31–40 of 420 posts
It's funny that SpaceX is using the term "rapid unscheduled disassembly" unironically, despite it originally being a humourous euphemism.
Why can't they just say "exploded" ?
This 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 suspect if test flight 3 makes orbit then flight 5 will be delivering starlink satellites and then testing on the way back down. If I remember correctly, a starship can deliver 440+ starlink satellites compared to around 60 for falcon 9.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love that Superheavy/Starship can be profitable even if they are expendable.
There are customers from three letter agencies who could find a use for this payload capacity, for sure. OTOH imagine if a reusable launch of this costs approximately the same as an expendable Atlas 5 in it's most performant configuration and reliability is proven - NASA could launch a Pluto probe like New Horizons, except it'd be able actually make orbit over there.
But for Starship, most people don't seem to realize what a potential game changer this is. The goal for Starship is to get costs down to about 15x less than Falcon Heavy. When you can start sending stuff to space for a few dollars per pound, we're not talking about just probes, but rather opening the door to the complete commercialization and exploitation of space.
Such an exponential jump (downward) in prices would also largely end the only-for-the-super-rich phase of space we're currently in. You could be doing a flyby around the Moon for what you might spend on a holiday to Asia, in the very foreseeable future. That's what makes Starship so tantalizing. If it succeeds - this is a revolutionary step forward for space. Of course, there's no guarantee that it will succeed, but it increasingly looks like it will!
> "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.
It's funny that SpaceX is using the term "rapid unscheduled disassembly" unironically, despite it originally being a humourous euphemism.
This 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
The ambition level is really high with Starship but if there's any company that can get it done it's spacex.
Basically what they are doing is a form of agile development where instead of speccing out the whole thing years in advance, they basically iterate and redesign what needs redesigning. Even if the project ultimately fails, there are multiple things coming out of the project that are at this point valuable. Like the merlin engines. Or their welding innovations. The notion of launching a steel contraption this size to orbit is ludicrous. Yet, they almost pulled it off last time. Worst case they have learned a lot to do a better falcon rocket. Best case, this thing actually starts working.
> "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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
In my mind a rocket engine would be much more tolerant of debris since you just pipe the fuel into a giant fireball (yes I can practically see the eyes rolling, sorry! :-). For ICEs I can understand clogging tiny injectors or carbs would be a problem, do rocket engines also have injectors or other narrow parts susceptible to clogs?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most rockets don't have fuel filters, but this requires their tanks to be kept in a much more strict state of cleanliness, and any failure to do so would result in mission failures. SpaceX has long had a very different idea about FOD than most other rocket companies, famously Merlin engine qualification testing contains ingesting stainless steel nuts.
That's bonkers. What size nuts do they pass through their engine? Every engine before it goes to space has to have a nut passed through the system? Like a 12mm "go into space" grade nut or a little itty bitty nut like I might find holding down a heat sink assembly in a 1998 vintage motherboard? I'm off to the googles to find videos...
Robustness and anti-fragility may not be so critical for an expendable vehicle that operates once for something like 12 minutes, but seems a key attribute for a refuel-able and reusable spacecraft?