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I'd agree with this. When I need to take "look away" breaks from work, I check some of the streams focused on the SpaceX facilities in Boca Chica; so I've stay

I'd agree with this. When I need to take "look away" breaks from work, I check some of the streams focused on the SpaceX facilities in Boca Chica; so I've stayed pretty current with the happenings there and the progress with the program. I think I'd characterize the possible test launch results like this: 1) Significant failure: the rocket catastrophically fails on the pad, damaging the ground equipment significantly. 2) Program setback: the rocket clears the pad, but fails to reach Max Q and requires significant redesigns (we might see some built prototypes scrapped if that's the case) or if the ground equipment needs significant redesign or repair after launch; I exclude the addition of deluge from that since it probably won't be there for first launch, but is already planned for installation. 3) Somewhat successful: the rocket gets off the pad and fails to reach Max Q, but the failure is the result of some less fundamental issue such as valves getting stuck, etc. causing termination of the flight. 4) Success: the rocket gets past Max Q without significant issue. 5) Very successful: Ship achieves planned trajectory. And everything thereafter is just gravy (soft landings, tiles not falling off, etc).

cubefox 4y ago
Though you forgot the option where the launch is scrubbed due to technical problems and nothing happens. For example, SLS launched only on its third attempt, which was associated with a delay of 2.5 months.
- sbuttgereit 4y ago
  Not forgotten, intentionally excluded. Aborts/scrubs are almost certainly going to happen and, in the vast majority of cases, the ability to correctly identify abort/scrub a launch attempt is part of success criteria: not a failure. Failing to abort when it should have aborted ends up in one of my other categories related to failure modes. All rockets, including those well out of their testing programs, will abort/scrub at some point. Just this past week a Falcon 9 mission out of Vandenberg AFB was automatically aborted at 3 seconds and then rescheduled a couple of times before successfully delivering its payload to orbit. I would count that a success: they didn't destroy the rocket, they didn't destroy the payload, and they got the payload to where it was suppose to go. Successful despite the abort. The only case I can think of where an abort would indicate a failure would be if they have to pull the rocket off the OLM and do extensive modifications or redesign on something. I don't anticipate that... that kind of problem almost certainly will end in some flight anomaly rather than an on-pad abort. We could say that the SLS rollback to the VAB was this kind of failure, but it was relatively minor... they fixed some stuff that they couldn't do so at the pad, but didn't really do any significant redesign or rebuild. I don't expect that sort of scenario for Starship. Starship isn't dealing with finicky liquid hydrogen and appears to be overall much more serviceable than SLS.

cubefox 4y ago

Though you forgot the option where the launch is scrubbed due to technical problems and nothing happens. For example, SLS launched only on its third attempt, which was associated with a delay of 2.5 months.

sbuttgereit 4y ago
Not forgotten, intentionally excluded. Aborts/scrubs are almost certainly going to happen and, in the vast majority of cases, the ability to correctly identify abort/scrub a launch attempt is part of success criteria: not a failure. Failing to abort when it should have aborted ends up in one of my other categories related to failure modes. All rockets, including those well out of their testing programs, will abort/scrub at some point. Just this past week a Falcon 9 mission out of Vandenberg AFB was automatically aborted at 3 seconds and then rescheduled a couple of times before successfully delivering its payload to orbit. I would count that a success: they didn't destroy the rocket, they didn't destroy the payload, and they got the payload to where it was suppose to go. Successful despite the abort. The only case I can think of where an abort would indicate a failure would be if they have to pull the rocket off the OLM and do extensive modifications or redesign on something. I don't anticipate that... that kind of problem almost certainly will end in some flight anomaly rather than an on-pad abort. We could say that the SLS rollback to the VAB was this kind of failure, but it was relatively minor... they fixed some stuff that they couldn't do so at the pad, but didn't really do any significant redesign or rebuild. I don't expect that sort of scenario for Starship. Starship isn't dealing with finicky liquid hydrogen and appears to be overall much more serviceable than SLS.