Space Space X Test Flight

[elbmek]

Disappointed to see press reaction to Space X successful first test of Starship (SN9). Everything ran perfectly until the fuel pressure dropped and two of the Raptor engines went PHUT! The ship hit the deck, right on target, a bit too hard and crumpled, spilling what was left of the fuel which, for 4 secs, ignited. Congrats to Elon Musk and his team showing the way forward to the stars. I watched it all and was delighted as were many of the commentators on the streaming channels. A great success.

 

[Telmar]

10 minutes from a the SN9 high altitude test?

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Aaah might be a little lobger. They still have a 3 hour window.

Idea is to do the same they did with SN8: fly it up to 10 miles, and than do a landing on the launch pad by directing the ship with the flaps, restarting engines, pivoting, and hopefuly not losing an engine in the last seconds and not explode after a hard landing.

 

[Telmar]

Well scrubbed twice, super dissapointed like many space fans.

Apparently there is starting to be a rift between the FAA and SpaceX on securing a restricted airspace for testing.

Although I would say the FAA might be playing pen pusher in this, there are safety issues as Boca Chica is not that isolated place.

On Twitter someone did mention that testing rockets in an area that does not have the size of Cape Canaveral or Edwards Air Force base might prove problematic for the FAA. I do think they take responsibility for flights over the USA, and a starship flight, with a return to land puts them in a position where they need to approve a flight plan.

A rocket sent from the cape flies away over the sea eastward, eventually (SpaceX) lands on a platform in the sea or back on Cape Kennedy grounds. A rocket fault from the Cape leads to a crash in the Atlantic..not over land.

Starship, a huge ship must fly back to Boca Chica with some towns in the vicinity. Port Isabel is seven miles from the launch and landing site with 5500 inhabitants. Brownsville is 16 miles away.

Boca Chica might not be suitable for testing rockets. SN9 and SN10 are on the launch schedule.

 

[colin traveller]

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Is this old or recent ??????????

 

[BCNTM]

SpaceX Starship launch: Starship SN9 explodes into ball of flame

SPACEX'S Starship prototype was blown to smithereens last night just minutes after launching from Boca Chica, South Texas, on its first suborbital test flight.

www.express.co.uk

oops

 

[Telmar]

Yeah...Big boom. looked less under control than the last flight. Funny though.

No doubt though they are not about to get the FAA off their back.

 

[BravoZulu]

SpaceX Starship High-Altitude Flight Test Photos (without the crash)

https://www.snafu-solomon.com/2021/...il&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/gSklN+(SNAFU!)

 

[morris]

The explosion.

 

[Telmar]

SN10 on the pad venting. Third try to get of those machines to land. Small changes: they will re-light three enfines before landing instead of two.

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[Telmar]

And they landed it!!!

 

[BeNder]

NICE, stood there for 5 minutes but then BOOM! But, looks like a learning thing. very nice.

 

[morris]

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[morris]

Landing video.

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[BeNder]

They did get the engine mix right but...

beautiful landing anyway!

 

[BeNder]

Seems like a fire on the side when touching down? But, yay good job

 

[Ivan le Fou]

Yeah, you could see flames licking the base of the vehicle.

Still amazingly rapid progression, considering the complexity of the maneuver.

 

[snowmanca]

The speed of this project has been kind of crazy for big rockets, pretty much the last time anything close to this scale was having so many development variations built anything close to this rate was when the Saturn and N1 rockets were competing to get to the moon ASAP. Even then it will not be long until they have had more test articles built than them both combined, they are building a new version roughly every two or three weeks.

They already have scraped three successors to this model that were under various stages of build out, with indications already had significant refinements in design of the latest models now being built and at one point they had three completed waiting for testing and was running out of space in the site's high bays.

While there had been quiet mumblings about plausibly doing something larger for several years, they only started seeming to start spinning up the size of the dev team around 2017, plus up until 2019 what had been publicly announced was a very different structure than the track they are currently on, needing completely different skills for much of the build team.

 

[Telmar]

Apparently the landing legs are crap. Acknowledged by Elon Musk himself. The landing gear not being locked resulted in a harder landing (one bounce) and the rupture a methane fuel tank, causing the explosion.

Remains fire on landing...It´s not easy running rocket engines, especially on low thrust.

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[Telmar]

Starship stacked on a superbooster again...but lifted directly from the pad itself. A starship stacked on a superbooster is higher than a Saturn V rocket.

There is some SpaceX update on the Starship program but I have´nt gotten into it.

For something that never went to space, so much excitement for the enormous test of orbit+reentry.

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[Telmar]

Watched the Starship update on the SpaceX page (Elon Musk talking to all the internet geeks and very specialized press corps).

Lots of things already explained before but some numbers that Musk just gives between two "ummms" are sometimes crazy:

-3 flights a day
-In one year doubling of the total tonnage ever put in orbit
-Cost of Starship launch at 10 million dollars (NB Space shuttle was 470...one seat on Soyouz is sold for 100 million)
-Starship booster rocket has twice the power of a Saturn V rocket.

It all sounds so out of this world...such a leap from the boring SLS

Tim Dobbs form the "everyday astronaut" put it in these words 18 months ago: "Starship is impossible until it is´nt".

As for Falcon 9: one launch every week.