标题: SpaceX Retrieved First Stage with Chopsticks [打印本页] 作者: choi 时间: 10-23-2024 12:28 标题: SpaceX Retrieved First Stage with Chopsticks Ezzy Pearson, SpaceX's Starship Plucked from the Air by Giant Chopsticks, But Why Did They Do It? BBC, "October 14, 2024 at 8:13 am" https://www.skyatnightmagazine.c ... p-test-5-chopsticks
("SpaceX successfully plucked the booster [or the first] stage of its new Starship spacecraft out of the air using a giant pair of mechanical 'chopsticks' during its fifth test flight on [Sunday,] 13 October 2024. * * * It was the first time such a manoeuvre had ever been attempted.")
:
(a) "October 14, 2024 at 8:13 am." It does not ay whether its Greenwich time or America time. In case of the latter, no saying Eastern time zone or dailylight saving time (DST). So I presume it was Greenwich time.
(b)
(i) The test launch was conducted in at Boca Chica, Texas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boca_Chica_(Texas)
("Boca Chica Village is the name of a small unincorporated community as of 2014 located on Texas State Highway 4, about 22 mi (35 km) east of Brownsville. It was formed in 1967 under another name as a land development project * * * In 2012, SpaceX named the Boca Chica area as a possible location for the construction of their future private commercial launch site" Starbase)
(ii) Spanish-English dictionary:
* boca (noun feminine; from Latin [noun feminine] bucca cheek): "mouth" (Medicine and dentistry still use bucca for cheek.) https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/boca
* chico (adjective masculine; feminine chica): "small"
(noun masculine; feminine chica): "boy; kid" https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/chico
(c)
(i) For the significance, please read the section (in this BBC report) whose heading is "Why does SpaceX’s Starship use chopsticks?"
You may use images.google.com to search (FALCON 9 landing legs). The return shows the landing gear is folding on the base of Falcon 9, onto the wall of the first or booster stage (before launch) and deploued during the return landing.
Falcon 9 is lighter, including the first stage previously retrieved vertically on a pad at sea.
(ii) SpaceX plans to retried the second stage also by chopsticks in a few months (early 2025), as reported elsewhere.
(d) You can watch a video, which is easily found in the Web.