10 ms·

SpaceX loses another Starship prototype as landing sequence fails

71 points by alexrustic 6y ago

WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
Reminds me of the movie October Sky. I always laughed at the launching sequence where the rockets keep exploding.
- NotSammyHagar 6y ago
  A big difference is that at that point, they weren't going for the rapid iteration and we know we'll fail some.
tectonic 6y ago
Darn! Certainly a set back, if a brief one— they're astonishingly building new Starships every few weeks now. It was almost exactly 15 years ago that SpaceX attempted their first (albeit unsuccessful) launch of the Falcon 1. Also, as of their 25th Starlink mission last week they now have 1320 satellites in orbit. Approximately ⅓ of all operational satellites are now Starlink relays, which is kinda mind boggling.
- saberdancer 6y ago
  I don't think it is a setback. They are building them all the time and they are iterating very fast. I don't think they are close to reusing them so they are just interested in seeing what works and what doesn't and then iterate on the design in subsequent launches. I wouldn't be surprised if this Starship didn't incorporate all the improvements they learned about during last few launches (and booms).
  - Geee 6y ago
    The next one (in a few days) is SN15, which is a major upgrade with "hundreds of design improvements across structures, avionics/software & engine.", according to Elon. "Next major technology rev is at SN20. Those ships will be orbit-capable with heat shield & stage separation system. Ascent success probability is high. However, SN20+ vehicles will probably need many flight attempts to survive Mach 25 entry heating & land intact." Surviving the orbital entry and landing is probably the most difficult challenge yet. After that the next major challenge is landing on Mars.
  - elihu 6y ago
    According to the article, they're probably going to skip over SN12, 13, and 14 in order to try with a later design. That makes sense, since it's likely that several crashes happen between when construction starts on a new rocket and it finishes. Once it's done, they may have design might already be out of date. > Fortunately, as part of its iterative development program, SpaceX is building a Starship vehicle at a rate of every two to three weeks. So the next prototype—likely to be SN15 as the company skips ahead toward a more advanced version—may be ready to fly in several weeks. Still, SpaceX would have liked to have gotten this one back in one piece.
- ryannevius 6y ago
  It's pretty wild to see trains of these Starlink satellites pass overhead. I've been using this tool to see them travel over our area every few days: https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/ https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/
  - ajcp 6y ago
    What a ridiculously useful and easy-to-use site, thanks!
  - LegitGandalf 6y ago
    Very cool, I've always wanted to watch the NSA watching me!
    - rurban 6y ago
      The NSA has proper camera satellites. These are for WiFi only, the 4 hubbles are much bigger and for view. If weather permits.
alberth 6y ago
Is it my imagination but it seems so many of these failures are not recorded (or have really bad video quality / cut in-and-out). Is it correlated to the success of the mission or just a coincidence.
- modeless 6y ago
  Starship launches are documented very well. Tons of live coverage from dozens of cameras, both from SpaceX and third parties. There's plenty of great footage of the prior explosions. Today happened to be foggy, but SpaceX doesn't control the weather. In fact they wanted to launch yesterday but couldn't because the FAA didn't have its act together.
  - khuey 6y ago
    According to the Washington Post's space reporter it's not really the FAA's fault. https://twitter.com/wapodavenport/status/1376668877699047424 https://twitter.com/wapodavenport/status/1376668877699047424
    - ggreer 6y ago
      Isn't it the FAA's fault for requiring an inspector on scene before every launch? There's simply no way to iterate quickly with a constraint like that, especially if the inspectors are in Florida and need to be flown out each time.
      - iso1631 6y ago
        The logical thing would be for SpaceX to fund a full time on site inspector working for the FAA I have no doubt spacex would love to do that so why isn't it possible?
    - modeless 6y ago
      I'm not surprised that's a Washington Post reporter's take, but given the same information I have a different take: this is very much the FAA's fault. This is a billion dollar development program and the FAA ought to be able to get someone in state for oversight, or allow remote oversight in cases where they can't get their guy there promptly (because, don't forget, of a different government bureaucracy, not SpaceX). Also they should be easier to reach. By saying that SpaceX "must provide adequate notice of its launch schedule", they are basically saying that it's unreasonable for anyone to try a fast-paced space development program. SpaceX has to slow down so the FAA isn't inconvenienced by having to hire a local inspector, or having the inspector wait idle a few days, or keep their phone on and travel on short notice, or figure out remote inspections. Which is just the epitome of government bureaucracy.
gameswithgo 6y ago
I am beginning to wonder if either: 1. This landing procedure is not viable. Restarting an engine in the middle of a rotation like that, fuel sloshing around is really hard. Just restarting an engine in zero G has always been tricky, because the fuel is floating around and doesn't have gravity pulling it to the pump. This case is even more dynamic, and you have to get it right immediately. or 2. If the raptor engine is too complex to be reliable. Then again Falcon9 also failed to land many many times early on, and it has become rather routine. Though still not routine enough that you would want to be a passenger riding one down. please nobody reply with "prototype" or "rapid iteration" we know, we have seen your posts 20,000 times here already :)_
