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The important part of this flight was not the booster but the Starship. Last two launches failed in a similar fashion a short time after separation. SpaceX will
by stephc_int13 1y ago
The important part of this flight was not the booster but the Starship. Last two launches failed in a similar fashion a short time after separation. SpaceX will be in hot water if this launch is not showing some progress in that regard.
- decimalenough 1y agoThey did make major progress: this is the first time Starship completed SECO and successfully made it into stable orbit. Unfortunately there was a fuel leak later that caused the craft to spin and made controlled reentry impossible.
- echoangle 1y agoThere was no stable orbit, the ship was suborbital during the entire flight (as planned).
- decimalenough 1y agoReally? Wikipedia says they "made it to orbital velocity", and I thought their original plan was to do a full orbit of the Earth before reentry.
- none_to_remain 1y agoOrbital velocity but not orbital trajectory.
- pfdietz 1y agoVelocity is a vector, so it would be more proper to say "orbital speed". But no one does that.
- BobaFloutist 1y agoVectors are location independent, so theoretically any velocity with sufficiently high speed would be orbital velocity even if it was pointed directly at the planet, no?
- BobaFloutist 1y agoFor that matter, any velocity is orbital velocity, since at sufficient distance it would exactly perfectly counteract earth's gravitational field. Assuming there aren't any other gravitational fields out there to interfere.
- aeternum 1y agoThis flight's failure is a great example of why doing a full orbit is a bad idea. It's quite close to orbital velocity but keeping it just short ensures it will re-enter in the predicted zone even if they lose control (as they did today).
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- stephc_int13 1y agoYeah, sure, huge success as always. I fully understand the iterative nature of this, but they honestly seem to be hitting some roadblocks on the design of this ship.
- fallingknife 1y agoThey have succeeded in all parts of the flight plan on different missions. So the concept is proven out, but they just need to improve reliability to string it all together.
- timschmidt 1y agoEverything that's never been done before seems un-doable until it's been done. Then it seems obvious and as if it's always been happening.
- Retric 1y agoI don’t think people are questioning the feasibility of Starship’s core design. However the program has been in development for quite a while (well over a decade) and seems to have a lot of internal issues. Be that poor management, scope creep, or whatever the process looks flawed.
- timschmidt 1y ago> However the program has been in development for quite a while No longer than other rocket programs. The speed of development is frankly mind blowing considering it's scale. Regulatory hurdles seem to be the biggest delaying factor. Which goes a long way toward explaining Musk's political activities AFAICT. > and seems to have a lot of internal issues. Be that poor management, scope creep, or whatever the process looks flawed. It seems like you're making the mistake of equating SpaceX's hardware-rich development philosophy (i.e. just fly it and see what happens) to NASA's check-it-ten-times-before-flight risk-averse methodology. Different approaches. Russia followed the former, much like SpaceX, and Soyuz is second only to Falcon 9 in number of launches. Arguably, more can be learned, more quickly, and for lower cost following the hardware-rich approach. You just have to deal with the optics and armchair rocket engineers declaring every launch a failure until they aren't.
- dzhiurgis 1y agoWhy engine cut-off is such a important milestone?
- bamboozled 1y agoin case you decide you don't want to go to space anymore!
- goku12 1y agoThose leaks, debris ejection and the (mild) loss of attitude control seem to have started right after SECO. And that isn't very surprising because engine shutdown can cause huge disturbances (shock) in the engines and related plumbings. (I know this sounds contrary to intuition). So I wouldn't consider that milestone as a success, unless it emerges that those problems were unrelated to SECO or any other engine operation.
- yread 1y ago> I know this sounds contrary to intuition Not at all. We have a flexible hose for our tap and the hydraulic hammer smashes it good when you quickly close the water tap
- goku12 1y agoThat could very well be the case. I can't be certain. However, it's also a well-known problem in engine design. High flow rate fluid lines like propellant lines are often protected against fluid hammers. That may come in the form of a gas reservoir to absorb the pressure spike (sort of like surge suppression capacitors in electronic circuits) or as a check valve connected to a re-circulation path (like snubber/flyback diodes in electronic circuits). The reason why I said it sounds counterintuitive is that I suspect that the flame extinction inside the combustion chamber also causes strong mechanical shocks. However, I don't know how that works and I could be mistaken.
- golol 1y agoNo, not at all. This is flight 9. Flights 3-6 had a complete Starship suborbital trajectory with 5-6 landing softly in the ocean. On 7-8 Starship exploded before SECO. On 9 it kind of got as far as 3.
- preisschild 1y agoThat was Block 1 Starship. Its the first for Block 2 starship. I wonder if we will have a repeat for all of those problems when we get to Block 3...
- cubefox 1y agoThey successfully performed the first Starship lower stage reflight, which was previously only achieved by Falcon 9 (and other suborbital rockets which are much smaller).