15 ms·

SpaceX launches and nearly lands starship on its first suborbital flight

408 points by n0pe_p0pe 6y ago

obilgic 6y ago
HN: "SpaceX Launches and Nearly Lands Starship on Its First Suborbital Flight" vs Article: "SpaceX Launches—and Crashes—Its Starship Mars Rocket"
- mlindner 6y ago
  Yeah article has a horrible title.
- amanzi 6y ago
  For whatever reason, Wired preferred the clickbait title, but the opening sentence of the article is: "On Wednesday afternoon, SpaceX successfully launched—and nearly landed—a fully-assembled prototype of its next generation Starship rocket on a suborbital flight from its facility in south Texas."
  - dotancohen 6y ago
    The Wired article was full of misleading information (implying that the rocket failed to reach space, when that was never a mission objective) and outright lies (stating that the Starship is a scaled-up Falcon 9, the name of the Starship+SuperHeavy combo, the number of engines that the system will have, etc, etc).
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - skedaddle 6y ago
    No, it's not click bait if it's what happened. And what happened is that it crashed. :P
    - dwaltrip 6y ago
      It's clickbait because it implies test failure, which isn't true. The test was successful, as the primary objectives were all met.
      - skedaddle 6y ago
        "Nearly lands" means crash anyway so any implication of the latter is still there.
        dwaltrip 6y ago
        Fair point. I suppose I find that the positive language is more harmonious with the actual test outcome, which was a success.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    Given that it's a rocket, "nearly land" could mean it kept going in some way, towards space or simply not yet touched down. So when I read the HN title and thought "what do they mean by nearly landed?" I then saw the article and realized "oh, it crashed". I'm not sure where the balance should be... "Crash" has a negative connotation, but "nearly lands" is a pretty soft euphemism.
    - ineedasername 6y ago
      To add to my comment-- I think the CNN headline got it better without the softening euphemism by pointing out it was a success: "A SpaceX Mars rocket prototype just exploded. It was still a success"
      - natch 6y ago
        I don’t think it exploded. It broke up by hitting the ground (not by exploding) which caused fuel and oxygen to leak out, which then ignited in a large fireball. But maybe this is splitting hairs. It sure looked like an explosion.
        ineedasername 6y ago
        oxygen to leak out, which then ignited in a large fireball. That sounds a lot like a thermoberic bomb :)
    - natch 6y ago
      Landing safely was an unexpected outcome, so it’s remarkable (thus making it into the headline) that it came close to doing so. The right wording is highly context dependent. Here the “nearly landed” phrasing appropriately acknowledges the realistic expectations for the launch by those most in the know, the SpaceX team. “Crash” would be totally appropriate in a different context with different expectations. But it would make less sense in this case.
  - jawzz 6y ago
    Headlines are usually written by an editor, not the writer, and chosen to generate clicks. That’s why there’s often such a contrast between the headline and the article.
- jackfoxy 6y ago
  If you want to see an even worse headline along with flat-out incorrect information in the article, try this bit of journalism. https://www.the-sun.com/news/1944062/space-x-mars-starship-explodes-misses-landing-pad/ https://www.the-sun.com/news/1944062/space-x-mars-starship-e...
- airstrike 6y ago
  A better article: https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12/starship-rises-high-performs-a-flawless-flip-but-doesnt-quite-stick-the-landing/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12/starship-rises-high-...
- badconvincer 6y ago
  What a stupid article headline.
hpoe 6y ago
I remember watching the Tesla going into space and the rockets landing on the platform. I remember thinking "Wow this man has restarted the space race for my generation." It was a hopeful and wonderful feeling, I figured with the budget cuts, the politics, and the general "been there done that" attitude that was prominent for much of my life space was closed. To see it opened again, gives me some sort of hope, some idea that there are things bigger than our squabbles, we took one giant leap for mankind when we stepped on the moon, but it's time for the next step to see what we can do after a leap.
- nynx 6y ago
  As a young person (21), I feel the same way. Space exploration and a beautiful future suddenly seems achievable with hard work and a lot of engineering instead of just feeling impossible.
  - ridgeguy 6y ago
    As an old guy, I feel the same way. I was in JPL’s SFOF building watching Armstrong and Aldrin step out onto the moon. Today’s SN8 mission gave me reasonable hope I’ll live to see somebody set foot on Mars. It’s been a good day.
  - Melting_Harps 6y ago
    > As a young person (21), I feel the same way. Space exploration and a beautiful future suddenly seems achievable with hard work and a lot of engineering instead of just feeling impossible. That is the goal for me, I'm not going to Mars and I knew that as soon as I went to the MDRS. I also made it an effort to make the director (commander on several mission) to realize how important it is motivate the younger generation and not just the future astronauts that come aborad for analogue missions. SpaceX doesn't pay much, and you have to make a ton of sacrifices to even be considered, but I can tell you that being there you get this 'I wouldn't be any where else' feeling that I think is far superior to any monetary value. Unfortunately, many of this year's missions at the MDRS are postponed due to COVID, but the robot challenge (mainly comprised of college aged students) is the one I really felt felt disappointed about. I was going to try and make it out this year to help out with that. I hope you decide to get involved in this space (pun intended); I know if I was in my 20s, I'd do it all over again.
ansible 6y ago
Great flight! Elon tweeted that the header tank pressure was low: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1336809767574982658 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1336809767574982658 There was also a substantial green flame coming from the raptor engine used for landing. Group consensus over on /r/SpaceX is that it was copper burning. We're amazed the engine didn't explode sooner.
- asdfadsfgfdda 6y ago
  I think it was purging leftover hypergolic fuel, which is used to ignite the engines. Or, maybe the engine sensed the engine was abnormal (because of low fuel), so it tried to re-ignite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triethylborane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triethylborane
  - NikolaeVarius 6y ago
    Its spark ignited. No hyperglos
