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The part that seems to be unexpectedly really hard is getting to and successful at ignition of stage 2. Relativity Space recently had a failure with their Terr
by mabbo 4y ago
The part that seems to be unexpectedly really hard is getting to and successful at ignition of stage 2.
Relativity Space recently had a failure with their Terran 1 launcher on its first and only test fight because stage 2 failed to correctly ignite. Virgin Orbital (RIP) had a similar second stage failure. Astra lost their rocket 3 last year when the second stage failed to separate from the first stage correctly.
Those companies had good engineers who had thought they had every edge case covered.
Space is hard!
Godspeed Starship.
- sebzim4500 4y ago>Those companies had good engineers who had thought they had every edge case covered. I doubt anyone at Relativity thought they had every edge case covered. From my understanding, they consider the flight to have exceeded expectations.
- sbuttgereit 4y agoYeah, that test was really about proving that their 3D printed rocket components could withstand the forces of launch. Once they got past Max Q successfully, that test was completed successfully... anything else would have been gravy.
- chriswarbo 4y agoSpaceX as well, with their original Falcon 1 (demonstration rocket, before they secured funding to pursue Falcon 9)