Model: fragment masses and ballistic coefficients by component type, explosive delta-V, drag through the US Standard Atmosphere and the chosen winds, and re-entry heating (aluminium and composite pieces melt away at orbital speeds; steel, nickel alloys and engines mostly survive). Impact energy counts the pieces that reach the ground. Illustrative, not a certified range-safety analysis.
Its elements are more than three days from the globe's time, so this position is rough: SGP4's error grows each day, fastest in low orbit.
Starbase UK is a what-if: a physics-based, 3D look at Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Starship flying from hypothetical pads off the Essex coast. The climb to orbit, the boosters flying home, the noise on shore, the range safety areas and what a failure would scatter, all on a turning Earth with the real satellites, aircraft, ships and weather.
It exists to make a UK launch site something people can see and question, not only read about: for planning conversations, schools and the public.
Starbase UK is independent and unfunded. Funding would go, in stages, to:
Funders, partners, the press and anyone with expertise to offer: team@starbase.org.uk
A hypothetical simulation: not affiliated with SpaceX or the Ministry of Defence, and nothing shown here is planned or approved. One cookie, set once you're in, keeps this browser in for 24 hours. Your email address is used to send your access codes and, only if you asked for it, Starbase UK news (every news email has an unsubscribe link); it's kept in our own database, never sold or given to anyone else, and Postmark sends the emails for us. To have it deleted, email team@starbase.org.uk. Visits are counted from the server's anonymised logs (addresses cut to their network, kept for a year). Data: CelesTrak, adsb.fi, AISStream, Open-Meteo, Natural Earth and Ordnance Survey (OGL).
Physics: 3-DOF point-mass flight on a rotating Earth with US Standard Atmosphere 1976 drag. Guidance flies a real return-to-launch-site sequence: boostback targets the landing zone through a predicted impact point, the entry burn steers, grid fins trim the descent and a hoverslam lands the stage. Falcon Heavy flies both side boosters home (LZ-1, LZ-2) and expends the centre core; Starship hot-stages and the tower catches Super Heavy. The dogleg turns the upper stage onto a new orbital plane at separation, steering the velocity it still has to gain so its ground track runs up the middle of the North Sea. The sea-safe corridor adds a launch dogleg (the first stage yaws north once past max-Q, inside its q·alpha limit), three upper-stage doglegs and droneship landings, so a break-up at any moment drops its debris at sea. The Weather window (W) scores a forecast (Open-Meteo's, or an example day) hour by hour against the launch weather rules; in use, its winds blow the debris and its hour sets the sky. Crew Dragon (Falcon 9, on the sea-safe corridor) adds abort zones down the track, checked against its splashdown limits. In orbit: Satellites (S) and Space junk (J) show every active satellite, and every tracked piece of debris and spent rocket body, from CelesTrak's elements flown with SGP4 to the globe's time; the boxes under Satellites choose Starlink and the others by owner; point at one for its owner and height, click it for its card (who owns it, or for junk its country of origin, and its orbit). Live traffic: Aircraft (A) and Ships (V) show the aircraft and ships near the launch site now, from the positions their ADS-B and AIS transponders broadcast, in real time; point at one for what it is, click it for its card. Range safety (R): translucent boxes from the sea to 20 km round the pad and, on the sea-safe corridor, round each droneship, each holding every fragment the break-up model gives there. With Live traffic on, anyone inside one keeps the range from being clear, and so does traffic that can't be seen just now (the ships' stream only just opened, say): NO-GO for the hour that holds now in the Weather window, and HOLD on the Launch button. The Moon is where it really is, lit by the Sun; the Earth & Moon view frames both. Vehicle figures are public approximations.
Breaks the vehicle up every few seconds of the flight in this hour’s winds, as Detonate does, and looks for any fragment ashore.