SpaceX Starship missions 1

[thebard3]

Starting a dedicated thread here. After a pretty smooth flight test today, assuming no big anomalies occurred with the ground systems, it looks like SpaceX is back on track with testing and development. We should see more flights in the near future.
Both vehicles were lost before completing their full mission but a huge step forward today to see both executing the primary flight goals.

Brad Waybright

The more you know, the more you know you don't know.

 

[WKTaylor]

CPC... civil aircraft get shot at all the time.

During a discussion of MIL Acft battle damage/repairs with a Boeing-commercial guy from Wichita... he casually confided in me that 737 fuselages transported by railroad enmasse [+/-10-Acft per rail shipment] to SEA WA regularly arrive with one or more bullet holes.

AND there are regular reports of aircraft and helos taking 'hits' on departure and arrival or low-level flight... usually in thin skins, but sometimes critical systems. Once in a great while someone is injured or scared senseless.

HOWEVER, pressurized PAX aircraft with service lives measured in +100,000-hrs, durability and damage tolerance, have 'built-in' damage-tolerance, making them relatively immune to critical structural damage from one or two 'random hits'. AND Jet-A fuel-vapors in a confined tank are 'relatively hard to light-off' [unlike JP-4]... by conventional bullets. Thankfully, tracer/incendiary bullets are rarely ever available/used for 'pot-shots'. I do admit that AAA, SAM's and AAM's are pretty effective at destroying civil Acft.

This is in contrast to relatively 'thin-skin'/fragile extreme high-value missiles/launch-vehicles... loaded with hundreds-of-tons of LOX and fuels [RP1 or methane] or hypergolic fuels/oxidizers.... and easily 'go boom'. I do admit, though, that SpaceX boosters made from welded SStl seem to be pretty tough, surviving re-entry and landing... and even the first-generation 'self-destruct charges'... for a short while. HOWEVER, the heavy oxidizer/fuel load is ultimately an Achilles-heal.

 

[WKTaylor]

Well... RE SpaceX 'Star Base, south tip of Texas'... there goes the neighborhood...

SpaceX Seeks Approval to Turn Texas Starbase Site Into New City​

MSN

​

Bloomberg) -- Elon Musk is attempting to turn the Starbase site in Texas where SpaceX builds its Starship rockets into a new city and officially move his space company there.

SpaceX’s headquarters are currently in Hawthorne, California, but the company has over the past few years been building out a massive facility in Texas in an area on the southern tip of the US state near the Mexican border. The site in Boca Chica is the primary location where SpaceX builds and launches its huge Starship rocket system, and it recently added a large warehouse known as the Starfactory, which replaced many of the site’s production tents.
Starbase, as SpaceX refers to it, now serves as the main production and testing site for the Starship moon and Mars rocket, and SpaceX’s operations in the area have created more than 3,000 jobs, according to a 2024 economic impact report.

Despite Musk’s post, there are several steps that need to occur before Starbase can actually be created as a new city in Texas, including permission from local authorities.
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[WKTaylor]

Looks like Blue Origin New Glenn1 relatively 'clean' mission success... stepped around SpaceX super massive booster to attain orbit with a payload.

First stage booster telemetry was was lost below 100K-Ft(?)... declared 'lost'.

Odd note... watching the video of crowds... there were a few children visible... which I don't recall seeing in the SpaceX crowd 'shots'.

 

[btrueblood]

Starship #7 - booster caught, but lost orbital spacecraft (engine malfunctions?).

Breakup of orbital vehicle caught by aircraft:

 

[Sparweb]

Strangely beautiful, but sad, end to FT-7.

The booster catch was exciting and satisfying though. Did the catch go as intended?
Both times now, I'm unsure if the landing "pegs" were missed and it's actually resting on the grid fins.

 

[btrueblood]

I think they showed a closeup to confirm it was on the catch lugs this time.

The loss of the orbital vehicle appears to be an issue in shutdown of the engines, though the telemetry visible in the video is...sketchy, to say the least. Maybe Musk should hire back some talent, rather than just throwing more H1B "talent" into the fray. He gets what he's paying for.

