less than seven years from concept to launch. Compare that to SLS, which was proposed in 2004 and only launched last year, two decades later.
It has been been entirely developed with private funds. Though SpaceX does have a NASA contract for building a Starship lunar lander, little of that contract’s funds have yet been distributed to the company. From private funds SpaceX has raised about $10 billion, most of which has been channeled into this rocket’s development, with a small unknown amount used to develop Starlink. Compare that once again to SLS, which has cost about $60 billion to build.
Finally, it is being designed to be completely reusable, thus reducing the cost exponentially for putting large 100-ton payloads into orbit. If successful, Starship/Superheavy will very quickly make the human exploration and colonization of the solar system possible.
And it will do so not as a government project that is part of a government program, but as a private sector product, conceived by individual Americans freely following their dreams, and developed for profit, quickly and efficiently.
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And it will do so not as a government project that is part of a government program, but as a private sector product, conceived by individual Americans freely following their dreams, and developed for profit, quickly and efficiently.
The secret sauce of all human advancement – micro and macro – short of Divine intervention, is the responsible exercise of individual initiative..
Breakthroughs aren’t scheduled in the Five Year Plans of government committees.
Quick typo alert:
“..the most powerful rocket every built…”; you meant “ever”. Please scrub this comment when corrected.
This is almost unbelievable and somewhat akin to Heinlein’s “The Man Who Sold the Moon”. Designed and built entirely with private funds, and dependent on government only for “permission” to launch. If I weren’t a 65-year-old retired/geezer design engineer (mechanical, heat transfer/thermogoddamics emphasis) I’d have tried to get a job with SpaceX. Heck, I’d be happy shoveling bird poop off the launch pad, just to have participated in some small degree in such a landmark enterprise.
As it is all I can do is sit back and watch others do the work that is destined for the history books…if anybody can read English a hundred years from now. I’ll get up before 0600 (Wyoming time) to watch it live tomorrow.
May the gremlins of spaceflight stay in abeyance for this flight. Bonne chance, little rocket.
WELL WE DID HAVE OUR SPACE SHUTTLE THAT WAS STRUCTUALLY STILL VIABLE UNTIL THE GREAT GOD KING OBAMA SCRAPPED THE PROGRAM FOR MUSLIM OUTREACH PROGRAMS. OUR SHUTTLE AS STATED BY NASA ENGINEERS WAS GOOD FOR AT LEAST ANOTHER 50 YEARS OF SERVICE WITH UPGRADES. YES THERE WERE TERRIBLE ACCIDENTS AND YES WE LOST ASTRONAUTS BUT WE DIDN’T HAVE TO SCUTTLE THEM LIKE OBAMA DID. MANY PEOPLE DON’T REALIZE THAT WE HAVE TO PAY RUSSIA MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO PUT OUR FOLKS ON THE SPACE STATION WHILE WE HAD OUR SHUTTLE THE WORLD CAME TO US FOR THAT. THANKS DEMOCRATS YOU REALLY LIKE TO HELP THE NATION.
Please turn off that caps lock Sgt.
As for your comment about the shuttle being good for another 50 years. Sorry but nope. The whole shuttle program was a flop. It never flew for its intended mission. After that first flight everything was just make work. It could have all been done with a standard rocket cheaper.
Or they could have just gotten rid of the re-usable air frame and used a disposable cargo section for everything. They could have put almost the whole weight of the Shuttle and cargo into orbit at one time.
Blackwing1: Typo fixed. Thank you. And I won’t scrub because I appreciate the help from my readers.
Sgt Snuffy: Yes, please turn off the CAPS. There is no need to yell.
You are wrong about Obama killing the shuttle. It was killed by Republican George Bush Jr. Obama simply did not let the death be delayed. It was a team effort in Washington.
Hey Sarge, the shuttle was NEVER a human-rated booster! Even back in the 1970‘s we knew that solid-rockets have no place in a human-rated system! NASA should have built the H-33 system, with a fly-back booster & Lh2 drop tanks on the orbiter.
David, I don’t know the history of the SRBs like perhaps you do but there are plenty of man rated ejection seat configurations that use SRMs.
