SpaceX’s Starship rocket system reached several milestones in its second test flight before the rocket booster and spacecraft exploded over the Gulf of Mexico.
SpaceX’s Starship rocket system reached several milestones in its second test flight before the rocket booster and spacecraft exploded over the Gulf of Mexico.
So the booster worked in that it achieved lift off and properly separated. Did the other stages complete their jobs? Because this looking like it’s only a failure in the sense that the booster didn’t do the cool we-live-in-the-future part of flipping itself over and landing.
The main focus of this test was stage separation. In that sense it was a roaring success. Also, looks like they managed not to trash the landing pad this time. So that will make it easier to get the next flight approved. But clearly there’s still a long way to go.
Also demonstrated the flight termination systems, for both stages, it seems.
It appears they got their engine development under control too. Every one lit and burned effectively full duration, on both stages.
So basically they’ve fixed every issue displayed in the first flight I’d say.
Still some work to do in the not-blow-up department, though.
I mean, the entire purpose of the “blow up the ship” system is to blow it up, so that part worked correctly
Nope. Blew up uncontrolled.
Yes, but they blew up correctly. What they are saying is it is all new issues and the old ones are fixed. This is good for test vehicles.
Just for anyone wondering what blew up correctly means. The flight termination system didn’t work properly on the 1st launch. Starship and the booster didn’t separate and it tumbled in the air for too long. That puts people at risk as it might go out of the safe area.
This time, when whatever went wrong went wrong, the system triggered properly and both vehicles blew up.
They pick and chose what was the “focus” every time there’s a launch. In reality focus is for everything to work. It didn’t work this time either. It was worse the first time, but this time at the moment it looks better. Things worked out but second stage blew up in LEO which can cause all kinds of issues with debris and other satellites.
They’ve been pretty transparent about their expectations for these early test flights, and today’s achievements match those expectations. For example, they didn’t bother securing all the thermal tiles because they didn’t really expect to survive re-entry.
The rocket didn’t go to LEO. This was intentional, because they knew that this flight was unlikely to survive and they’re as concerned about space debris as you are. All the debris either burned up or fell into the ocean.
Look up what LEO region is. It’s everything beneath 2000km. But the point still stands, it was big ship with big explosion. You can’t be sure things didn’t get thrown outwards. Also, SpaceX is not exactly known for respecting the environment. In fact they’ve been constantly criticized about that.
But isn’t the key aspect here “orbit”? I get that the FTS would lengthen the trajectory of some of the debris, but would it be enough to create a stable orbit? The original trajectory was going to splashdown near Hawaii.
I certainly agree that there are lots of environmental downsides to space exploration that are increasingly overlooked, I’m just not sure that there’s anything extra egregious about this flight.
Well, I don’t know if there is anything egregious about this either. Last time there was a spaceship test it was touted as a great success while tons of concrete flew in all directions destroying everything in their path from cameras to people’s cars. Most importantly launch site is in the middle of the nature’s reserve and agency in charge of that already filed a number of complaints because of their reckless destruction. “Genius” in charge said it was planed and only concrete was just fine, until it wasn’t.
So I never trust what their PR says. Last time it was also planned and great success but they managed to get their launch license suspended. Am just not quick to jump to conclusions about whether this made any damage or not. Hopefully none of the debris managed to destroy anything.
Yeah, the concrete storm wasn’t great last time. They did have some engineering reasons to believe it would work for a single launch, but it seems like there was more subsurface damage to the concrete than they realized. As far as I know the only property that was significantly damaged was related to the company, but I’m sure there were some smaller residential insurance claims for the dust.
Part of the reason Saturday’s launch was delayed was so that more environmental assessments could be performed. A few weeks ago there some government scientists taking samples at the launch site for a baseline measurement to compare against in the future, and the entire project was reviewed by environmental regulators. So, those agencies were very involved in approving the launch license and SpaceX can’t just do whatever the owner wants them to. I guess my point is that it’s not strictly PR-speak, there really are qualified people making these decisions. But I agree that it’s not great to have the facility in the middle of a sensitive wetland, and no doubt there was backdoor politicking. I wish SpaceX would do more to offset the harm they cause, but I still think the StarShip project does more good than harm.
It seems that Starship, the second stage, experienced RUD from the automated FTS at around the time it was expected to shut off its engines.
Edit: RUD is Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly. Basically an explosion. FTS is Flight Termination System, which explodes a rocket if something goes wrong in a potentially dangerous way.
Which is an incremental improvement over the prior attempt. People mock these failures as though they have never built anything and have no concept that any step forward is a win when you are trying to do something that has never been done before. They got the smaller rockets working. It will just take time to get this giant one working.
Yeah but to get from here to a 99.99% reliability is a very very long way
Look at the Falcon rocket history. They started out at a very similar point, though at a smaller scale. And yet now they are comfortably human rated. They have landed the last 171 times in a row without fail, with another one coming this evening to add to that incredible number.
The guy at the helm is a terrible person, but this does not discredit the absolutely insane progress they have made.
What do you mean, never been done before?
We had satellites in space 70 years ago.
Delta clipper was pioneering reusable boosters in the 90’s.
SpaceX themselves have been recovering boosters for almost ten years now. They learned nothing from that?
I’m not saying it should work every time out of the gate, but they haven’t even reached orbit yet. And musk himself has said that starship being operational is critical to SpaceX and starlink if they don’t want the companies in serious financial trouble. So, it’s not like they’re taking their sweet time with these as incremental tests.
Fully reusable super-heavy rockets with multiple full stage combustion engines running on Methane have been done before? You mind sharing sources because I can’t find any.
Closest thing I can think of is the Soviet N1 rocket (about 2/3 the thrust of Starship) which the Soviets really struggled with and ended up abandoning, and it wasn’t even close to being reusable.
Didn’t the N1 have a massive launch pad failure that we still don’t know how many people it killed?
Can’t find any reference to anyone dying or getting injured, but in terms of pad damage it definitely takes the cake.
The first Starship may have put a hole in the pad, but the N1 obliterated it.
You’re comparing the world’s first fully reusable rocket that also happens to be the world’s most powerful operational rocket to old technology? The payload capacity of this vehicle is immense. There is not a single aspect of it that isn’t brand new, from its proportions, engine power cycle, engine amount, construction materials, you can go on almost endlessly.
These incremental tests are what allow them to move at this incredible speed. Traditional rocket development doesn’t take years, it takes decades. You have to consider that this isn’t a government trying to outcompete another one, it’s a private company. They are pushing the envelope with everything they’re doing.
Nah, I mock this and I’ve built shit. The fact that musk is failing at stuff we’ve done before is hilarious.
Uh… Who has done this before?
We’ve been to the moon already.
What? 😂 This flight wasn’t supposed to go to the moon. It’s a test flight. They’re developing the most powerful rocket to have ever flown and recover every part of it. They’re also using a power cycle for the engine that has never been used before. So no, what SpaceX is doing has never been done before.
Musk is a twat but the people working at Spacex have shown themselves to be quite competent at what they do.
With an eight times higher injury rate? That’s not competence.
RUD, aka “Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly”. I love how you can make “shit blew up in a way we didn’t expect” sound so mundane.