  - agildehaus 6y ago
    TEA-TEB is not used on Starship. What you saw was an oxygen rich burn due to the low pressures in the header tank, the engine was eating itself and burning copper in the process. Copper burns green.
    - ansible 6y ago
      > TEA-TEB is not used on Starship This is correct. The Raptor uses an electric spark igniter.
  - errantspark 6y ago
    Yo what's going on here? Is this some sort of misinformation campaign? To what end?? There's been a number of comments making this claim even though there's no reason to suggest this was the case.
    - 6y ago
badwolf 6y ago
That was so amazing to watch! I wish I could have been able to get down to South Padre to watch in person
pmayrgundter 6y ago
Swing and a miss.. but not by much! Congrats to the SpaceX team on the amazing and fast progress. What an incredible step forward.
- Shivetya 6y ago
  It says something about what they have done for rocketry when crashes on landing are note worthy. No one else even tries what they do normally without issue.
  - justinclift 6y ago
    > It says something about what they have done for rocketry when crashes on landing are note worthy. Err...??? Crashes of rockets always seem to be noteworthy. That's not anything specific to SpaceX.
    - ansible 6y ago
      Shivetya is talking about landing rockets afterwards. If they keep up the launch cadence next year, they will surpass the Shuttle in number of reuses in a space program.
      - valuearb 6y ago
        Who is Shivetya?
        macintux 6y ago
        Can’t find it via DDG or Google.
        sneak 6y ago
        The person who posted the grandparent comment (beginning "It says something...") to the person (ansible) who mentioned their name, and also the poster of the the great-great grandparent to this comment.
geuis 6y ago
If you watch the last few frames, it looks like the ship indeed landed. From the perspective that for a split second the entire vehicle was upright and in touch with the ground, that is. I’m not one to be a pedant, but you can claim a landing if you squint at it long enough.
- as-j 6y ago
  a) "Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing" b) "Any landing where you can re-use the equipment again is a great landing" Old aviation sayings. :) Oh well. ;)
  - mLuby 6y ago
    Also "you can only ever tie the altitude record for lowest flight."
    - lmm 6y ago
      That one's not actually true though, e.g. the lowest-altitude formation-flight record currently stands at -422m (over the dead sea).
      - castis 6y ago
        Has anyone ever tried to top that?
        genocidicbunny 6y ago
        Well, it wouldn't really be 'topping' it would it? I don't think its really possible to fly any lower. The dead sea is the lowest place on earth, and -422m is even pushing that as it must have been a very dry season when they did the flight. Unless the dead sea evaporates even lower, flying below -422m is going to be pretty hard.
      - mLuby 6y ago
        In AGL, or above ground level, it's still 0.
ffggvv 6y ago
i know they got the data they needed/wanted but can you really call it a success with that ending? on a side note: how much money do they lose whenever they have a crash landing like that?
- greedo 6y ago
  It depends on the goals of the launch. If they met their goal criteria, and sticking the landing wasn't one of the goals, then it's a success.
  - qayxc 6y ago
    I'm pretty sure a successful landing was one of the goals. It just might have been a "nice to have"-kind of goal. During prototyping there's only one type of test that isn't a success: a test that fails for a previously known reason (e.g. repeating a known mistake or some external factor like earthquakes, flooding or weather) and that you learned nothing from.
    - greedo 6y ago
      Elon explicitly tweeted the mission's goals: "Goals are to test 3 engine ascent, body flaps, transition from main to header tanks & landing flip." So the SpaceX team went four for four...
- handol 6y ago
  I'm sure there's some cost in cleaning up the scrap and repairing any damage to the facility. But it's a prototype, and I think this was the only flight planned for this one.
- waiseristy 6y ago
  Never heard of a test to destruction?
  - qayxc 6y ago
    That's something entirely different, though. Test to destruction/failure is done to check or verify the limits of a systems. This test on the other hand was a test with a low change of complete success and thus failure was an expected and acceptable - but not the intended - outcome.
disillusioned 6y ago
I mean, it didn't nearly land. It landed. For certain values of that verb.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  High temperature lithobraking?
- ineedasername 6y ago
  It simply utilized it's Full Vehicle Ablative Landing Armor
verroq 6y ago
>nearly lands (crashes) >protests mostly peaceful (until riot broke out) I am so tired of this media doublespeak.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  First three-Raptor test. First high altitude test. First test of the steering flaps. First test of the belly flop maneuver. All that, and it came very close to sticking the landing. Much closer than the first Falcon 9 flights did. It's not inaccurate to call that a win.
conroy 6y ago
Does anyone know if the engines cutting out one by one was planned? Or was something going wrong with the engines?
- tortarga 6y ago
  Seems to be planned. Elon tweeted in response to Tim Dodd that the engines were "working great" on ascent.
- chiph 6y ago
  (not a rocket scientist) They didn't need the thrust once they lightened the rocket by burning most of the fuel.
- arentyouspecial 6y ago
  Planned. They wanted to test restarting the engines as if it was reentering the atmosphere.
  - ansible 6y ago
    Definitely planned. If you look closely at the SpaceX stream, the first two engines that were shut down were the ones restarted during the landing flip maneuver. Too bad about the loss of fuel pressure from the header tank. SN8 wasn't quite on the landing pad, but it was close. We also didn't see the landing legs deploy, not sure why that didn't happen.
    - virgilp 6y ago
      My understanding is that the speed didn't get low enough for landing legs to deploy.
VectorLock 6y ago
Looks like someone left a tarp in it that caught fire at one point.
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  It looked more like metal foil shielding to me
  - VectorLock 6y ago
    Hard to tell what it is, looked like a thin plastic fabric like some kind of sheeting that was hanging loosely in there.
riffic 6y ago
RIP to the brave Galactic Federation officers on-board.
drummer 6y ago
It was glorious. Everyday astronaut has a 120fps video closeup of the landing. Watch for it to be posted on youtube.
- beambot 6y ago
  Slo-mo of landing portion: https://youtu.be/gBELXjq_X-M?t=17579 https://youtu.be/gBELXjq_X-M?t=17579
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
