SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle
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Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle
#2This is good. Flight 1 had 63 corrective actions and it took 5 months to complete the report. This one took 3 months and had 17 corrective actions. They'll get to orbit this year for sure
Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle
#3> "The most likely root cause for the booster RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly) was determined to be filter blockage where liquid oxygen is supplied to the engines, leading to a loss of inlet pressure in engine oxidizer turbopumps that eventually resulted in one engine failing in a way that resulted in loss of the vehicle," the company stated. "SpaceX has since implemented hardware changes inside future booster oxidizer tanks to improve propellant filtration capabilities and refined operations to increase reliability."
Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle
#4> "The most likely root cause for the booster RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly) was determined to be filter blockage where liquid oxygen is supplied to the engines, leading to a loss of inlet pressure in engine oxidizer turbopumps that eventually resulted in one engine failing in a way that resulted in loss of the vehicle," the company stated. "SpaceX has since implemented hardware changes inside future booster oxi…
I wonder the kind of sensor package they fly to be able to get to this conclusion. I have a real passion for monitoring things (for me, mostly web apps and data/message flows) and this is a really interesting case.
Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle
#5This is good. Flight 1 had 63 corrective actions and it took 5 months to complete the report. This one took 3 months and had 17 corrective actions. They'll get to orbit this year for sure
I love that Superheavy/Starship can be profitable even if they are expendable.
Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle
#6> "The most likely root cause for the booster RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly) was determined to be filter blockage where liquid oxygen is supplied to the engines, leading to a loss of inlet pressure in engine oxidizer turbopumps that eventually resulted in one engine failing in a way that resulted in loss of the vehicle," the company stated. "SpaceX has since implemented hardware changes inside future booster oxi…
I wonder the kind of sensor package they fly to be able to get to this conclusion. I have a real passion for monitoring things (for me, mostly web apps and data/message flows) and this is a really interesting case.
Seems to be as simple as a bunch of pressure sensors, in this case.
Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder the kind of sensor package they fly to be able to get to this conclusion. I have a real passion for monitoring things (for me, mostly web apps and data/message flows) and this is a really interesting case.
Seems to be as simple as a bunch of pressure sensors, in this case.
True, but add telemetry, and all other sensors who have shown nominal performance throughout the flight and that gave them the information they needed with the time resolution required to see an highly energetic cascading failure from one engine to the others.
It's a very interesting space (no pun intended).
Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle
#8> "The most likely root cause for the booster RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly) was determined to be filter blockage where liquid oxygen is supplied to the engines, leading to a loss of inlet pressure in engine oxidizer turbopumps that eventually resulted in one engine failing in a way that resulted in loss of the vehicle," the company stated. "SpaceX has since implemented hardware changes inside future booster oxi…
I wonder the kind of sensor package they fly to be able to get to this conclusion. I have a real passion for monitoring things (for me, mostly web apps and data/message flows) and this is a really interesting case.
SpaceX is at least known to have some kind of high resolution/precision microphones around the structure recording constantly so that they are able to do 3D triangulation inside the vehicle.
Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle
#9> "The most likely root cause for the booster RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly) was determined to be filter blockage where liquid oxygen is supplied to the engines, leading to a loss of inlet pressure in engine oxidizer turbopumps that eventually resulted in one engine failing in a way that resulted in loss of the vehicle," the company stated. "SpaceX has since implemented hardware changes inside future booster oxi…
Why do those rockets have a fuel filter at all? I get why we have them in cars; we refuel quite often, in dirty environments and with possibly low quality fuel. For space rockets, it seems that it would be (comparatively) easy to ensure that the tanks are clean and the fuel is of high quality.
On the other hand, if there wasn't any dirt, the filters would not have clogged, so I guess it does make sense after all.
Re: SpaceX discloses cause of Starship anomalies as it clears an FAA hurdle
#10> "The most likely root cause for the booster RUD (rapid unscheduled disassembly) was determined to be filter blockage where liquid oxygen is supplied to the engines, leading to a loss of inlet pressure in engine oxidizer turbopumps that eventually resulted in one engine failing in a way that resulted in loss of the vehicle," the company stated. "SpaceX has since implemented hardware changes inside future booster oxi…
Why do those rockets have a fuel filter at all? I get why we have them in cars; we refuel quite often, in dirty environments and with possibly low quality fuel. For space rockets, it seems that it would be (comparatively) easy to ensure that the tanks are clean and the fuel is of high quality. On the other hand, if there wasn't any dirt, the filters would not have clogged, so I guess it does make sense after all.
Don’t forget about all the equipment needed to fill the tanks and transport the fuel to the tanks. Probably easier to assume contamination gets introduced somewhere and just slap an in-line filter.