@uhoh ISS is in an odd inclination. It is not great for the US and not perfect for the Russians to launch to. For Soyuz to reach the ISS and not take a huge payload hit, the orbital inclination was set at 53 degrees. The Shuttle took a big hit, launchin from 28 I think degrees. But it had a large enough payload to be possible and still work.
This answer to How to randomly but evenly distribute nodes on a plane introduces Bridson's Algorithm for Poisson-disc sampling (original paper: Fast Poisson Disk Sampling in Arbitrary Dimensions (also here) by Robert Bridson, University of British Columbia) Also see this and animation and explana...
@peterh-ReinstateMonica The body is mostly rings. So unroll a SS roll, cut at 9m and weld the ends. The nose cones, are made of pressed SS, welded together. I THINK it is just because of the 'grain' of the material. But I am a bit colouor blind so I do not see it.
"Prior to the Starship SN8 test launch in December 2020, SpaceX sought a waiver to exceed the maximum public risk allowed by federal safety regulations.
After the FAA denied the request, SpaceX proceeded with the flight. As a result of this non-compliance, the FAA required SpaceX to conduct an investigation of the incident. All testing that could affect public safety at the Boca Chica, Texas, launch site was suspended until the investigation was completed and the FM approved the company's corrective actions to protect public safety. The corrective actions arising from the SN8 incident are incorporated into the SN9 launch license."
The Russian Aerospace Forces, itself a division of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation,… The post Russia launches classified payload to start 2021 campaign appeared first on NASASpaceFlight.com.