areoform 6y ago
I make efforts to add to discussions instead of subtracting with negativity. Recently, I've broken my rule quite a few times, fretting over the future of general compute. I'd vowed to not break it again, but the discussion about Starship lacks a vital perspective. . I don't understand the hype behind Starship. It's confusing to me. It is touching and nice; it's great to see people excited about space. However, the expectations and projections seem misaligned with reality. It seems that people are assuming that this is the vehicle itself, or at least an earlier version of it. That is likely to not be the case. This isn't anywhere close to the finished vehicle and several key technological problems remain. Yet, they've explicitly shaped it like the final version, and hyped it. In certain ways, SpaceX seems to be leaning into the hype, leading to a gross mismatch between expectations and reality. For example, the current headline is inaccurate as the flight cannot be categorized as sub-orbital. The vehicle did not cross the Kármán line. These issues will detract from the meat of what has been achieved today. SpaceX has achieved many milestones including demonstrating groundbreaking GNC (Guidance, Navigation and Control) capability today. Today's most impressive achievement is a high performant, stable Liquid-Methane engine. Prior investigations and projects found notable instability during ignition as well as low frequency instability. Another historical issue has been the need for a high pre-burner chamber pressure for a LCH4 engine. These issues were mapped out via prior research. For e.g., in 2014, there was a NASA project that shares some heritage with Raptor, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Morpheus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Morpheus > During the rest of March 2014 the ALHAT hardware was inserted again permitting a successful tethered test of the assembly on March 27, 2014. Tether Test 34 flight trajectory was similar to TT33 and TT29 with two hovers and a 3 m (9.8 ft) translation during a 3.25 m (10.7 ft) ascent.[97] Free Flight 10 (FF10) took place on April 2, 2014 with the ALHAT in open loop mode. The ALHAT imaged the Hazard Field and calculating navigation solutions in real time. Morpheus ascended to a maximum altitude of about 804 feet (245 m), then flew forward and downward initially at a 30-degree glideslope, then levelling out, covering a total of about 1334 feet (406.5 m) horizontally in 50 seconds while diverting to a landing site location 78 feet (23.8 m) from its initial target, before descending and landing on a dedicated landing pad at the front (south) of the ALHAT Hazard Field. The total flight time was ~96 sec, the longest flight to date.[98] Free Flight 11 on April 24, 2014 was a repeat of Free Flight 10 with some changes to the ALHAT.[99] April 30, 2014 Free Flight 12 was a repeat of FF10 but with the ALHAT choosing the landing location.[100] The engine was designed for moon operation, and demonstrated dynamic hazard avoidance and translation to a previously unknown "safe" landing area. The technology has found its way to the Nova-C lander which is slated for 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova-C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova-C NASA also has some fairly detailed technical reports on the subjects from earlier experimentation, https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20100034924 https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20100034924 and a comparative analysis of LCH4 and RP-1 for reusable boosters, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Holger_Burkhardt/publication/224789900_Comparative_Study_of_Kerosene_and_Methane_Propellants_for_Reusable_Liquid_Boosters_Stages/links/0deec5211c7bdc6840000000.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Holger_Burkhardt/public... The key impressive element over here is a reusable, throttleable, stable LCH4/LOX engine that seems to be capable of reignition (at least in the atmosphere). This is a significant achievement and one that SpaceX should be lauded for. However, an engine does not a starship make. A proper comparison would be the Space Transportation System, or the Shuttle. As Starship has Raptor, the Shuttle had the RS-25, a high efficiency, highly manoeuvrable and performant marvel of engineering. It is perhaps the only engine that could be re-used over a dozen times. A claim unmatched until the development of the past few blocks of Merlin engines. The STS also had superior GNC, for its time, and could autonomously land in flying brick mode all the way from orbit. However, that wasn't enough. The real issue turned out to be the thermal protection system, operational temperature ranges and the cost of refurbishing these machines. The STS may look like a bad bet right now, but if you were sitting in the 1970s, watching the RS-25 perform, seeing the GNC work, and watching NASA nail the first test flight with two humans on top in a single go, it would have seemed like the future. However, much of what makes rocket science hard is in the details. And those details simply haven't been filled in yet for Starship. These hops are excellent tests, but once again, an engine and GNC do not a starship make. In light of this, I am unable to understand the excitement for this vehicle. Several people assume that they're close to sending an orbital vehicle. Perhaps, but it wouldn't be reusable. And it would be quite mass inefficient for a one-way trip due to the construction techniques used. Starship isn't anywhere close to the primetime. It's at least half-a-decade to a decade away from initial reusable testflights, and perhaps more given the under funding of the Artemis program. It is worth remembering that early on in SpaceX's history, Musk made a dummy rocket and took it to DC to convince politicians to help allocate COTS & CRS funding to SpaceX. His gambit succeeded. My personal perception and worry is that SpaceX is repeating the tactic at scale, creating a sense that they're further along than they are. This perception is mixed with a more dangerous one that the Starship is in a league of its own. It's not. Blue Origin's work and approach may be superior in the long run, as they're designing mission specific vehicles that are optimised to their context. It is hard to convey to the public what realistic milestones look like in rocketry, but for context Raptor has been in development since 2009. The LCH4/LOX variant since 2012. It has taken nearly a decade to near the (limited) flight readiness stage. It is likely that the other components will take longer. I am worried that this early excitement will sour as the program takes longer than anticipated. The space program is highly dependent on public funding, there would be serious repercussions if public perception sours. I am worried about a rocketry winter. . Edit. Re: Artemis & NASA The Artemis program and other contracts now fund the bulk of Starship development. More broadly, NASA has poured billions into SpaceX and they're SpaceX's largest "investor" by far, except NASA doesn't take equity and treats it as "pre-funding" an eventual contract (which would also pay per launch). Starship is (likely) to be mostly (up to 60% to 70% or so) NASA funded. