5 ms·

If only we could lower that peskty 1% chance of exploding each flight down a smidge. Well, at least this means the rockets will be cheaper to replace!

Tepix 5y ago
What's the source for the 1%? It's not even flown into space yet. Its extremely high flight rate makes it likely that its reliability will be closer to planes than rockets eventually.
- mlindner 5y ago
  They watched a popular youtube video that's making the rounds that claims that number as well as a couple of other incorrect statements.
- croddin 5y ago
  I'm guessing it is just referring to reliability of rockets in general. Reliability should be improved and being able to fly more rockets by being "fully and rapidly reusable" is the right approach. Planes would not have been able to become as safe as they are if we had to build a new one for each flight.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  > What's the source for the 1%? Toilet research.
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  https://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2020.html https://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2020.html Soyuz is the only rocket that has flown much more than 100 flights, and it has a reliability of 97%. Several other rockets, including Falcon 9, have flown enough successful flights that statistically their reliability is unlikely to be less than 99%, but we cannot know that it's any higher than that. NASA figures that the failure rate of a Dragon flight is about 1 in 500, but that's based on analysis rather than statistics and is likely quite wrong. Note that the highest chance of failure in their analysis is a micrometeorite collision rather than a rocket failure.
  - xoa 5y ago
    >Soyuz is the only rocket that has flown much more than 100 flights Falcon 9 has had 140 flights of which 138 were successful, but that includes 1.0 and 1.1 which were significantly different early designs. It's had 120 flights for F9 FT, all successful (though over 111 flights ago one was destroyed in preflight testing). It's arguably the safest rocket system ever made [0]. That said, Starship should easily surpass it. It has more margin to work with and will run at a much higher cadence with much more opportunity for refinement and testing. ---- 0: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/02/spacexs-falcon-9-rocket-has-set-a-record-for-most-consecutive-successes/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/02/spacexs-falcon-9-roc...
    - bryanlarsen 5y ago
      140 isn't much more than 100. Nor is Delta 2's 153 flights. At least not compared to Soyuz's 755.

Tepix 5y ago

What's the source for the 1%? It's not even flown into space yet. Its extremely high flight rate makes it likely that its reliability will be closer to planes than rockets eventually.

mlindner 5y ago
They watched a popular youtube video that's making the rounds that claims that number as well as a couple of other incorrect statements.
croddin 5y ago
I'm guessing it is just referring to reliability of rockets in general. Reliability should be improved and being able to fly more rockets by being "fully and rapidly reusable" is the right approach. Planes would not have been able to become as safe as they are if we had to build a new one for each flight.
jacquesm 5y ago
> What's the source for the 1%? Toilet research.
bryanlarsen 5y ago
https://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2020.html https://www.spacelaunchreport.com/log2020.html Soyuz is the only rocket that has flown much more than 100 flights, and it has a reliability of 97%. Several other rockets, including Falcon 9, have flown enough successful flights that statistically their reliability is unlikely to be less than 99%, but we cannot know that it's any higher than that. NASA figures that the failure rate of a Dragon flight is about 1 in 500, but that's based on analysis rather than statistics and is likely quite wrong. Note that the highest chance of failure in their analysis is a micrometeorite collision rather than a rocket failure.
- xoa 5y ago
  >Soyuz is the only rocket that has flown much more than 100 flights Falcon 9 has had 140 flights of which 138 were successful, but that includes 1.0 and 1.1 which were significantly different early designs. It's had 120 flights for F9 FT, all successful (though over 111 flights ago one was destroyed in preflight testing). It's arguably the safest rocket system ever made [0]. That said, Starship should easily surpass it. It has more margin to work with and will run at a much higher cadence with much more opportunity for refinement and testing. ---- 0: https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/02/spacexs-falcon-9-rocket-has-set-a-record-for-most-consecutive-successes/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/02/spacexs-falcon-9-roc...
  - bryanlarsen 5y ago
    140 isn't much more than 100. Nor is Delta 2's 153 flights. At least not compared to Soyuz's 755.