 

[WKTaylor]

More about Starship #7...
Scott Manley... SpaceX's New Starship Upgrade Puts On Amazing Show As Space Debris

Also, Oddly, I have been watching the various 'space related web sites'... including Scott Manley's site. 'Everyone' seems-to-be talking incessantly about how wonderful Musk, SpaceX, Starship and all the 'Heavy' fight tests are ... even the spectacular daylight successful/failed FT-7 mission... which seems to be sucking all the commentary out of the room.

What will be interesting is how the FAA and Caribbean community [islanders, sea/air-traffic, etc]... are going to deal with SpaceX launches over THEIR HEADS.. after this disruptively-spectacular over-head break-up of the upper stage... loaded with SStl parts that likely survive in various sized pieces? I guess part of this will be who was affected and 'how much debris will be retrieved by' folks under the flight path. A friend of mine once said that he never worried about aircraft over head crashing on him... he cited the mantra... 'big-sky, little me'...

Hmmmmmm... maybe this is why DoD/NASA choose launch-sites at the Atlantic and Pacific ocean's edge... launching directly over open ocean with thousands of miles to vulnerable islands and continents... and air/sea lanes [that can easily be warned/cleared of traffic]. I guess there will never be launches from Houston. Russians and Chinese on the other-hand... don't seem to mind consistently dropping launch debris on-land... and saying 'TS/shoooo' to everyone under the flight paths

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The [mostly] successful Blue Origin New Glenn [BONG] launch vehicle... and the first [night] launch... appears-to-be treated as 'ho-hum, too-little-too-late' to the 'big show'. I suppose being late/dark-of night from KSC, the mission was visually unspectacular to witnesses.

Scott Manley made an off-hand observation about the BONG launch... that seemed-off/odd for a space commentator: the BONG lift-off and acceleration to max-Q was awfully slow [relative to SpaceX launch vehicles]... and seemed to present only faint begrudging praise to the mission as it progressed... I supposed waiting for a shoe to drop on the upper stage mission. Ultimately it appears that the upper stage mundanely performed 'as advertised'... and re-lite to boost the payload on-cue. Booster loss was typical and expected for first mission... hopefully with lots of data a lessons learned.

/Note/ I get the impression the BONG flight profile emphasized... pitch-over to clear the shoreline, climb-to ~the Von Karmen line [lower density air, lightening the launcher, jettisoning the payload fairing], then pitching-over to down range flight just prior to 'staging'... then the upper-stage uses a long-burn accelerating the vehicle 'over the horizon' using gravity-assist... to orbit.

I over-thinking all this in my old age?

 

[TugboatEng]

One issue with NASA and DoD rockets is that many have used hypergolic fuels and nuclear power sources so the debris that may rain down has more than just the kinetic risk factor.

The Starship that broke apart in space, was it the same one that landed previously in the Indian Ocean? Musk's preferred building material, stainless steel, has a lot of sensitivities that could compromise structures and piping after salt exposure.

 

[Sparweb]

Wil,
I went back to re-watch the BONG flight with your question in mind (Manley's video, just to be sure I saw what you saw) and I haven't seen any apparent change in rocket attitude through the stage-1 launch phase. Let me make sure I understand your note/musings: Do you think BONG made attitude changes to its pitch, or reversed the direction of pitch changes during the flight, rather than just progressively transition its pitch from vertical to horizontal? I doubt it. Have there been other launches that did this?

Depending on one's level of dedication (Manley claims to have done this) you can enter the telemetry data into a spreadsheet, then estimate the acceleration and pitch attitude values. That would answer your question for sure.

 

[racookpe1978]

Launch track and disintegration debris pattern from the first stage... and the upper stage.. Flight #2. Hmmmm I wonder if the actual... farther-down-range... upper stage debris field(s) was also anticipated and built-into in the emergency planning.

Debris field model [predicted?]...

Apparent upper-stage debris field...

WX sat radar track of upper-stage debris...

I had presumed that the launch track would be thru the gap between south Cuba and Cancun MX. Boy-o-boy was I off base. The F#2 launch track 'threads' the gap between the Florida Keys and the Northern coasts of Cuba, Haiti, Dom-Rep and Puerto Rico. The debris from the F2 upper-stage appears to have ended-up in the sea just north of Puerto Rico. Hope there were no close-up/in-person witnesses land/sea/air.

