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- Starship got just below orbit - Booster destroyed during hot staging - SpaceX reporting that destruct system fired on upper stage towards end of burn all i
by ironyman 3y ago
- Starship got just below orbit
- Booster destroyed during hot staging
- SpaceX reporting that destruct system fired on upper stage towards end of burn
all in all a pretty good result: clean launch and separation, good performance on the booster during ascent (no engine mishaps this time)
- mechhacker 3y agoWonder if hot staging caused issues with both vehicles or it was two separate issues.
- dotnet00 3y agoI could believe that hot staging might've affected the booster, since it seemed to blow up right as it tried to light the engines again for boostback. But I don't think the ship would've made it so long if it were seriously damaged by the hotstaging.
- pixl97 3y agoDamage to the grid fins mechanism is a potential failure mode here. Even a small amount of damage to the flight control systems could make the procedure uncontrollable and eventually trigger the FTS.
- anovikov 3y agoAt this altitude, the vehicle is pretty much in the vacuum and grid fins have absolutely no control authority. It could have resulted in failure later on but not at that point where the booster blew up.
- pixl97 3y agoSaw that Scott Manley video that came out right after that and it looks like fuel issues to engines probably caused it. All but one engine started up, but they started failing after that. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7LYw6gU65ac https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7LYw6gU65ac
- anovikov 3y agoThen it's not hot staging but maybe sloshing of fuel in the tank just simply.
- anovikov 3y agoHow could hot staging affect the engines of the booster? If it affected the tanks then the three engines still running through separation would also fail so no flip-around could be possible with no thrust to go with.
- midasuni 3y agoThe booster experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly after boostback burn following the successful stage separation
- pixl97 3y agoYea, I've not seen up close shots of the launch facility yet, but it looks like it's all still there without massive amounts of destruction either.
- bryanlarsen 3y agoEveryday Astronaut was able to reconnect to their robo-cam and pan over the launch area. No damage visible. Not only did the cameras at the launch pad survive, they didn't even get their tripods knocked over.
- kebaman 3y agoThere does appear to be a large dent in one of the large tanks (LOX?) near the launchpad.
- throwawayben 3y agothat happened during the first test I believe
- jdworrells 3y agoIt's amazing what happens when you apply 60 year old solutions (water deluge).
- sebzim4500 3y agoThere are obviously similarities, but there are also important differences between SpaceX's solution and a conventional water deluge system. The primary purpose of the water here is not to dampen the sound/energy, but to cool the metal plate below the rocket.
- cubefox 3y agoI thought the system they use here is unlike anything used before.
- hnthrowaway0315 3y agoI can't wait for the next one. How many tests are we expecting? 7-8? Seems to be too long! I wish we had the spirit of the Apollo.
- T-A 3y ago> I wish we had the spirit of the Apollo Careful what you wish for. The Saturn test program peaked at 3 tests / year (unless you want to count the separately tested launch escape system for the crew capsule), and the fully stacked Saturn V was only tested twice (in 1967 and 1968) before crewed missions. For all its speed, Apollo was not a SpaceX-style rapid iteration program. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apollo_missions#Uncrewed_test_flights https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Apollo_missions#Uncrew...
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y agoTortoise and hare, perhaps. Starship development started in 2012, and now 11 years later has had 2nd launch and failure to reach orbit. Apollo program started in 1961 and had men on the moon in 1969 - with 60's tech.
- newsclues 3y agoApollo was also dual use military technology to accelerate the development
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- mrec 3y agoTo be fair, Apollo also had government funding to the tune of approximately 2.5% of GDP. Starship would probably go a bit faster too with an annual budget of half a trillion.
- mft_ 3y ago
- travisgriggs 3y agoSmall correction, I think. The booster appeared to survive hot staging fine. It went through quite a bit of it's flip back maneuver. It was awesome to watch. There were some interesting activations of engines in the booster engine ring at that point. It's unclear to me if that was anticipated as an offset subset was what was desired for the off axis maneuver, or things were degrading at that point. And then it blowed up, rather instantly. That something happened to the booster during the separation that led to its RUD ~20 seconds later is likely, but technically it was "long since separated" (in rocket launch time) when it was destroyed.
- api 3y agoIt was probably self destructed by the range safety officer if things were going south.
- cdash 3y agoJust want to add another comment in here that there is no manual termination, they are using a fully automatic flight termination system.
- ByThyGrace 3y agoSurely the final Starship carrying passengers will not have auto flight termination?
- t0mas88 3y agoImagine explaining to the court that the passengers were blown up by your AI algorithm... I expect these things are only on test flights indeed.
- dave78 3y agoI'm pretty sure Falcon 9 carrying crew has an AFTS. Challenger was destroyed by an FTS system as well despite having crew on board. I think it's just a risk you have to take to go on a rocket ride.
