Earlier quoted context omitted.
The “rest of the industry” isn’t doing anything at all.
IMO this is the coolest thing the rest of the industry is doing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzqhZLgpiv0
That is just space hardware porn.
Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time
391–400 of 559 posts
Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time
#392Earlier quoted context omitted.
This same question was asked in the early years of commercial aviation. In the end, the industry (mostly) settled on aircraft designs that could passively glide reasonably well enough to land (sometimes). But some aircraft, e.g. military jets and Cirrus, came up with different answers (parachutes for the crew and for the whole aircraft, mostly). We'll see how the commercial spacecraft industry deals with this, but I…
Wonder if we'll ever have commercial aircrafts with whole aircraft parachutes.
There's no parachuting from 900km/h
Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time
#393Earlier quoted context omitted.
Come on man they did a lot better than last time. How dare you bring any negativity here
Are there any rules against having a different take on things?
No, but there are also no rules against being told your take sucks and downvoting bad takes is original intended behavior on this website.
Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time
#394- Starship got just below orbit - Booster destroyed during hot staging - SpaceX reporting that destruct system fired on upper stage towards end of burn all in all a pretty good result: clean launch and separation, good performance on the booster during ascent (no engine mishaps this time)
Interesting re: good result...I've sort of lost track because the program's timeline has been extended several times: what sort of results are they shooting for?
Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why so long? Will they need to go through another round of FAA approval? Or?
They will need to find out what happened. Develop, build and test new hardware to fix what did not work. And wait on the new FAA review. This is the old one: https://www.faa.gov/media/72816
Most of the content of that report is about the deluge system for the launch pad. Since it tentatively appears that this worked, I have high hopes for much more expedient environmental reviews of future test flights.
Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time
#396Second stage lost, looks like the flight termination system did its job. Unknown as to why yet. Going to be very very interesting to see the data that's released from this as well as all the higher quality video/stills that surface.
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Considering that the FTS system didn't really do its job on IFT-1. it detonated but it took a while for the stack to lose enough pressurization and structural rigidity to break up. This time it did exactly what it was supposed to do.
Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time
#397What is the benfit of hot staging?
What I don't see mentioned: at the end of the day, Starship is designed to be fully and rapidly reusable. The core / the most important part of that goal is obviously to recover the 1st stage (not throw it away) and to recover it safely and with minimum delays. That's why, once operational, almost all starships will have their booster return to launch site. To return to launch site, you need to keep some of the fuel in the booster to flip it, do a boostback burn and a landing burn ( starship boosters do not need entry burns but they will need landing burns that are not suicide burns ending with hoverslams like falcon does, but basically end almost at zero velocity, hivering as the tower arms close around it).
The primary reason for hot staging is that without it, they had to turn off all engines, mechanically "push" the ship away from the booster and then light the ship engines. Say this takes 5 or 10 seconds. During this time, the entire system is not accelerating anymore, but it's still screaming away from the launch site (because to go to orbit, you don't just go "up", you mostly go "sideways", that's why you often hear "vehicle pitching down range" during broadcasts) and to get the booster back to the launch site you then have to spend more fuel to get back to the launch site - you have to counteract all that time you spend moving away from the launch site.
With hot staging you get to the velocity you need to get the first stage to orbit sooner, because the system never stops "pushing", and there's less distance you need to cover to get the first stage back to the launch site. With means you need less fuel that remains in the first stage after stage separation, which means you can use more fuel during the first stage firing (and therefore put more mass to orbit).
Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time
#398Earlier quoted context omitted.
And the fact that it survived long enough for the second stage to get on its way was incredible in itself. We'll see how it goes!
Both the booster and ship have been destroyed. SpaceX can keep claiming these RUDs are 'fine' and 'we're getting data', but the rest of the industry does not consider it normal or a "success." Hotstaging didn't "work" until they can demonstrate the Starship vehicle survives orbital insertion, re-entry, and landing without damage or malfunction caused by the hotstaging.
Found the guy who works at ULA :)
Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time
#399Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Challenger was destroyed by an FTS system No. The shuttle broke up when the overall stack became unstable due to the right hand SRB separating because a strut that attached it to the external tank failed (due to a blowtorch effect from a failed O-ring). The Challenger orbiter ended up 'on top' and broke into several chunks - without involvement of any FTS - because of the aerodynamic stress (one of these chunks was…
I'm very aware of why it initially broke up. But once that started, the range safety officer did activate the FTS system. The point is that rockets carrying crew do indeed have FTS systems - presence of a crew doesn't negate that need.
>the range safety officer did activate the FTS system.
That doesn't sound very automatic.
Re: Starship Integrated Flight Test 2 at 7 Am Central Time
#400A new era of humanity just started.
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