I suppose that on-board engineering video/images/real-time-data were being held-back by SpaceX for mishap analysis...?

Regards, Wil Taylor
o Trust - But Verify!
o For those who believe, no proof is required; for those who cannot believe, no proof is possible. [variation, Stuart Chase]
o Unfortunately, in science what You 'believe' is irrelevant. ["Orion", HBA forum]
o Only fools and charlatans know everything and understand everything." -Anton Chekhov

That debris field (Sept 2018) from the upper stage Unplanned Rapid Disassembly (Outside Operational Planned Scenario) Event is strikingly similar to the Jan 16 upper stage debris field photographed from below.
Cue FAA hysteria and increased delays.

 

[racookpe1978]

One issue with NASA and DoD rockets is that many have used hypergolic fuels and nuclear power sources so the debris that may rain down has more than just the kinetic risk factor.

The Starship that broke apart in space, was it the same one that landed previously in the Indian Ocean? Musk's preferred building material, stainless steel, has a lot of sensitivities that could compromise structures and piping after salt exposure.

No. One Raptor engine (from an earlier test flight) was re-used in the booster that was recovered.
The Upper Stage - the one that failed on the Jan 16 flight - was a revised design from a style used successfully before, but it (the upper stage) had not been flown as a unit before before.
I understand no "ocean-dunked" parts or stages were re-used this Jan 16 flight.

 

[WKTaylor]

Klyde Morris... looking at Starship mission FT-7 with sarcastic amusement...

 

[WKTaylor]

WATCH: Moment SpaceX Rocket Explodes As Starship Debris Streams Across the Sky

S33 Debris & Heat Shield FOUND revealed WHY Starship Flight 7 Exploded...

I wonder if there will be a rigorous investigation.

I wonder what Edwards Deming would say about 'changes-on-changes-on-changes-etc.'

 

[TugboatEng]

Looks like it's mostly tiles that made it back. Perhaps the solution is to design the tiles so that, individually, their terminal velocity is low enough to not be dangerous. It doesn't solve the aircraft issue but does mitigate the ground risk.

 

[btrueblood]

Looks like it's mostly tiles that made it back. Perhaps the solution is to design the tiles so that, individually, their terminal velocity is low enough to not be dangerous. It doesn't solve the aircraft issue but does mitigate the ground risk.

All of it made it back, Tug, no parts are likely to have achieved orbital velocity. The bigger lumps of inconel probably hit the ocean intact (and because they are heavier, their trajectory went past the Turks and Caicos islands). The stuff recovered is the stuff that floats (the tiles are a type of foamed ceramic) or fragments of sheet metal that had a high cross sectional area relative to their mass (high drag/weight ratio).

 

[btrueblood]

I've had discussions with Tesla/Musk fans about his technical prowess. The idea of "moving fast and breaking things" as a development modality was brought up.

Except - this Starship is supposed to be a MANNED rocket. The things that might get broken someday are human beings...and not just test pilots who presumably took the risk knowingly, but also civilians down-range who might get a few tons of rocket parts and slag dropped on their heads. Similar arguements for Musk using the population at large to help train his self-driving software, when they had no choice to opt in or out of his grand experiment.

Creating a culture of safety and calculated risk was the watchword of the original manned rocket programs through Apollo. But by the time 20 years later, when the Shuttle came along, some of that culture had disappeared, or was overwhelmed by a business model or culture that normalized failures and allowed flawed designs to be used until something (an oring seal on a solid booster) broke (this is my interpretation of Feinman's report on the Challenger incident), and people died. Then a second Shuttle was lost, for similar reasons (ignoring/normalizing possible risks of foam impact on carbon leading edges because "it hadn't broke yet"). Ultimately, the loss of the original Apollo mindset meant shutting down the Shuttle program, since it never achieved its aim of drastically lowering launch costs. And it looks like it will be another 20 years before some type of manned spaceflight (beyond orbital stuff) will happen again.

Now we see the development of the Starship, granted un-manned so far, done with even starker results than some of the first unmanned missiles developed (Titan, Atlas). The mode of development is certainly appearing to be "moving fast and breaking things".

