Somebody asked Elon, on Twitter, why they didn't light all engines for landing and then just shut down one. That way they would know they had two good engines.

Elon replied... " We were too dumb". 😁

Anyway, aprently thats the plan for SN10

Splurge!  Light those candles! 🕯️🕯️🕯️

I haven’t been following this in too much detail. It appears from the video, that the rocket is not sent high enough to even have the engines/computers set up to correct the landing?

20 minutes ago, Doering said:

I haven’t been following this in too much detail. It appears from the video, that the rocket is not sent high enough to even have the engines/computers set up to correct the landing?

 

Nope, it is. Its intended to flip and burn at the last minute. Flip and burn at higher altitude consumes much more fuel. And fuel is critical in terms of payload and having enough fuel to land by the time you get to the Moon or Mars. After landing on Mars, despite refueling in Earth orbit, there's almost zero fuel remaining after touchdown.

Neither SN9 or SN10 crash landings were a result of the flip and burn altitudes. SN9 crashed due to loss of pressure in the header tank and SN10 crashed due to a Raptor not lighting. Thus excessive vertical speed. SN10 also lost control and landed at an angle as a result of no thrust from one of the gimballed engines.

The big takeaway from both 9 and 10, is the exceptional control of the bellyflop manoeuvre. Not only that, but they put both craft exactly where they were supposed to be. And thats what they were testing.

Edited February 6, 20215 yr by martin-w

I think you mean SN8 and SN9.

@martin-w Okay, thanks for the info. Certainly, makes sense as part of the overall testing required. Glad Elon has the $$$ to see all these critical tests progress!

38 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

I think you mean SN8 and SN9.

 

Correct. Unless I'm from the future. 👍