# Launch lab sources and scope

Independent educational reconstruction. Not SpaceX software, telemetry, a surveyed launch-site model, or an exact flight replay.

## Hardware and flight references

- [SpaceX Starbase overview](https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/assets/media/Starbase%20Overview.pdf): launch/catch tower and vehicle arrangement.
- [SpaceX Starship](https://new.spacex.com/vehicles/starship): Super Heavy and 33 Raptor engines.
- [SpaceX flight updates](https://new.spacex.com/updates): boostback, landing burn and tower catch descriptions.
- [NASA: first Super Heavy catch](https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap241023.html): Flight 5 context.
- [NASA atmospheric layers](https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/earths-atmospheric-layers-3/): troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere and exosphere. Layer boundaries shown here are approximate; the tropopause varies with latitude and weather.

The vehicle uses a Flight-5-era silhouette and a 20 + 10 + 3 engine arrangement. Major public dimensions inform the model; nozzle contours, small plumbing, welds, tower beams, carriage, pins and actuation hardware are original illustrative geometry, not manufacturer CAD. The engine-bay mounting deck, nozzle wall thickness and steering linkage attachments are visual reconstructions with clearance checks, not measured hardware. Do not use the model for engineering dimensions. Catch timing in game mode is a simplified challenge, not the real automated catch procedure.

## Assets

- `sky.hdr`: [Kloofendal 48d partly cloudy pure sky](https://polyhaven.com/a/kloofendal_48d_partly_cloudy_puresky), Poly Haven, CC0. Used as lighting and a low-altitude sky; not a Starbase weather observation.
- `Concrete029_2K-JPG_*.jpg`: [Concrete029](https://ambientcg.com/view?id=Concrete029), ambientCG, CC0.
- `starbase-aerial.jpg`: [USGS National Map imagery service](https://basemap.nationalmap.gov/arcgis/rest/services/USGSImageryOnly/MapServer), public USGS/USDA CONUS imagery. Historical basemap centred near 25.9974 N, 97.1569 W; not a current facility survey. Surrounding dunes, shoreline, scrub, service roads and utility layouts are procedural approximations. The aerial photograph supplies broad ground variation rather than surveyed foreground geometry.
- `spacex.svg`: [SpaceX Logo](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SpaceX-Logo.svg), public-domain text logo. SpaceX trademarks belong to their owner; used for vehicle identification, without endorsement.
- `waternormals.jpg`: Three.js example texture, [source](https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/blob/dev/examples/textures/waternormals.jpg), MIT license (below).
- Earth/Moon textures reuse the site's [Solar System credits](/licenses/solar-system-scope.md).

The homepage thumbnail is the user-provided screenshot of this project’s engine-bay renderer. No third-party spacecraft model is redistributed. All hardware, coast, cloud, flame, steam, crash and lunar-lander geometry/effects are code-generated approximations.

The launch exhaust is a bounded ray-integrated visual volume with illustrative expansion and shock patterns, not CFD. Cloud opacity is composited front-to-back; the sky and vegetation are art-directed, not live weather. Condensation vents, facility pipework and tank access hardware are illustrative details.

## Science boundaries

Earth flight: planar variable-mass integration with Earth rotation, inverse-square gravity and approximate atmospheric drag. Estimated masses, thrust schedules and guidance. This is not a latitude-specific Starbase trajectory. Instantaneous stage separation simplifies hot staging.

Transfer: ideal Earth-centred two-body ellipse, with a phased circular Moon orbit. It does not model orbital propellant transfer, capture, navigation uncertainty or lunar gravity during transfer.

Lunar landing: separate vertical concept rover-lander exercise, starting 2 km above a flat landing patch with capture already completed. Constant lunar gravity 1.62 m/s², bounded thrust, variable mass and finite propellant. It is not Starship HLS and does not complete a continuous validated Earth-to-Moon mission.

## Three.js MIT license

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