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-names-companies-to-develop-human-landers-for-artemis-moon-missions https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-names-companies-to-d... https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1316417597257129985 https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1316417597257129985 https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1316421539521327109 https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1316421539521327109 Re: early SpaceX history and the dummy rocket. http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=903 http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=903
ineedasername 6y ago
It gave me flashbacks to playing the jetpack on SNES Pilot Wings to watch that part at the end where it just missed the landing with a bit too much speed.
gt565k 6y ago
Lmao at all the people hating on a test launch. If this was even 10 years ago, you wouldn't even get a live stream of the launch and attempted landing. Perhaps Elon shouldn't even live stream this, so negative trolls wouldn't be able to assert and express their chair philosopher opinions. The fact that there are another 8-9 SN vehicles being readied at this time for testing tells you exactly what is happening. Slow progress, until they get all the data and metrics to slowly and incrementally making improvements. To all the haters, go find somewhere else to spread your negativity.
- thelittleone 6y ago
  Except that the progress is not at all slow. It's the opposite, particularly when compared to the usual development speeds the worlds space program and aerospace contractors. Someone asked a question on one of the live feeds. Would SpaceX learn more from a successful landing or from a failure. I can't answer that, but it seems they proved the concept.
  - aardvarkr 6y ago
    Failures point out flaws to be fixed but also stop you from gathering more data through the rest of the experiment. The earlier SN5 had a huge list of failures but at least landed in one piece which meant they could extract data from their equipment, tear down systems to understand how they handled the stresses and strains of the launch, and then they could launch it again to see how their fixes worked. Thankfully this failure was at the very end instead of, say, twenty seconds into flight or exploding on the launchpad. This way they got to test every subsystem which is phenomenal and about as good of a result as they could have expected. However, the landing system didn’t trigger and they’ll never know exactly why. The engines ate themselves alive and it would have been great to study how it performed in that scenario but now they’re in pieces. The header tank failed to provide enough pressure and it would have been great to test it further. Now they have to comb through the pieces and piece things together like a detective. They learned A TON but it’s definitely better to get it home in one piece.
    - 6y ago
thoughtstheseus 6y ago
Great Job Elon & team. Just keep swimming.
zaroth 6y ago
I swear the thrust vectoring algorithm was just plain showing off at the very end. Just super cool to watch, looks like a render not real life; https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1336849897987796992?s=21 https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1336849897987796992?s=21
- koobz 6y ago
  This is an incredible bit of footage. It's so cool to see the engines looking sideways like a chameleon. Raises a question: I suppose they fired 2/3 engines not because of a failure, but because 3 engines would produce too much thrust. That does mean that in a high stakes situation (landing) you can't afford to lose an engine. I wonder if there's any margin there for lighting the third engine in case of engine failure.
  - sq_ 6y ago
    Not at all sure, but some of the Falcon 9/Heavy failures seem to suggest that SpaceX's thinking on landing is "don't give up, fly it all the way to the ground," when there's an issue. Especially with the fact that Starship is eventually supposed to fly humans and doesn't have a limit on relights since the Raptors are electrically ignited, I would bet that the software will/does include the ability to light up extra engines in an emergency.
  - kolinko 6y ago
    The final rocket is supposed to have 5 or 9 raptors if I’m not mistaken.
    - taejavu 6y ago
      I think it’s more like 30
      - ragebol 6y ago
        That's for the booster/Super Heavy right? This Starship is only the second stage of an even more ginormous rocket.
chasd00 6y ago
the belly flop was awesome! man, the raptor engine is a masterpiece. I can't wait to see the full stack take off.
- infradig 6y ago
  Adama Maneuver.
dang 6y ago
The video is being discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25366253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25366253
garmaine 6y ago
Nitpick, 12km isn’t quite suborbital.
- Tepix 6y ago
  Where does suborbital begin? If i throw a ball, it's a suborbital flight.
  - PeterisP 6y ago
    The most common definition of suborbital flight would be a flight that reaches space (Karman line at 100 km) but does not reach orbit.
- Doxin 6y ago
  Surely anything short of reaching orbit is suborbital?
  - garmaine 6y ago
    As an industry term, "suborbital" implies space flight, which means crossing the Karman line (100km). Fast enough to exit the atmosphere, but not fast enough to achieve orbit. The 12-ish km of this test is within the operating ceiling of most commercial jet liners. This was an atmospheric test of an orbital-class rocket.
baryphonic 6y ago
This was incredible to see. My wife was fairly concerned about the fast descent at the very end, but I explained how this was merely the first test of this scheme, and that the rocket came extremely close to actually landing. The entire SpaceX team should feel proud of this, from Elon on down. Hell, I'm proud of them.
mlang23 6y ago
The magic of headlines. My local media titled today: "SpaceX explodes during landing." :-)
chrledntsurf 6y ago
As someone who's not knowledgeable about this...will SpaceX or a private space company ever begin sending satellites, probes, rovers to planets besides NASA's current planning or does the reduced cost of the reusable rockets not help that much given the lack of financial payoffs and amount of time needed to maintain. Always bums me out that we aren't sending probes off to all the inner and outer planets every year given the length of time it takes for them to even get to their destination.

