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SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

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Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#881

Post by cubefox »

mschuster91 wrote: post #594
rootusrootus wrote: post #568

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As impressive as Starship is or will be, Saturn V has definitely earned a place in the history books that cannot be undone. The first airplane flew in 1903. Just 64 years later, Saturn V was launched for the first time. The fact that it has taken us 56 more years since then to outdo it says a lot.

> The fact that it has taken us 56 more years since then to outdo it says a lot. Mostly that people stopped caring after it was proven that, yes, the US can land a person on the moon.

And by all excitement and history and nostalgia, if we are honest, the moon landing program was a massive waste of money. Like the Egyptian pyramids. The are impressive, yes ...

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#882

Post by gridspy »

tootie wrote: post #831
ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The test was a massive success. So happy to see starship clear the towers. The largest rocket ever built, larger than the Saturn V. Are you kidding me?

Serious question, but why is bigger better? Is there a pending need to launch something huge in one go?

Until now, every kg we launch has been horrendously expensive. So all things in orbit and sent to other planets have lots of expensive design features to reduce weight or to reduce size in the fairing.

StarShip is so huge and the reuse will be so cheap that it's going to be 100x or more cheaper. We could send heavy equipment into space and on to other planets that just didn't make sense before.

Once Starship can land 100 tons on the moon, the question isn't "what can we fit" but "how do we fill all this capacity usefully?!" So the science objectives we can achieve grow enormously.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#884

Post by HarryHirsch »

mmmm2 wrote: post #714
lm28469 wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow space stuff nor space x but I was quite surprised not to see the usual water flooding system

Yeah, I think it's been surprising to a lot of people. There have been a lot of questions among people who follow space as to why they didn't start with a flame diverter and water deluge system. I guess they felt the delay to install one would be too long, and they really wanted to get this launched? Or maybe they had reason to believe they'd get away with it... seems implausible given the forces involved.

A month in the lab will save you an hour in the library, as the saying goes.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#885

Post by ChuckMcM »

gvb wrote: post #817
ChuckMcM wrote: post #798

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good analysis of the goals of this test. That said, the failure was interesting to me. In the SpaceX feed they were waiting for the second stage to separate and light, and it didn't do either. So first question is why didn't it separate? I think that is the relevant one because I would expect them to have interlocks that would prevent the second stage from starting up if it were still attached to the booster. The int…

In the SpaceX feed they were waiting for the second stage to separate and light, and it didn't do either. So first question is why didn't it separate? T+00:16 - Shortly after liftoff, when the engine graphic first appears, three engines were out. https://youtu.be/-1wcilQ58hI?t=2721 T+00:28 - Sparks are seen in the engine exhaust and some flashes. https://youtu.be/-1wcilQ58hI?t=2733 T+00:40 - A fourth engine is marked…

Pretty solid reasoning. Pretty clear that correct attitude of the spacecraft would be a go/no-go for booster separation.

Wonder if people heard the sonic boom on the ground. If it hit MaxQ and went past it then it would be supersonic at that point.

Presumably they have two flight abort systems (one booster, one ship), a separation, even under non-ideal circumstances, could provide test data. The safety issue would be addressed by setting the self destruct to occur post data collection or imminent danger which ever came first :-). Based on the NOTAMs the FAA sent out they seem to have had a pretty long footprint over the Atlantic for things to go wrong.

Hopefully they will give us a deep dive on what happened!

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#886

Post by moffkalast »

xwdv wrote: post #518
supportlocal4h wrote: post #501

Somewhere there is a team that is over the top happy about an incredibly successful explosion. Their job was to make sure that if flight path deviated beyond some threshhold that the whole vehicle would be blown into tiny parts that would become ballistically safe. They were on the edge of their seats on how well that would work. They saw the lift off team celebrate their success. They saw the booster team fist pumpi…

One demolition team member had commented that his butt was clenched the whole time and when he finally saw the rocket explode it was like a euphoric release.

I guess he finally learned how to use the three seashells.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#887

Post by octobus2021 »

outworlder wrote: post #820
chasd00 wrote: post #740

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this was a test, they didn't have anything left to test except for a flight. delaying would be pointless, everything else had already been tested. edit: one other thing, they crashed and burned a lot of starships too. I don't see this being that different it's just bigger.

> this was a test, they didn't have anything left to test except for a flight. delaying would be pointless, everything else had already been tested. Apparently not, since: 1) the launch site was damaged 2) several engines did not work 3) the RUD I'd say, there's plenty that they could have tested before launching.

Keep in mind that the B7 and S24 were both obsolete designs. B7 had previous gen Raptor engines, with next gen being (presumably) simpler design and more reliable; it had hydraulics-driven mechanism to gimbal the engines (the next gen has electric motors); and the engines had less isolation/protection against RUD of neighboring engines than B9 and above. I'm less familiar with S24 but do know that its design is obsolete to a great degree as well. So realistically they both could have been sent to scraps, or launched just to get some initial testing done. The only thing I think SpaceX could have done better was the launch pad design (flame diverter and water deluge), and I think it was pretty clear after the static fire that it was completely necessary.

SpaceX took a risk, with the worst case scenario being launch pad and ground infrastructure being blown up to shreds, which did no happen. I agree that everything else was just icing on the cake. So I would put that to the W.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#888

Post by cubefox »

adastra22 wrote: post #790
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.

For the record, they did blow up the pad.

At least there was no explosion on the pad, which would have been much worse.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#889

Post by cubefox »

AviationAtom wrote: post #265
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.

Musk was saying it was a 50% chance the rocket blew up on the launchpad. Their sole hope was that it made it in the air, leaving the launchpad unscathed and quickly usable for future launches.

He also said there was a 80% chance of reaching orbit this year. Which doesn't seem like a high number.

Re: SpaceX Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch from Texas

#890

Post by panick21_ »

SergeAx wrote: post #463

What's really dreading for me, is that the first launch showed, that the problem of synchronous work of many engines, which doomed N1[0], was not solved. SpaceX knew about it from the start and placed it's bet on 50 years of technological advances. I don't want to think about the scenario where that bet is lost. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket)

Falcon Heavy has 27 engines, Starship 33. Its not that different. And if anything Starship has a simpler engine configuration. This is not some unsolvable problem.
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