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Starship Flight 7

spacex.com

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Re: Starship Flight 7

#421

Post by HPsquared »

pyrale wrote: post #392
razemio wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name a space company with less failures? Also I think it is unfair to even compare SpaceX to anything else, because of the insane amount of starts / tests combined unparalleled creativity. According to this website their current success rate is 99,18%. That's a good number I guess? Considering other companies did not even land their stages for years. https://spaceinsider.tech/2024/07/31/ula-vs-spacex/#:~:text…

Success rate isn’t a great metric for efficient initial work: it will keep improving as more launches are done, regardless of the initial work.

There's more to "overall success" then launch failure rate. Cost and time are very important, which are the other dimensions they are optimizing for here.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#422

Post by m4rtink »

raverbashing wrote: post #370
dpifke wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Preliminary indication is that we had an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall that was large enough to build pressure in excess of the vent capacity. Apart from obviously double-checking for leaks, we will add fire suppression to that volume and probably increase vent area. Nothing so far suggests pushing next launch past next month. https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1880060983734858130

I'm not sure there's fire suppression effective enough for this type of leak (especially given rocket constraints)

Actually the Super Heavy (first stage) already uses heavy CO2 based fire suppression. Hopefully not that necessary in the long term, but should make it possible to get on with the testing in the short term.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#423

Post by ruivil7 »

Back a few years ago. This was the starship that in 2024 would reach Mars with humans, with so much space taken by crew and materials, and almost no fuel, and "10 times cheaper". And currently is an empty shell. Nice fireworks and show, but no meaningful payload yet. Not even LO. And this will be ready for 2026 artemis mission?

Re: Starship Flight 7

#424

Post by tsimionescu »

terramex wrote: post #76

Looks like second stage broke up over Caribbean, videos of the debris (as seen from ground): https://x.com/deankolson87/status/1880026759133032662?t=HdHF... https://x.com/realcamtem/status/1880026604472266800 https://x.com/adavenport354/status/1880026262254809115 Moment of the breakup: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE52_hVSeQz/

Another failure, another few months of figuring out why this isn't working and can't stick to its flight path. They caused chaos for many commercial planes, so they'll definitely need some full reports to the FTA to know what they're doing about this, why the debris is falling over flight paths, and so on.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#425

Post by Culonavirus »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #223
m4rtink wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, most likely engine bay fire taking out systems one by one. Would be interesting to compare the telemetry cutoff with the video of explosion if possible. That could indicate if the fire even triggered an explosion, flight termination being activated or just reentry heating making the tanks explode.

Who knows where it started, but the fire was definitely in the payload bay in front of the header tanks if seen through the flap actuators during ascent, after speration at ~7:45 min

The single instance of a fire that could be seen in the stream was in the hinge area of a bottom flap.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#426

Post by aredox »

mrandish wrote: post #347
throw0101a wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (as seen from ground) As seen from a plane in the air with the break up right in front of it: https://old.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1i34dki/starship_...

While the video post does mention "Right in front of us", and it may have appeared that way to the pilots, it wasn't. Gauging relative distance and altitude between aircraft in flight can be notoriously deceptive even to experts, especially in the case of intensely bright, massive, unfamiliar objects at very high speed and great distance. The RUD was in orbit over 146 kilometers up and >13,000 mph. I'm sure using the…

Stupid comment. Several flights had to be diverted because of the break-up, and anyone in flight at that time would be rightly concerned about barely-visible high-speed shrapnel showering a much larger area than where the visible debris are - especially when you are responsible for keeping your hundreds of passengers safe in a very unexpected situation with no rehearsed procedure to follow.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#427

Post by kristianp »

kristianp wrote: post #19

This is version 2 of Starship, with some upgrades, such as longer starship. "Upgrades include a redesigned upper-stage propulsion system that can carry 25 per cent more propellant, along with slimmer, repositioned forward flaps to reduce exposure to heat during re-entry. For the first time, Starship will deploy 10 Starlink simulators" [1]. https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/heres-what-nasa-would-... [1] https://ww…

I found an article from earlier in the week about the changes for this version of the upper stage: https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/a-taller-heavier-smart...

Re: Starship Flight 7

#428

Post by inglor_cz »

Molitor5901 wrote: post #207
Cu3PO42 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a strangely beautiful sight. While I was excited to see ship land, I'm also happy I get to see videos of this!

I felt.. bad watching that breakup, it reminded me of Columbia.

OTOH I remembered Columbia too and I felt good knowing that Starship is being tested thoroughly without jeopardizing the crew.

The space-shuttle could not fly to the orbit automatically. It had to have people on board, and the first flight, IIRC, came close to a disaster.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#429

Post by razemio »

input_sh wrote: post #391
razemio wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name a space company with less failures? Also I think it is unfair to even compare SpaceX to anything else, because of the insane amount of starts / tests combined unparalleled creativity. According to this website their current success rate is 99,18%. That's a good number I guess? Considering other companies did not even land their stages for years. https://spaceinsider.tech/2024/07/31/ula-vs-spacex/#:~:text…

It says right there in your source that that figure refers to Falcon in particular. For comparison, Starship's current track record is 3/7 launch failures (+1 landing failure). There's an order of magnitude difference between them. If they were cars, it'd be like comparing the smallest car you can think of vs one of the biggest tanks ever made.

I ignored those, since the starship at this stage can be considered a prototype. I am just trying to argue, that calling SpaceX unreliable, especially compared to its competitors and time to market, is bold.

Re: Starship Flight 7

#430

Post by Kostic »

zqna wrote: post #403
distortionfield wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Survival of our species, for one. Never the mind short-sighted folks like yourselves clawing us back the entire way.

It's the opposite of the survival. When locust consumes everything around, it dies out.

On a long-enough scale, this planet will die anyways. Let's first try to expand life and unlock the secrets of the Universe, as much as possible.
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