SpaceX Loses Starship Spaceraft During Test Flight

Post by imtringued » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 6:48 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #68

radu_floricica wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair point - they didn't even plan a landing for the Spaceship, just a splashdown in the Pacific, so the plan was always to "lose" it. And it was well on track for that, it reached target height and already fired about 90% of its fuel. The only thing it didn't get to test was the heat shield, but there'll be plenty of other chances. I'm sorry about the booster tho. But overall it's hard to consider this anything othe…

any footage of the splashdown ?

Post by euroderf » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 7:22 PM UTC

datameta wrote: post #104

euroderf wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope that future mission commanders will never ever let control forget that someone mistakenly kaboomed an upper stage.

I believe it was automatic based on a potential course deviation that brought it dangerously close to Hawaii?

Post by Zigurd » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 7:46 PM UTC

glitchcrab wrote: post #63

gregjor wrote: post #41

I’m old enough to remember the Apollo program. Not one Saturn V blew up on launch. I guess we had a different notion of “success” back then.

Yes, but the approach is very different. This more of a '(star)ship and iterate' way of working. There's also the cost factor - each Saturn launch was around $1.5 billion in today's dollars. Whereas the projected budget for Starship for the entirety of 2023 was around $2 billion. Once they start launching commercially then Musk expects a launch to come down to around $10 million - even if he's wildly out then it's st…

Post by agumonkey » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 8:29 PM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #151

agumonkey wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

any footage of the splashdown ?

Did you miss the part where the first stage exploded and they lost communication with the second stage? There is no footage for that.

Post by panarky » Sat, Nov 18, 2023, 10:01 PM UTC

gavinray wrote: post #111

saberience wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to assume you made this comment in good faith. Most rockets (almost all) use just a few engines. The Saturn V had five engines, and the Space Shuttle had a total of five engines (including the Solid Rocket Boosters). The Atlas V uses one engine, New Glenn seven engines, etc. Historically, there has only been one rocket that attempted the 'many engine' approach before now: the N1 by the Soviets, which they n…

Thanks for the genuine response, it wasn't a troll comment.