Assuming that they get the Super Heavy rocket to work, will they ever launch it from Cape Kennedy?
Nice. Will the pad survive the next attempt?
Full pressure deluge test, looks pretty impressive, will it be enough?
seems to be some testing going on, possible 6 engine static fire on Ship 25
10 minute siren just sounded
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv-TSySI6DY
Edit: video here, 5 second static fire
@SpaceX Ship 25 completes a six-engine static fire test at Starbase in Texas https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1673509777819967488
Hot staging solves problems. No ullage issues so turbopumps are getting proper liquid diet and aren't gulping gases. The Russians were big fans of this prior to Angara.
Meanwhile over at ULA they have painted themselves into a corner and are dependant on snout in the trough Bezos' engine. But think of the time they saved by not going with Rocketdyne “Certified AR1 engines, in rate production, will be available in 2019 — before any competitor’s engine,”
Not in a row but SpaceX recently had their 200th rocket landing after an orbital launch. https://www.space.com/spacex-200th-rocket-landing-video
Just seen this from Chris Bergin (not affiliated to NASA) quote tweeting a now deleted Elon Musk tweet, so....
@NASASpaceflight
Elon says there's a much higher chance of getting to orbit with the second test flight due to vast amount of mods.
Late breaking change to staging - now hot staging(!).
"Never stop thrusting" - Elon Musk
Ship engines will fire up before all the Booster engines shutdown. Now need vents for hot staging. Adding an extension to the booster that is all vent and more shielding to the top of the booster. It's the most risking thing for the next flight.
Launch pad upgrades and Booster/Ship ready in six weeks.
1000 cubic meters of steel reinforcement below the OLM. Then a steel sandwich water suppression system on top, with overkill to help the base of the pad.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1672607239608172544…
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A couple of comments underneath:
Elon says the next Starship launch is in 6-8 weeks.
And this is where the replies to that timeline are all "No chance, bruv!"
Not impossible. Pad mods are in the final stage now. Ship 25 is about to Static Fire. Install steel plates and deluge system, do some OLM testing. Get the Tank Farm ready to rock and roll. Rollout Booster 9. Static Fire B9. Stack the vehicles. More testing. FAA says "Ye!" Send it.
Possible ship 25 static fire as soon as tomorrow..?
SpaceX just posted a vid on Twitter of the launch, Elon replied underneath, looking like maybe August for next launch attempt
https://twitter.com/SpaceX/status/1662251874936934400
@elonmusk
Major launchpad upgrades should be complete in about a month, then another month of rocket testing on pad, then flight 2 of Starship
2:05 AM · May 27, 2023
Excellent matter-of-fact analysis from Scott Manley as always ("Holy Shitballs, its going" excepted🤣)
Yeah, that OLM damage is probably the biggest negative mark out of this test. There’s not only the crater itself and it’s undermining if the mount, but also where all that material ended up. The high speed projectiles filmed hitting the various YouTubers remote cameras and cloud of dust falling on the nearby towns would not be welcome by their neighbours at the Cape!
it’s very possible that the bulk of the problems on the vehicle itself were down to flying debris and that if they solve that, they have a working booster. But it might take a significant OLM redesign, we’ll see if this BF Metal Plate cuts it
Intersesting, but back to Elon timelines again....
..
Overall positive and honestly with the main stream media I viewed fairly balanced reporting, usual nonsense from randoms on twitter, Berger/Davenport good reports. Seem the HPU's failed and debris might have mesed up engines plus bad engines. Two issues I would point out, while overall a win and positive two worries that I think will just incur more delays they will sort them just not as fast as some might have imagined:
1) Raptors are still giving issues, was surprised to see 3 out at launch and more on the way up (maybe debris) with 33 and wanting to lift plenty this a reliability/manufacturing issue. I assumed since SN15 this was kinda ironed out, guess not.