- hackeraccount 3y agoBelow orbit is a strange way to put it. Orbit is more speed then height. Google says it was going 1,400 mph when it was lost. Orbital speed is around 17,600 miles per hour. The goal was something just under orbital speed. Not that this wasn't totally amazing. Hopefully the launch pad wasn't damaged and they can crunch the data and have another test that gets further soon.
- ceejayoz 3y agoThe readout showed 20k km/hour towards the end. It was definitely near orbital speed. You might be looking at the first stage’s data. Edit: 24,124 km/hr when telemetry stopped on the stream; 15k mph.
- Kim_Bruning 3y agoA 'k km' is an Mm, so 24 Mm/h , (or 6.67 km/s , if you'd like to go full SI)
- hetman 3y agoTechnically correct but not really clear of it helps clear communication in this context. SI natives think of a "kilometre" as its own thing (in the same way one thinks about a "mile") rather than thinking about it as a thousandfold multiple of a metre.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- martythemaniak 3y agoI think you googled the April launch. Starship was going 24000+kmh, needed 27000, it was like 20-30 seconds away from successfully inserting itself into its target orbit.
- Kubuxu 3y agoThey also weren't targeting orbit but just bellow it.
- cratermoon 3y agoI previously said that if the launch works through staging, SpaceX fans would declare it a success. Personally, that seems like a pretty low bar compared to things like Saturn V and even STS, both of which launched successfully to orbit the first time.
- kbenson 3y agoWhat you count as success depends on what your goal is. It's entirely possibly SpaceX could have thrown extra billions at it and had a higher chance of successful orbit, but that doesn't mean they deemed that the most efficient use of time and money to advance the project. Sometimes it's far less costly in time and effort to start it up and see where it fails rather than look it over another 20 times and wrack your brain for anything you've missed before. When I think I've gotten pretty far in a program I'm writing and there's even a small chance of it partially functioning, I'll often fire it up to get feedback on the errors I wasn't aware of as early as possible. Some of those may indicate larger structural changes that are required in the worst case, and the earlier I can learn about those the better.
- cratermoon 3y ago> What you count as success depends on what your goal is Yes. My point is that the bar seems pretty low for Starship, and it's not clear why. Yes, some of the ways they are doing things are new, but overall, building large multi-stage rockets is 50s tech.
- dotnet00 3y agoThe "50s tech" was not based around easily reusable systems. It was all based on explosive bolts, solid fueled ullage motors etc. On top of that the fuel was much easier to work with and did not involve needing to be able to handle pressurization and sloshing during flips. It's 50's tech only in the same way that a Ryzen CPU is 70's tech.
- cratermoon 3y ago
- refulgentis 3y agoInteresting re: good result...I've sort of lost track because the program's timeline has been extended several times: what sort of results are they shooting for?
- kranke155 3y agoFully reusable rockets ?
- LanceJones 3y agoGood one. :-) SLS, anyone?
- refulgentis 3y agoGood one? Silly Lizard String? Consider a more substantial contribution the next time, this reeks of some sort of internalized battle the rest of us don't know about, and projection of it onto others.
- merman 3y agoIf you're trying to elevate the discussion here, I recommend you stop being so aggressive and sarcastic when chastising someone for being playful
- ben_bai 3y agoGathering data and making orbit. Plan was to return the booster near the launchsite and make a water splash down. The ship should make a single suborbital flight with orbit velocity to simulate reentry and should have splashed down near hawaii.
- frederikvs 3y agoI believe the primary goal was stage separation. Secondary goals were for the booster to make a controlled splashdown, and Starship to make almost a complete orbit, before splashing down near Hawaii. So they achieved the primary goal, which is a good result. It could even be argued that they got pretty close to one of the secondary goals. Starship was fairly close to shutting off its engines. If it would have completed that part of the flight, the next hour or so it would just be coasting. Physics alone would guarantee they'd end up near Hawaii.
- wheelerof4te 3y ago[flagged]
- codebolt 3y agoThis generation has too many computer scientists, not enough physicists (and the few physicists remaining are all focused on woo woo).
- kranke155 3y agoWhy would you need a new generation of physicist to get a rocket on the moon at this point. The physics of doing so are well established. You need a reason and money to fund it. Which Musk supplied.
- codebolt 3y agoEven if the physics is well established, I believe you need people who have spent their 10,000 hours learning and practicing with it in order to make the best use of it.
- wheelerof4te 3y ago[flagged]
- fiddlerwoaroof 3y agoSpaceX can reliably deliver payloads to orbit at much cheaper prices than anything before. The Moon program had its share of disasters, near-disasters and other failures (Apollo 1 burned with all its crew on the ground). Starship is a vehicle in development and will obviously have all sorts of bugs and edge cases to be worked out.
- wheelerof4te 3y ago[flagged]
- 3y ago
- sentrysapper 3y ago"The super booster experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly". Neat phrase for the booster explosion in the mesosphere.
- MegaDeKay 3y agoAlso worth mentioning that all engines on the first stage successfully ran until separation of the second stage. On the first flight, a number of engines didn't light and more shut down early.