For a human-rated spacecraft to use solids as part of regular operations is inappropriate. First there is the simple fact that they cannot be moderated. Assuming reusability as an objective, the best they can do is be refurbished at great expense, or more often just discarded.
Solid rocket motors are fine for emergency use – when they have to respond instantly despite “riding along” for perhaps years. Here their lack of ability to be shut off or even throttled is acceptable or perhaps even desirable, since they are inevitably fire and forget!
They have one job, and that is to respond instantly and 100% reliably to save lives in an emergency.
Thee Shuttle program was ended because, despite all of NASAs propaganda, it was proven to be dangerous and the major design flaw could not be fixed. It had also accomplished it’s primary mission, to build and man the Space Station.
And now we have a private company stepping in. It’s quite amazing to me, all of this faith in private enterprise being able to be successful using a rocket design that has NO emergency escape system.
I would like to believe that some people are working this issue down in the trenches.
I would like to add that I am very, very excited about the launch. I spent a long time working on the Shuttle program at KSC and watched the first Falcon launch there. All of the NASA engineers in earshot were hoping it failed because of the massive amount of hubris that that had accumulated in the program.
As a life-long space enthusiast, I hope that SpaceX can avoid the same fate.
Obama simply did not let the death be delayed. It was a team effort in Washington.
In fact, he even signed off on two additional missions, which were possible from spares still on hand.
But yeah, by the time he took office, the Shuttle supply chains were pretty much all shut down.
All of the NASA engineers in earshot were hoping it failed because of the massive amount of hubris that that had accumulated in the program.
Disappointing. But not surprising.
I hear there’s more respect there these days, though. SpaceX has earned it.
One other thing about HW Bush and Obama cancelling the Shuttle.
At the time NASA sounded confident they would have a new rocket ready to fly astronauts to space shortly after the end of the Shuttle. It seemed likely. After all the rocket was being designed with known/proven shuttle components and would use a simple capsule system. Easy-peasy for the agency that built the shuttle and the Saturn 5. Simple, quick, inexpensive.
Over 10 years later that rocket has burned billons of dollars but has only flown once and has yet to loft an astronaut…
I wanted an Energia-Buran type Shuttle 2 for you…Sarge…SLS may one day evolve to side mount…all winged spaceflight fans got was Branson. I still want outsized, side mounted parallel staged HLLVs for large scale tests….Starship may open its maw and release one.
The elevator counterweight thing scared me.
The derailments, the explosion that killed so many head of cattle…something’s up.
Cool animation.
https://twitter.com/johncremeansusa/status/1647804836140793858?s=46&t=cvJVjKrHicguREb6KCkTAg
The first time I watched a SpaceX booster fall from the sky with frightening speed and yet the rockets fired and the gimble stabilized, and the booster landed…thus…so. I was completely stunned! What a feat of engineering, what a complete victory for FREE MARKET CAPITALISIM!!
And the much vaulted NASA, with all it’s history, (though pretty much stripped of their past historic funding) was left to pick their collective jaws off the floor.
There were kids I grew up with that thought becoming a NASA ASTRONAUT was the ultimate goal in life. Too bad the SWAMP killed their program. (But that was the plan.)
Shuttle needed to die, it’s death made room, and demand, for better systems.
Well we are here. 4.8 miles from pad. Locked in behind roadblock. Sleeping on ground waiting for 6 pm. Elon today massively reduced expectations. He did same for Falcon Heavy. It flew first day of first attempt.
I’ll have more when we get back.
Starship report
https://parabolicarc.com/2023/04/13/new-report-examines-spacex-starships-revolutionary-potential/
Scrubbed.
https://twitter.com/sciguyspace/status/1647951287399464961?s=46&t=cvJVjKrHicguREb6KCkTAg
Well it’s better than blowing up like an N1.
The delay was not unexpected. I would have been surprised if it launched.
SpaceX has shown that failure is not to be feared in R&D, and when harnessed, can provide immense learning.
If they are 100% successful in this flight, launch through re-entry, I would be concerned.
Monday was when Apollo 13 turned 50…..bad juju.
I don’t believe there was a stuck valve-pothead was always going to blaze up on 420…remember the projector?