408 points by n0pe_p0pe 6y ago

HN: "SpaceX Launches and Nearly Lands Starship on Its First Suborbital Flight" vs Article: "SpaceX Launches—and Crashes—Its Starship Mars Rocket"

mlindner 6y ago
Yeah article has a horrible title.
amanzi 6y ago
For whatever reason, Wired preferred the clickbait title, but the opening sentence of the article is: "On Wednesday afternoon, SpaceX successfully launched—and nearly landed—a fully-assembled prototype of its next generation Starship rocket on a suborbital flight from its facility in south Texas."
- dotancohen 6y ago
  The Wired article was full of misleading information (implying that the rocket failed to reach space, when that was never a mission objective) and outright lies (stating that the Starship is a scaled-up Falcon 9, the name of the Starship+SuperHeavy combo, the number of engines that the system will have, etc, etc).
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- skedaddle 6y ago
  No, it's not click bait if it's what happened. And what happened is that it crashed. :P
  - dwaltrip 6y ago
    It's clickbait because it implies test failure, which isn't true. The test was successful, as the primary objectives were all met.
    - skedaddle 6y ago
      "Nearly lands" means crash anyway so any implication of the latter is still there.
      - dwaltrip 6y ago
        Fair point. I suppose I find that the positive language is more harmonious with the actual test outcome, which was a success.
- ineedasername 6y ago
  Given that it's a rocket, "nearly land" could mean it kept going in some way, towards space or simply not yet touched down. So when I read the HN title and thought "what do they mean by nearly landed?" I then saw the article and realized "oh, it crashed". I'm not sure where the balance should be... "Crash" has a negative connotation, but "nearly lands" is a pretty soft euphemism.
  - ineedasername 6y ago
    To add to my comment-- I think the CNN headline got it better without the softening euphemism by pointing out it was a success: "A SpaceX Mars rocket prototype just exploded. It was still a success"
    - natch 6y ago
      I don’t think it exploded. It broke up by hitting the ground (not by exploding) which caused fuel and oxygen to leak out, which then ignited in a large fireball. But maybe this is splitting hairs. It sure looked like an explosion.
      - ineedasername 6y ago
        oxygen to leak out, which then ignited in a large fireball. That sounds a lot like a thermoberic bomb :)
  - natch 6y ago
    Landing safely was an unexpected outcome, so it’s remarkable (thus making it into the headline) that it came close to doing so. The right wording is highly context dependent. Here the “nearly landed” phrasing appropriately acknowledges the realistic expectations for the launch by those most in the know, the SpaceX team. “Crash” would be totally appropriate in a different context with different expectations. But it would make less sense in this case.
- jawzz 6y ago
  Headlines are usually written by an editor, not the writer, and chosen to generate clicks. That’s why there’s often such a contrast between the headline and the article.
jackfoxy 6y ago
If you want to see an even worse headline along with flat-out incorrect information in the article, try this bit of journalism. https://www.the-sun.com/news/1944062/space-x-mars-starship-explodes-misses-landing-pad/ https://www.the-sun.com/news/1944062/space-x-mars-starship-e...
airstrike 6y ago
A better article: https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12/starship-rises-high-performs-a-flawless-flip-but-doesnt-quite-stick-the-landing/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12/starship-rises-high-...
badconvincer 6y ago
What a stupid article headline.

hpoe 6y ago

I remember watching the Tesla going into space and the rockets landing on the platform. I remember thinking "Wow this man has restarted the space race for my generation." It was a hopeful and wonderful feeling, I figured with the budget cuts, the politics, and the general "been there done that" attitude that was prominent for much of my life space was closed. To see it opened again, gives me some sort of hope, some idea that there are things bigger than our squabbles, we took one giant leap for mankind when we stepped on the moon, but it's time for the next step to see what we can do after a leap.

nynx 6y ago
As a young person (21), I feel the same way. Space exploration and a beautiful future suddenly seems achievable with hard work and a lot of engineering instead of just feeling impossible.
- ridgeguy 6y ago
  As an old guy, I feel the same way. I was in JPL’s SFOF building watching Armstrong and Aldrin step out onto the moon. Today’s SN8 mission gave me reasonable hope I’ll live to see somebody set foot on Mars. It’s been a good day.
- Melting_Harps 6y ago
  > As a young person (21), I feel the same way. Space exploration and a beautiful future suddenly seems achievable with hard work and a lot of engineering instead of just feeling impossible. That is the goal for me, I'm not going to Mars and I knew that as soon as I went to the MDRS. I also made it an effort to make the director (commander on several mission) to realize how important it is motivate the younger generation and not just the future astronauts that come aborad for analogue missions. SpaceX doesn't pay much, and you have to make a ton of sacrifices to even be considered, but I can tell you that being there you get this 'I wouldn't be any where else' feeling that I think is far superior to any monetary value. Unfortunately, many of this year's missions at the MDRS are postponed due to COVID, but the robot challenge (mainly comprised of college aged students) is the one I really felt felt disappointed about. I was going to try and make it out this year to help out with that. I hope you decide to get involved in this space (pun intended); I know if I was in my 20s, I'd do it all over again.

ansible 6y ago

Great flight! Elon tweeted that the header tank pressure was low: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1336809767574982658 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1336809767574982658 There was also a substantial green flame coming from the raptor engine used for landing. Group consensus over on /r/SpaceX is that it was copper burning. We're amazed the engine didn't explode sooner.

asdfadsfgfdda 6y ago
I think it was purging leftover hypergolic fuel, which is used to ignite the engines. Or, maybe the engine sensed the engine was abnormal (because of low fuel), so it tried to re-ignite. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triethylborane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triethylborane
- NikolaeVarius 6y ago
  Its spark ignited. No hyperglos
- agildehaus 6y ago
  TEA-TEB is not used on Starship. What you saw was an oxygen rich burn due to the low pressures in the header tank, the engine was eating itself and burning copper in the process. Copper burns green.
  - ansible 6y ago
    > TEA-TEB is not used on Starship This is correct. The Raptor uses an electric spark igniter.
- errantspark 6y ago
  Yo what's going on here? Is this some sort of misinformation campaign? To what end?? There's been a number of comments making this claim even though there's no reason to suggest this was the case.
  - 6y ago

badwolf 6y ago

That was so amazing to watch! I wish I could have been able to get down to South Padre to watch in person

pmayrgundter 6y ago

Swing and a miss.. but not by much! Congrats to the SpaceX team on the amazing and fast progress. What an incredible step forward.

