Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

apnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 1001 posts

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#381

Post by lupyro »

moffkalast wrote: post #227
fabian2k wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bit of spin by SpaceX. Blowing up the pad would be a serious failure and would be a large and costly setback. But they obviously didn't achieve the goal of the test flight here. It is a test flight, so it's not a complete failure and not entirely unexpected. But it's not a full success either, significant parts that were planned to be tested could not be tested because the rocket failed early.

Well the flight plan was to throw both stages into the ocean, so they couldn't have been overly confident about getting that far.

I'm pretty sure they planned on the booster to land on a barge in the ocean

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#382

Post by kortex »

jaywalk wrote: post #362
kortex wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly suspect the range safety officer pulled the trigger. It did a bunch of unexpected tumbles, so I think if it were flight termination system, that would have popped it earlier. I don't think it came apart of its own account, the RUD was quite rapid.

The Flight Termination System is controlled by the Range Safety Officer. And yes, it was pretty clear from the way the two stages exploded that it was the RSO activating the FTS.

By "Flight Termination System" I meant some automatic process, if such a system exists. It might just be a big red button at this point (since the goal is data collection). or maybe it's a very generous flight envelope, but the tumble took it far enough off course that it tripped.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#383

Post by s1artibartfast »

sandworm101 wrote: post #309
mabbo wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not proposing something, I'm describing it. This is what SpaceX is doing , and it's quite successful. And you can look all the way back to their little hopper version of the Falcon 9 and see that this strategy has been the key to them undercutting the launch market significantly. My prediction: SpaceX will have a 5th 100% successful launch of Starship before the SLS has a 5th successful launch. They'll just have…

My point would be that while SpaceX does save lots of money, it doesn't do so by producing cheap or less reliable rockets. It would never accept a failure rate any different than anyone else because, in aerospace, that isn't really a thing. SpaceX can certainly blast forwards with different business practices and different tolerance for developmental risks, but the final product will not be fundamentally different th…

I think it is a subtle difference.

SpaceX does not have a difference in intended reliability, or a difference in design reliability. (At least for the rocket as a whole. One could argue that 33 engines allows lower engine reliability through redundancy)

What they DO have is a significant difference in prototype reliability for live launch. This is clear when you look at their launch history.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#384

Post by [deleted] »

mabbo wrote: post #61

People want to see 100% success in all things. But that isn't very economical. Compare the SLS to Starship. SLS has had a 100% success rate. One launch, one success. But it costs $2B per launch (and climbing) and has taken 12 years to get here. Plus, it's stealing pieces of the Space Shuttle, which was developed in the 70s over a long period of time. Starship will launch a half a dozen "failures" before they achieve…

[deleted]

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#385

Post by CydeWeys »

somenameforme wrote: post #82

One interesting observation here is how long it took the ship to get off the pad from the T-0 mark. This is undoubtedly because some of the raptors on it apparently failed to ignite. I thought they were about to make a mess on the launch pad! I'm also curious about what technically finally got it off the ground - was there a sufficient, but low, level of acceleration, was it a matter of reducing the rocket's mass (by…

I was amazed at how resilient Starship was despite how many engines had failed, right up until the point they needed to yaw for stage separation and lost control. They've gotta improve the reliability of those engines (which I'm sure they will), but it's a testament to the quality of their control software how far they got despite having those malfunctioning engines.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#386

Post by Diederich »

makomk wrote: post #377
mcculley wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Success was defined as the rocket leaving the launchpad." I am confused. Everything I read before the launch said that it was intended to reach orbital altitude and make it around the Earth.

This test launch was never planned to actually make orbit. It was an "orbital test flight" only in the sense that it was intended to demonstrate system performance that would basically have been enough to reach orbit; the original plan was that they'd reach velocities and aerodynamic stresses similar to an actual orbital flight, test stage seperation, both stages, and part of the re-entry, then crash into the ocean,…

> This test launch was never planned to actually make orbit.

Very, very technically true, but not really. Their target trajectory was only a few tens of m/s short of orbit.

> aerodynamic stresses similar

Right, within one percent.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#388

Post by running101 »

mabbo wrote: post #61

People want to see 100% success in all things. But that isn't very economical. Compare the SLS to Starship. SLS has had a 100% success rate. One launch, one success. But it costs $2B per launch (and climbing) and has taken 12 years to get here. Plus, it's stealing pieces of the Space Shuttle, which was developed in the 70s over a long period of time. Starship will launch a half a dozen "failures" before they achieve…

SLS to Starship is not a good comparison. If all starship had to do was fly into space it would have succeeded.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#389

Post by kawfey »

foxyv wrote: post #368

I can't believe it made it off the pad! The fact it made it up to stage separation is crazy. That was the first flight with all the Super Heavy engines at once. I'm just blown away right now. 33 Raptor engines firing all at once without a single failure! The original hoppers had trouble running 1-3 raptors at once! There is just so much that could go wrong with this design and they knocked it out of the park! I'm bet…

> without a single failure

well..at least 8 engines failed on the way up. At least a majority of them were lit!

There was lots of very heavy debris that left the pad and flew hundreds of feet away upon ignition; I have a feeling that some debris came back up and hit an engine or two.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#390

Post by Xelynega »

DoneWithAllThat wrote: post #239
a4isms wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you mean, "Thanks Gwynne Shotwell." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwynne_Shotwell I think HN understands the difference between a charismatic leader who is good at laying out a vision and generating a tremendous amount of hype around it (like Steve Jobs) and someone who is an expert at actually realizing a vision (Steve Wozniak, Tim Cook). They may both be necessary for success, but if you are praising the ro…

I think HN likes to minimize the individual effort and success of great leaders because it plays against their personal beliefs. And I say this as someone who doesn’t like Musk very much.

The idea that "great leaders" exists is in itself a personal belief, isn't it? In my opinion "great leaders" are jobs that need to be done, not specific people. If Musk's personal characteristics make him viable to be a "great leader", there's at least a million other people that could have taken his place.
Post reply on HN