- rich_sasha 6y ago
  I think they picked a very hard and complex task, and the hype around it is so high that everyone just assumes they will succeed. The procedure might be unworkable, the engine unreliable, or not reusable enough, tons of things. I think such an ambitious project is always a “maybe” until it’s done. But not in the general perception.
- amelius 6y ago
  > fuel sloshing around is really hard Can't the fuel be stabilized mechanically, e.g. as in a syringe?
  - nickik 6y ago
    In theory yes, and if worse comes to worse that is an option. But its not what any rocket designer would want to do. Having a mechanical system inside of a deep cryo liquid methane is hugely complex and very heavy. Even if you put it outside, you still have deep cryo liquid inside and that would make it even heavier. Consider that 1kg extra weight on the second stage reduces payload to orbit by 1kg and payload to Mars by much more overall.
    - api 6y ago
      Is there some kind of material that remains elastic and strong at that temperature that could be used to create a bladder? I assume no, since that seems like something that would have already been done in place of helium pressurant if it were viable. All the rubbery or fabric-like things I know of that are stretchy like that become brittle at those temperatures.
crispyambulance 6y ago
I just realized I don't know how Starship, or the Falcons for that matter, "know" their position prior to landing. Orientation, I expect, would be determined by some kind of gyro (ring laser gyro? or super precise accelerometer?). How about altitude? What is the feedback mechanism(s) to know where the ground is in the moment before touch down?
- aphextron 6y ago
  >What is the feedback mechanism(s) to know where the ground is in the moment before touch down? Radar
- Symmetry 6y ago
  I'd imagine a wide variety of inputs sources are all being fed into a Kalman filter or something similar. Certainly they're going to be using gyros but also radar, GPS, and probably other things.
- bdamm 6y ago
  In addition to radar, gps, gyro.. they likely also have terminal guidance radio very similar to what airports use for guiding airplanes to the runway in fog/cloud. See Instrument Landing System. They may use active radar reflectors, and if they do, I'd say that's a different form of the same basic idea (using fixed radio sources to calculate an expected landing position.)
holman 6y ago
> SpaceX loses another Starship prototype Not true. They know exactly where most of the pieces landed!
sschueller 6y ago
I don't see how this is viable the way it lands right now. One failure and you have total loss. With a parachute or wings you can have some failures and still land safely. Is there going to be an ejection system in case of failure? EDIT: Instead of just down voting my valid question you could please provide me with an answer so I can understand how such issues are going to be resolved. If the flip maneuver fails I don't want to die.
- cryptoz 6y ago
  There is not sufficient atmosphere on Mars to use either a parachute (not enough drag) or wings (not enough lift), so neither of those options work. Vertical landing of the rocket seems to be the only rapidly reusable architecture for landing on other planets - the primary purpose of this rocket (eventually). I'm not sure about other failure handling, you ask a good question and I don't have a great answer. But the mission requirements suggest that vertically landing the rocket is the only feasible landing method I think.
- thepete2 6y ago
  But isn't there some redundancy of the parts at least? Of course you can't recover from a failed flip, but having more engines than necessary means some failed ignitions can be tolerated.
- maccam94 6y ago
  It only needs one or two of its three engines to land.
  - sschueller 6y ago
    I think the flip maneuver is a big issue as it happens near ground and if it fails there is not time to recover irregardless if there are other engines that could perform it.
    - nickik 6y ago
      The flip starts with 3 engines and should work even if 1 of them doesn't start.
runawaybottle 6y ago
Can anyone break down the economics of this? How can they afford this over and over again?
- carabiner 6y ago
  Stainless steel is really cheap, and they adapted fabrication methods from the grain silo industry.
  - qayxc 6y ago
    The stainless steel is irrelevant. They lose 3 raptor engines per crash and that hurts. A lot.
    - mrep 6y ago
      Not sure if they are at v1.0 yet, but "Raptor cost is tracking to well under $1M for V1.0" [0]. Assuming they are, 3 million dollars worth of engines per test isn't that much. [0]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1179107539352313856 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1179107539352313856
- antoniuschan99 6y ago
  I would like to know too. When sn8 crashed I googled and saw a quora article saying it costs $180 mil for each prototype. But this article says ~10 mil. Im assuming to ~180 mil number is the production version? https://qr.ae/pGRZv0 https://qr.ae/pGRZv0 It makes sense at $10 mil since they are pumping these out like mad. Also NASA awarded $135 mil for the starship design so it can’t cost $100 for each of these sn’s right!?
  - adwn 6y ago
    > Im assuming to ~180 mil number is the production version? The best assumption would be that the author of the $180M figure has no idea what they're talking about and derived at this number from a lack of information and through bad analogies and misapplication of scaling laws.
tibbydudeza 6y ago
So when will it be regarded as working ???. 10 successful landings or 20 or 50 ???. Apollo did 6 launches (bar the first one - cabin fire) before it was manned.
- iso1631 6y ago
  Starship is being developed in a very different way to Apollo. Apollo program's first launch was October 27, 1961, the first crewed launch was October 11, 1968 - 7 years later. Even if you start from the first Starhopper launch, that gives SpaceX until 2025 to be technically ready for the first crewed launch.