Shivetya 6y ago
It says something about what they have done for rocketry when crashes on landing are note worthy. No one else even tries what they do normally without issue.
- justinclift 6y ago
  > It says something about what they have done for rocketry when crashes on landing are note worthy. Err...??? Crashes of rockets always seem to be noteworthy. That's not anything specific to SpaceX.
  - ansible 6y ago
    Shivetya is talking about landing rockets afterwards. If they keep up the launch cadence next year, they will surpass the Shuttle in number of reuses in a space program.
    - valuearb 6y ago
      Who is Shivetya?
      - macintux 6y ago
        Can’t find it via DDG or Google.
      - sneak 6y ago
        The person who posted the grandparent comment (beginning "It says something...") to the person (ansible) who mentioned their name, and also the poster of the the great-great grandparent to this comment.

geuis 6y ago

If you watch the last few frames, it looks like the ship indeed landed. From the perspective that for a split second the entire vehicle was upright and in touch with the ground, that is. I’m not one to be a pedant, but you can claim a landing if you squint at it long enough.

as-j 6y ago
a) "Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing" b) "Any landing where you can re-use the equipment again is a great landing" Old aviation sayings. :) Oh well. ;)
- mLuby 6y ago
  Also "you can only ever tie the altitude record for lowest flight."
  - lmm 6y ago
    That one's not actually true though, e.g. the lowest-altitude formation-flight record currently stands at -422m (over the dead sea).
    - castis 6y ago
      Has anyone ever tried to top that?
      - genocidicbunny 6y ago
        Well, it wouldn't really be 'topping' it would it? I don't think its really possible to fly any lower. The dead sea is the lowest place on earth, and -422m is even pushing that as it must have been a very dry season when they did the flight. Unless the dead sea evaporates even lower, flying below -422m is going to be pretty hard.
    - mLuby 6y ago
      In AGL, or above ground level, it's still 0.

ffggvv 6y ago

i know they got the data they needed/wanted but can you really call it a success with that ending? on a side note: how much money do they lose whenever they have a crash landing like that?

greedo 6y ago
It depends on the goals of the launch. If they met their goal criteria, and sticking the landing wasn't one of the goals, then it's a success.
- qayxc 6y ago
  I'm pretty sure a successful landing was one of the goals. It just might have been a "nice to have"-kind of goal. During prototyping there's only one type of test that isn't a success: a test that fails for a previously known reason (e.g. repeating a known mistake or some external factor like earthquakes, flooding or weather) and that you learned nothing from.
  - greedo 6y ago
    Elon explicitly tweeted the mission's goals: "Goals are to test 3 engine ascent, body flaps, transition from main to header tanks & landing flip." So the SpaceX team went four for four...
handol 6y ago
I'm sure there's some cost in cleaning up the scrap and repairing any damage to the facility. But it's a prototype, and I think this was the only flight planned for this one.
waiseristy 6y ago
Never heard of a test to destruction?
- qayxc 6y ago
  That's something entirely different, though. Test to destruction/failure is done to check or verify the limits of a systems. This test on the other hand was a test with a low change of complete success and thus failure was an expected and acceptable - but not the intended - outcome.

disillusioned 6y ago

I mean, it didn't nearly land. It landed. For certain values of that verb.

mhh__ 6y ago
High temperature lithobraking?
ineedasername 6y ago
It simply utilized it's Full Vehicle Ablative Landing Armor

verroq 6y ago

>nearly lands (crashes) >protests mostly peaceful (until riot broke out) I am so tired of this media doublespeak.

ceejayoz 6y ago
First three-Raptor test. First high altitude test. First test of the steering flaps. First test of the belly flop maneuver. All that, and it came very close to sticking the landing. Much closer than the first Falcon 9 flights did. It's not inaccurate to call that a win.

conroy 6y ago

Does anyone know if the engines cutting out one by one was planned? Or was something going wrong with the engines?

tortarga 6y ago
Seems to be planned. Elon tweeted in response to Tim Dodd that the engines were "working great" on ascent.
chiph 6y ago
(not a rocket scientist) They didn't need the thrust once they lightened the rocket by burning most of the fuel.
arentyouspecial 6y ago
Planned. They wanted to test restarting the engines as if it was reentering the atmosphere.
- ansible 6y ago
  Definitely planned. If you look closely at the SpaceX stream, the first two engines that were shut down were the ones restarted during the landing flip maneuver. Too bad about the loss of fuel pressure from the header tank. SN8 wasn't quite on the landing pad, but it was close. We also didn't see the landing legs deploy, not sure why that didn't happen.
  - virgilp 6y ago
    My understanding is that the speed didn't get low enough for landing legs to deploy.

VectorLock 6y ago

Looks like someone left a tarp in it that caught fire at one point.