So what, it's not my money, right? Except - someday this rocket is planned to carry human beings, and launch over, and re-enter/recover over, other human beings, and on a much larger scale and number of flights than ever before. Will Musk and Co. be able to shift the focus of his company from the current "oh well, it broke, let's go again" to something closer to the Apollo "let's try and get it right the first time" when the time comes? I'm not very confident he can, nor thinks it necessary, and that hubris is worrisome. Is a grand tragedy in store for our kids, one that will stop further manned spaceflight and exploration for a long time afterwards? Or is it going to work out ok - the Raptor boosters seem to make regular flights without issues, including manned flights to the ISS (and returns via the SpaceX capsule)? Is the Raptor team a different one than the Starship one? I know they launch from Canaveral and Vandenburg, so must adhere to NASA safety standards, but is the team building the rockets trained differently, do they know to point out faults and speak truth to their superiors? Or will they let some fatal flaw past because they fear losing their jobs if they bring it up in the big staff meeting?

 

[thebard3]

We have seen operational rockets from NASA, Ariane and others explode at altitude and rain parts down. Rocketry isn't a zero risk venture. I'm not sure if Starship really traverses airspace where anything is likely to come down on land before orbital velocity is reached, but I don't really think their trajectory is anything unusual. NASA had significant failures in the Saturn program, namely Apollo 6, that happened NOT to cause a loss of the vehicle but could very easily have turned out with a worse result. Starship is clearly very early in it's development and as SpaceX is doing things that have never been done or even envisioned before. The last ship was very different from previous vehicles, so was pretty much untested before they launched it. From reports I've seen, it seems the problem probably initiated from some of the fuel line plumbing that was redesigned and not flown before. I don't give them a pass for creating some kind of navigational hazard to aircraft, shipping and stuff raining down from above on the ground like the Chinese space program does. They are working issues to keep parts from Falcon launches from re-entering and landing on the east coast that was expected to burn up. I cross my fingers and hope that all goes well with each launch, but they have aggressive goals for each flight so they are really pushing the envelope. NASA has dynamic test stands and other stuff that I think SpaceX didn't invest in, so their dynamic testing is in flight. I guess you don't really know when something will break until it breaks.

 

[WKTaylor]

Bard... RE Your post #57.

Yes space is hard... but your lead-in comment "I'm not sure if Starship really traverses airspace where anything is likely to come down on land before orbital velocity is reached, but I don't really think their trajectory is anything unusual." is blatantly wrong.

NASA choose Cape Canaveral for Launch site... and USAF choose Vandenberg AFB for their very specific geography... launches would all occur on shoreline with a direct path for thousands of miles out over open ocean. These trajectories pass over ocean where sea and air lanes can be better controlled or forewarned.

SpaceX launches out of South Texas gulf shoreline have to be aimed overfly gaps between Cuba and Florida... or north of Mexico Yucatan and south of Cuba.
Gap North of Cuba Appears preferred... Gap south of Cuba seems tighter/sketchier. In both cases SpaceX debris has more that a 'fair chance of coming-down where it wasn't 'planned'... could fall onto land... or within active sea-lanes or airways.


As for Falcon Launches and satellites... where their debris is inevitable... they are now trying to dump their debris close to Point Nemo... the SE Pacific Ocean point labeled "the Maritime pole of inaccessibility". The nearest land is 2,688 kilometers away.

Also, as I've noted, Vandenberg AFB and Cape Canaveral have lots of security and room to spare... along with safe launch 'lanes'... Boca Chica TX does NOT. And Safe launches have been occurring since the late 1950s

I Presumed that SpaceX decided to roll the dice and lean on the 'tried and mostly true' ... "Forgiveness is easier to obtain than permission**.” --Grace Hopper, Rear AdM USN

** Until its NOT

 

[TugboatEng]

Perhaps we should be asking California and its NGO's why they're forcing Space X to launch from less ideal sites than Vandenberg? Sites that put low income humans at risk?

 

[WKTaylor]

Tug... I surely hope You are being facetious.

CA NGOs? Wow, now that's a bizarre stretch of the imagination

When did You last live in CA?

ANY real world idea where Vandenberg Air Force Base is actually located? Like Wise Cape Canaveral? Need a geography lesson?

Oh what am I thinking... Musk will get whatever he wants... because he is 'THE' Elon Musk... South-Afrikaner/Canadian/Amerikan.