71 points by alexrustic 6y ago

WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago

Reminds me of the movie October Sky. I always laughed at the launching sequence where the rockets keep exploding.

NotSammyHagar 6y ago
A big difference is that at that point, they weren't going for the rapid iteration and we know we'll fail some.

tectonic 6y ago

Darn! Certainly a set back, if a brief one— they're astonishingly building new Starships every few weeks now. It was almost exactly 15 years ago that SpaceX attempted their first (albeit unsuccessful) launch of the Falcon 1. Also, as of their 25th Starlink mission last week they now have 1320 satellites in orbit. Approximately ⅓ of all operational satellites are now Starlink relays, which is kinda mind boggling.

saberdancer 6y ago
I don't think it is a setback. They are building them all the time and they are iterating very fast. I don't think they are close to reusing them so they are just interested in seeing what works and what doesn't and then iterate on the design in subsequent launches. I wouldn't be surprised if this Starship didn't incorporate all the improvements they learned about during last few launches (and booms).
- Geee 6y ago
  The next one (in a few days) is SN15, which is a major upgrade with "hundreds of design improvements across structures, avionics/software & engine.", according to Elon. "Next major technology rev is at SN20. Those ships will be orbit-capable with heat shield & stage separation system. Ascent success probability is high. However, SN20+ vehicles will probably need many flight attempts to survive Mach 25 entry heating & land intact." Surviving the orbital entry and landing is probably the most difficult challenge yet. After that the next major challenge is landing on Mars.
- elihu 6y ago
  According to the article, they're probably going to skip over SN12, 13, and 14 in order to try with a later design. That makes sense, since it's likely that several crashes happen between when construction starts on a new rocket and it finishes. Once it's done, they may have design might already be out of date. > Fortunately, as part of its iterative development program, SpaceX is building a Starship vehicle at a rate of every two to three weeks. So the next prototype—likely to be SN15 as the company skips ahead toward a more advanced version—may be ready to fly in several weeks. Still, SpaceX would have liked to have gotten this one back in one piece.
ryannevius 6y ago
It's pretty wild to see trains of these Starlink satellites pass overhead. I've been using this tool to see them travel over our area every few days: https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/ https://james.darpinian.com/satellites/
- ajcp 6y ago
  What a ridiculously useful and easy-to-use site, thanks!
- LegitGandalf 6y ago
  Very cool, I've always wanted to watch the NSA watching me!
  - rurban 6y ago
    The NSA has proper camera satellites. These are for WiFi only, the 4 hubbles are much bigger and for view. If weather permits.