GekkePrutser 6y ago
It looked more like metal foil shielding to me
- VectorLock 6y ago
  Hard to tell what it is, looked like a thin plastic fabric like some kind of sheeting that was hanging loosely in there.

riffic 6y ago

RIP to the brave Galactic Federation officers on-board.

drummer 6y ago

It was glorious. Everyday astronaut has a 120fps video closeup of the landing. Watch for it to be posted on youtube.

beambot 6y ago
Slo-mo of landing portion: https://youtu.be/gBELXjq_X-M?t=17579 https://youtu.be/gBELXjq_X-M?t=17579

deleted 6y ago

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areoform 6y ago

I make efforts to add to discussions instead of subtracting with negativity. Recently, I've broken my rule quite a few times, fretting over the future of general compute. I'd vowed to not break it again, but the discussion about Starship lacks a vital perspective. . I don't understand the hype behind Starship. It's confusing to me. It is touching and nice; it's great to see people excited about space. However, the expectations and projections seem misaligned with reality. It seems that people are assuming that this is the vehicle itself, or at least an earlier version of it. That is likely to not be the case. This isn't anywhere close to the finished vehicle and several key technological problems remain. Yet, they've explicitly shaped it like the final version, and hyped it. In certain ways, SpaceX seems to be leaning into the hype, leading to a gross mismatch between expectations and reality. For example, the current headline is inaccurate as the flight cannot be categorized as sub-orbital. The vehicle did not cross the Kármán line. These issues will detract from the meat of what has been achieved today. SpaceX has achieved many milestones including demonstrating groundbreaking GNC (Guidance, Navigation and Control) capability today. Today's most impressive achievement is a high performant, stable Liquid-Methane engine. Prior investigations and projects found notable instability during ignition as well as low frequency instability. Another historical issue has been the need for a high pre-burner chamber pressure for a LCH4 engine. These issues were mapped out via prior research. For e.g., in 2014, there was a NASA project that shares some heritage with Raptor, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Morpheus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Morpheus > During the rest of March 2014 the ALHAT hardware was inserted again permitting a successful tethered test of the assembly on March 27, 2014. Tether Test 34 flight trajectory was similar to TT33 and TT29 with two hovers and a 3 m (9.8 ft) translation during a 3.25 m (10.7 ft) ascent.[97] Free Flight 10 (FF10) took place on April 2, 2014 with the ALHAT in open loop mode. The ALHAT imaged the Hazard Field and calculating navigation solutions in real time. Morpheus ascended to a maximum altitude of about 804 feet (245 m), then flew forward and downward initially at a 30-degree glideslope, then levelling out, covering a total of about 1334 feet (406.5 m) horizontally in 50 seconds while diverting to a landing site location 78 feet (23.8 m) from its initial target, before descending and landing on a dedicated landing pad at the front (south) of the ALHAT Hazard Field. The total flight time was ~96 sec, the longest flight to date.[98] Free Flight 11 on April 24, 2014 was a repeat of Free Flight 10 with some changes to the ALHAT.[99] April 30, 2014 Free Flight 12 was a repeat of FF10 but with the ALHAT choosing the landing location.[100] The engine was designed for moon operation, and demonstrated dynamic hazard avoidance and translation to a previously unknown "safe" landing area. The technology has found its way to the Nova-C lander which is slated for 2021. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova-C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nova-C NASA also has some fairly detailed technical reports on the subjects from earlier experimentation, https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20100034924 https://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20100034924 and a comparative analysis of LCH4 and RP-1 for reusable boosters, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Holger_Burkhardt/publication/224789900_Comparative_Study_of_Kerosene_and_Methane_Propellants_for_Reusable_Liquid_Boosters_Stages/links/0deec5211c7bdc6840000000.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Holger_Burkhardt/public... The key impressive element over here is a reusable, throttleable, stable LCH4/LOX engine that seems to be capable of reignition (at least in the atmosphere). This is a significant achievement and one that SpaceX should be lauded for. However, an engine does not a starship make. A proper comparison would be the Space Transportation System, or the Shuttle. As Starship has Raptor, the Shuttle had the RS-25, a high efficiency, highly manoeuvrable and performant marvel of engineering. It is perhaps the only engine that could be re-used over a dozen times. A claim unmatched until the development of the past few blocks of Merlin engines. The STS also had superior GNC, for its time, and could autonomously land in flying brick mode all the way from orbit. However, that wasn't enough. The real issue turned out to be the thermal protection system, operational temperature ranges and the cost of refurbishing these machines. The STS may look like a bad bet right now, but if you were sitting in the 1970s, watching the RS-25 perform, seeing the GNC work, and watching NASA nail the first test flight with two humans on top in a single go, it would have seemed like the future. However, much of what makes rocket science hard is in the details. And those details simply haven't been filled in yet for Starship. These hops are excellent tests, but once again, an engine and GNC do not a starship make. In light of this, I am unable to understand the excitement for this vehicle. Several people assume that they're close to sending an orbital vehicle. Perhaps, but it wouldn't be reusable. And it would be quite mass inefficient for a one-way trip due to the construction techniques used. Starship isn't anywhere close to the primetime. It's at least half-a-decade to a decade away from initial reusable testflights, and perhaps more given the under funding of the Artemis program. It is worth remembering that early on in SpaceX's history, Musk made a dummy rocket and took it to DC to convince politicians to help allocate COTS & CRS funding to SpaceX. His gambit succeeded. My personal perception and worry is that SpaceX is repeating the tactic at scale, creating a sense that they're further along than they are. This perception is mixed with a more dangerous one that the Starship is in a league of its own. It's not. Blue Origin's work and approach may be superior in the long run, as they're designing mission specific vehicles that are optimised to their context. It is hard to convey to the public what realistic milestones look like in rocketry, but for context Raptor has been in development since 2009. The LCH4/LOX variant since 2012. It has taken nearly a decade to near the (limited) flight readiness stage. It is likely that the other components will take longer. I am worried that this early excitement will sour as the program takes longer than anticipated. The space program is highly dependent on public funding, there would be serious repercussions if public perception sours. I am worried about a rocketry winter. . Edit. Re: Artemis & NASA The Artemis program and other contracts now fund the bulk of Starship development. More broadly, NASA has poured billions into SpaceX and they're SpaceX's largest "investor" by far, except NASA doesn't take equity and treats it as "pre-funding" an eventual contract (which would also pay per launch). Starship is (likely) to be mostly (up to 60% to 70% or so) NASA funded. https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-names-companies-to-develop-human-landers-for-artemis-moon-missions https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-names-companies-to-d... https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1316417597257129985 https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1316417597257129985 https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1316421539521327109 https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/1316421539521327109 Re: early SpaceX history and the dummy rocket. http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=903 http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewnews.html?id=903