2) The bigger issue, the OLM - there was the one griany photo showing the crater - to me I cannot tell is it a crater or just surface that needs redoing but everyone seems to think the former. This could be a big hold up. From reading it seems digger deeper at Bocca is a no go since proximity to water. This makes a trench thing harder, they can't really increase the height much without massive rebuild. The water deluge system might help but wont solve this. I guess some sort of diverter, but that was a lot of trust. Moreover the already have the same system in place at Florida. There might be a long think about what to do next. I was hoping for SN8/9 type test cadence, thats out the window. But they will solve it, just time.
Quite a few negatives being portrayed in the media today about the launch attempt, but I guess that was always going to be the case.
But in my uneducated opinion, I think their was far more positives to take from it.
First of all they managed to get this massive rocket off the ground and clear the OLM successfully, which was their foremost priority.
Starship reached Max Q and not only that, when it did start to go out of control doing loops all over the place, some how it still held together, and did so until the FTS was activated, not sure how it managed to stay in one piece until then.
Ok so there was significant damage to the area around the OLM and ground equipment. However their can be no doubt now that something needs to be done about this, I think some kind of flame diversion is looking like a must now.
The booster and starship was destroyed but the next iterations replacing them already have significant upgrades, if they can sort out some of the reliability issues with these raptor engines, along with something like a flame diversion system to stop debris flying up damaging the engines, then I think there is every reason to be optimistic about the next few launch attempts.
The only big negative for me now, I think we could be in for quite a long wait until there is another launch attempt, despite musk saying its in a few months.
Especially when you look at each of the other hops - it took a few goes before we got the successful landing...that beast reaching Max-Q yesterday was a massive milestone in itself!
Would be curious to see some pics of the launch pad, there's a real lo-res one of the crater underneath, wonder if they'll consider flame diverter for the next iteration.
And on their iterative testing...there's always this gem (Uploaded by SpaceX themselves )
They try and try and try again til they get it right - how many Falcon 9's have they recovered in a row now?
I wish there was a way to watch these launches without audience participation.
Lots of debris, which probably isn't good for the engines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thA8jlgcJ-8 parked cars got walloped.
Launch video https://youtu.be/-1wcilQ58hI
Ohh my thoughts exactly when they all cheered for the explosion.
Crater Mc crater...
Good article from Eric Berger on todays launch...
How did it go today? I take it that it did not launch.
Apollo 4 made it on the first go. 🙂
$2 million worth of fuel
Engines are ~$1m each , probably less now.
Steel is cheaper than aluminium.
If New Glenn doesn't work first time Bezos has a problem.
Musk can just go "Next!" Gwen's got lots more Starship's and boosters where that one came from.
Putting a cost on a single launch during the development phase is sort of missing the point. One of the goals of their approach to iterative design, production-line assembly and use of (relatively) low cost materials is that the cost of individual flights becomes near neglible versus the overall investment. There will likely be dozens of launches of this sytem, with issues encountered along the way, before its declared operational.
A bad result today would have been destroying what is currently their only laucnhpad (there is some damage but there has been before). Once they got past that, they were learning tonnes about their booster. Reaching Hawaii would have been a wonderful result but was a hell of a reach.
Anyone any idea how much that launch would have set Elon back today? Probably in a news article but someone might know of the top of their head.
"rapid unscheduled disassembly" 😄
Wow, been waiting so long to see this finally take off....
Seems like they have quite a few issues to sort out before the next attempt, not least making sure them raptors stay alight.
Elon just tweeted to say next attempt in a few months.
Elons face didn't look like it was as much as Success mind you, he looked visibly disappointed in the clips I seen.
Snipped from Everyday Astronauts stream. The house they were filming from was shaking. Wild.
Yeah, I thought I noticed that some engines weren't firing and was wondering why the SpaceX presenters didn't comment on it. They were so quick to put on their happy faces after it was all over. Let's hope they'll have found it useful and they get further the next time.
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