alberth 6y ago

Is it my imagination but it seems so many of these failures are not recorded (or have really bad video quality / cut in-and-out). Is it correlated to the success of the mission or just a coincidence.

modeless 6y ago
Starship launches are documented very well. Tons of live coverage from dozens of cameras, both from SpaceX and third parties. There's plenty of great footage of the prior explosions. Today happened to be foggy, but SpaceX doesn't control the weather. In fact they wanted to launch yesterday but couldn't because the FAA didn't have its act together.
- khuey 6y ago
  According to the Washington Post's space reporter it's not really the FAA's fault. https://twitter.com/wapodavenport/status/1376668877699047424 https://twitter.com/wapodavenport/status/1376668877699047424
  - ggreer 6y ago
    Isn't it the FAA's fault for requiring an inspector on scene before every launch? There's simply no way to iterate quickly with a constraint like that, especially if the inspectors are in Florida and need to be flown out each time.
    - iso1631 6y ago
      The logical thing would be for SpaceX to fund a full time on site inspector working for the FAA I have no doubt spacex would love to do that so why isn't it possible?
  - modeless 6y ago
    I'm not surprised that's a Washington Post reporter's take, but given the same information I have a different take: this is very much the FAA's fault. This is a billion dollar development program and the FAA ought to be able to get someone in state for oversight, or allow remote oversight in cases where they can't get their guy there promptly (because, don't forget, of a different government bureaucracy, not SpaceX). Also they should be easier to reach. By saying that SpaceX "must provide adequate notice of its launch schedule", they are basically saying that it's unreasonable for anyone to try a fast-paced space development program. SpaceX has to slow down so the FAA isn't inconvenienced by having to hire a local inspector, or having the inspector wait idle a few days, or keep their phone on and travel on short notice, or figure out remote inspections. Which is just the epitome of government bureaucracy.

gameswithgo 6y ago

I am beginning to wonder if either: 1. This landing procedure is not viable. Restarting an engine in the middle of a rotation like that, fuel sloshing around is really hard. Just restarting an engine in zero G has always been tricky, because the fuel is floating around and doesn't have gravity pulling it to the pump. This case is even more dynamic, and you have to get it right immediately. or 2. If the raptor engine is too complex to be reliable. Then again Falcon9 also failed to land many many times early on, and it has become rather routine. Though still not routine enough that you would want to be a passenger riding one down. please nobody reply with "prototype" or "rapid iteration" we know, we have seen your posts 20,000 times here already :)_

rich_sasha 6y ago
I think they picked a very hard and complex task, and the hype around it is so high that everyone just assumes they will succeed. The procedure might be unworkable, the engine unreliable, or not reusable enough, tons of things. I think such an ambitious project is always a “maybe” until it’s done. But not in the general perception.
amelius 6y ago
> fuel sloshing around is really hard Can't the fuel be stabilized mechanically, e.g. as in a syringe?
- nickik 6y ago
  In theory yes, and if worse comes to worse that is an option. But its not what any rocket designer would want to do. Having a mechanical system inside of a deep cryo liquid methane is hugely complex and very heavy. Even if you put it outside, you still have deep cryo liquid inside and that would make it even heavier. Consider that 1kg extra weight on the second stage reduces payload to orbit by 1kg and payload to Mars by much more overall.
  - api 6y ago
    Is there some kind of material that remains elastic and strong at that temperature that could be used to create a bladder? I assume no, since that seems like something that would have already been done in place of helium pressurant if it were viable. All the rubbery or fabric-like things I know of that are stretchy like that become brittle at those temperatures.