ineedasername 6y ago

It gave me flashbacks to playing the jetpack on SNES Pilot Wings to watch that part at the end where it just missed the landing with a bit too much speed.

gt565k 6y ago

Lmao at all the people hating on a test launch. If this was even 10 years ago, you wouldn't even get a live stream of the launch and attempted landing. Perhaps Elon shouldn't even live stream this, so negative trolls wouldn't be able to assert and express their chair philosopher opinions. The fact that there are another 8-9 SN vehicles being readied at this time for testing tells you exactly what is happening. Slow progress, until they get all the data and metrics to slowly and incrementally making improvements. To all the haters, go find somewhere else to spread your negativity.

thelittleone 6y ago
Except that the progress is not at all slow. It's the opposite, particularly when compared to the usual development speeds the worlds space program and aerospace contractors. Someone asked a question on one of the live feeds. Would SpaceX learn more from a successful landing or from a failure. I can't answer that, but it seems they proved the concept.
- aardvarkr 6y ago
  Failures point out flaws to be fixed but also stop you from gathering more data through the rest of the experiment. The earlier SN5 had a huge list of failures but at least landed in one piece which meant they could extract data from their equipment, tear down systems to understand how they handled the stresses and strains of the launch, and then they could launch it again to see how their fixes worked. Thankfully this failure was at the very end instead of, say, twenty seconds into flight or exploding on the launchpad. This way they got to test every subsystem which is phenomenal and about as good of a result as they could have expected. However, the landing system didn’t trigger and they’ll never know exactly why. The engines ate themselves alive and it would have been great to study how it performed in that scenario but now they’re in pieces. The header tank failed to provide enough pressure and it would have been great to test it further. Now they have to comb through the pieces and piece things together like a detective. They learned A TON but it’s definitely better to get it home in one piece.
  - 6y ago

thoughtstheseus 6y ago

Great Job Elon & team. Just keep swimming.

zaroth 6y ago

I swear the thrust vectoring algorithm was just plain showing off at the very end. Just super cool to watch, looks like a render not real life; https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1336849897987796992?s=21 https://twitter.com/spacex/status/1336849897987796992?s=21

koobz 6y ago
This is an incredible bit of footage. It's so cool to see the engines looking sideways like a chameleon. Raises a question: I suppose they fired 2/3 engines not because of a failure, but because 3 engines would produce too much thrust. That does mean that in a high stakes situation (landing) you can't afford to lose an engine. I wonder if there's any margin there for lighting the third engine in case of engine failure.
- sq_ 6y ago
  Not at all sure, but some of the Falcon 9/Heavy failures seem to suggest that SpaceX's thinking on landing is "don't give up, fly it all the way to the ground," when there's an issue. Especially with the fact that Starship is eventually supposed to fly humans and doesn't have a limit on relights since the Raptors are electrically ignited, I would bet that the software will/does include the ability to light up extra engines in an emergency.
- kolinko 6y ago
  The final rocket is supposed to have 5 or 9 raptors if I’m not mistaken.
  - taejavu 6y ago
    I think it’s more like 30
    - ragebol 6y ago
      That's for the booster/Super Heavy right? This Starship is only the second stage of an even more ginormous rocket.

chasd00 6y ago

the belly flop was awesome! man, the raptor engine is a masterpiece. I can't wait to see the full stack take off.

infradig 6y ago
Adama Maneuver.

dang 6y ago

The video is being discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25366253 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25366253

garmaine 6y ago

Nitpick, 12km isn’t quite suborbital.

Tepix 6y ago
Where does suborbital begin? If i throw a ball, it's a suborbital flight.
- PeterisP 6y ago
  The most common definition of suborbital flight would be a flight that reaches space (Karman line at 100 km) but does not reach orbit.
Doxin 6y ago
Surely anything short of reaching orbit is suborbital?
- garmaine 6y ago
  As an industry term, "suborbital" implies space flight, which means crossing the Karman line (100km). Fast enough to exit the atmosphere, but not fast enough to achieve orbit. The 12-ish km of this test is within the operating ceiling of most commercial jet liners. This was an atmospheric test of an orbital-class rocket.

baryphonic 6y ago

This was incredible to see. My wife was fairly concerned about the fast descent at the very end, but I explained how this was merely the first test of this scheme, and that the rocket came extremely close to actually landing. The entire SpaceX team should feel proud of this, from Elon on down. Hell, I'm proud of them.

mlang23 6y ago

The magic of headlines. My local media titled today: "SpaceX explodes during landing." :-)

chrledntsurf 6y ago

As someone who's not knowledgeable about this...will SpaceX or a private space company ever begin sending satellites, probes, rovers to planets besides NASA's current planning or does the reduced cost of the reusable rockets not help that much given the lack of financial payoffs and amount of time needed to maintain. Always bums me out that we aren't sending probes off to all the inner and outer planets every year given the length of time it takes for them to even get to their destination.