crispyambulance 6y ago

I just realized I don't know how Starship, or the Falcons for that matter, "know" their position prior to landing. Orientation, I expect, would be determined by some kind of gyro (ring laser gyro? or super precise accelerometer?). How about altitude? What is the feedback mechanism(s) to know where the ground is in the moment before touch down?

aphextron 6y ago
>What is the feedback mechanism(s) to know where the ground is in the moment before touch down? Radar
Symmetry 6y ago
I'd imagine a wide variety of inputs sources are all being fed into a Kalman filter or something similar. Certainly they're going to be using gyros but also radar, GPS, and probably other things.
bdamm 6y ago
In addition to radar, gps, gyro.. they likely also have terminal guidance radio very similar to what airports use for guiding airplanes to the runway in fog/cloud. See Instrument Landing System. They may use active radar reflectors, and if they do, I'd say that's a different form of the same basic idea (using fixed radio sources to calculate an expected landing position.)

holman 6y ago

> SpaceX loses another Starship prototype Not true. They know exactly where most of the pieces landed!

sschueller 6y ago

I don't see how this is viable the way it lands right now. One failure and you have total loss. With a parachute or wings you can have some failures and still land safely. Is there going to be an ejection system in case of failure? EDIT: Instead of just down voting my valid question you could please provide me with an answer so I can understand how such issues are going to be resolved. If the flip maneuver fails I don't want to die.

cryptoz 6y ago
There is not sufficient atmosphere on Mars to use either a parachute (not enough drag) or wings (not enough lift), so neither of those options work. Vertical landing of the rocket seems to be the only rapidly reusable architecture for landing on other planets - the primary purpose of this rocket (eventually). I'm not sure about other failure handling, you ask a good question and I don't have a great answer. But the mission requirements suggest that vertically landing the rocket is the only feasible landing method I think.
thepete2 6y ago
But isn't there some redundancy of the parts at least? Of course you can't recover from a failed flip, but having more engines than necessary means some failed ignitions can be tolerated.
maccam94 6y ago
It only needs one or two of its three engines to land.
- sschueller 6y ago
  I think the flip maneuver is a big issue as it happens near ground and if it fails there is not time to recover irregardless if there are other engines that could perform it.
  - nickik 6y ago
    The flip starts with 3 engines and should work even if 1 of them doesn't start.

runawaybottle 6y ago

Can anyone break down the economics of this? How can they afford this over and over again?

carabiner 6y ago
Stainless steel is really cheap, and they adapted fabrication methods from the grain silo industry.
- qayxc 6y ago
  The stainless steel is irrelevant. They lose 3 raptor engines per crash and that hurts. A lot.
  - mrep 6y ago
    Not sure if they are at v1.0 yet, but "Raptor cost is tracking to well under $1M for V1.0" [0]. Assuming they are, 3 million dollars worth of engines per test isn't that much. [0]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1179107539352313856 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1179107539352313856
antoniuschan99 6y ago
I would like to know too. When sn8 crashed I googled and saw a quora article saying it costs $180 mil for each prototype. But this article says ~10 mil. Im assuming to ~180 mil number is the production version? https://qr.ae/pGRZv0 https://qr.ae/pGRZv0 It makes sense at $10 mil since they are pumping these out like mad. Also NASA awarded $135 mil for the starship design so it can’t cost $100 for each of these sn’s right!?
- adwn 6y ago
  > Im assuming to ~180 mil number is the production version? The best assumption would be that the author of the $180M figure has no idea what they're talking about and derived at this number from a lack of information and through bad analogies and misapplication of scaling laws.

tibbydudeza 6y ago

So when will it be regarded as working ???. 10 successful landings or 20 or 50 ???. Apollo did 6 launches (bar the first one - cabin fire) before it was manned.

iso1631 6y ago
Starship is being developed in a very different way to Apollo. Apollo program's first launch was October 27, 1961, the first crewed launch was October 11, 1968 - 7 years later. Even if you start from the first Starhopper launch, that gives SpaceX until 2025 to be technically ready for the first crewed launch.