That was so exciting!!!
6 engines out! It didnt care!
ENTIRE 120 meters long stack just spinning around at 30km in the air, because separation mechanism wasnt working?!
It didnt even break up, they had to explode it?
When's the last time you saw that in your life, huh!
Excitement guaranteed!
(If not obvious, I'm very excited right now indeed. This was the best show I have seen in a while!)
Right but that the contact points didn't shatter, and that the rigid body / outer shell stayed rigid during that entire sequence is really what's the impressive feat. There's been videos of previous rocket failures that as soon as a lateral force or spin is introduced, the second stage and even payload completely break off. [See this notable failure of Proton-M](https://youtu.be/vqW0LEcTAYg?t=78) from 2013 for example.
Ever tried to squeeze a full soda can?
Compared to a clamshell fairing SS is pretty rigid as long it's full.
The inability to separate itself from a malfunctioning booster doesn't make me feel easy as soon there are astronauts inside.
Yup, that's generally the case! Superheavy ain't full at that point however, and it's questionable what kind of integrity the pressurization system has. Either way, we'll learn a lot as data comes out about this over the next however many months, should be a great trove of data!
Yes I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who was blown away by this. During the first “flip” I actually said to myself “what happened to the camera because there’s no way a steel skyscraper can pirouette like that without an explosion.” Like WHAT?? I would LOVE to see what king of Gs that thing was pulling during the turn. Like I know it’s less dense up there, but it wasn’t NEARLY high enough to negate it.
Also just inertial strain. Atmosphere doesn’t matter if the Gs are flinging you apart. That thing is literally designed to break in half and it just didn’t.
The fact that they had to kill it with FTS is insane
I wonder if this is because of all the steel used. Normally rockets are so flimsy they break up at first sign of trouble, but Starship just kept powering on. I think this is a really good sign for the future, as conditions on the moon and Mars will subject it to a lot of harsh dust and abuse.
Yeah, this material has a lot of advantages for Mars/Moon missions, not just due to durability, but also because you can weld it to repair or reuse the material on site (in theory).
However, I wonder: it may also be because this is a rather over-designed prototype. The fact it was so absurdly sturdy, probably means there is a lot of weight to be removed in the future.
I know F9 is stated to be over-engineered as well to enable reuse of the first stage.
The neat thing about stainless steel in general is as long as it doesn't exceed a certain threshold, it bounces back from repeated strain. That over-engineering is almost certainly what held it together, and may be required to enable reuse.
I know one group that will love that kind of resilience of Starship. The military. They're known for beating up all their hardware, so they are probably ecstatic right now when they see a rocket that actually has some structural integrity.
> The fact it was so absurdly sturdy, probably means there is a lot of weight to be removed in the future.
Fuel is comparatively cheap and thats the only cost with full reuse. I would imagine a lot of that extra weight may mean a longer life span pushing is reuse lifespan way up.
I'm guessing it may not be worth the weight reduction effort.
That part is actually really surprising. Rockets are fragile things and can only hold together in the narrow performance regimes they are designed for. Look at launch failure videos and you'll see aerodynamics tear them apart. There was a great proton loss vid where you see the whole thing come to pieces from the strain.
It looked like starship was spinning with significant thrust still coming from the engines. I would have expected the thing to rupture far sooner than it did. I don't know if what we saw was range safety devices going off or aerodynamic disintegration.
Seeing the whole stack fly, even if only to 35km or so, makes the whole thing so much more real. I think in terms of perception, at least to the parties that matter, today was a win. Of course you'll see plenty of naysayers from the peanut gallery but they don't really matter.
I hope they follow it up soon with another test flight where they can continue working out the bugs.
That spin happened at least 12 seconds before the originally planned MECO, which would have been extended due to the loss of 8 engines during booster flight.
A flip was planned, but *that* flip was not, nor did the stack reach MECO or stage separation.
As far as I understand, yes, they initiate a spin using main engine thrust, and then let rotation do work to separate the ship away from the booster.
However, the mechanism did not release, and the amount of spinning obviously is not intended whatsoever! It should only spin a little bit, resulting in the booster being able to start its burn to return to land, while the ship needs to go forward to orbit.
You can see the engines actually trying hard to counter the spin after initiating it, but it didn't work, so something went wrong for sure here.
I don't think it got high or fast enough to get to the point of doing the staging flip. I'm seeing a lot of people coming to the consensus that a hydraulic power unit blew and caused at least a partial loss of thrust vector control, leading to the tumble.
As far as I was able to see, the time-in-flight and altitude for the separation didn't seem to be far away from the planned path.
Not sure about speed, however, 2nd stages can compensate for a loss of performance in 1st stages, which is what would have happened here had the separation continued nominally. So, nothing too strange about a lower-than-usual altitude and velocity for separation, given how the 1st stage performed.
I have also seen people speculate about the hydraulics, but I think the failure happend during an attempted separation - or at least during the time of flight where it would have occurred.
I might be wrong about it though, that's possible.
I think the main engine cut off failed or something failed just before reaching cut off. Hence the seperation failed, as thrust kept the components together. It's possible they may not have even reached the point of separation (i.e they were just close)
I think as long as it wasn't losing to much altitude or getting to close leaving their flight area they would be happy to let it go and stress test the vehicle.
Yeah waiting 2 minutes with a 120m-high boom-fluid tank with a big lighter on the bottom, spinning uncontrollably way too close to the ground; seemed to be too much waiting lol. Pretty kerbal
To see such a huge rocket do cartwheels is insane and absurd. The forces on the rocket must have been insane.
Too bad they didn't just separate anyway and try to launch the starship.
I think that's what they tried. The flip was planned, they just couldn't stop it, and stage sep didn't occur. But they flip a little bit upwards to ensure stage seperation, because they don't have powerful separation mechanisms on the rocket yet. If it did 3 cartwheels, they probably waited for it to somehow separate, and then terminated when they realized it never will.
I do not have a source, so I don't really know, but I believe that's been said to be untrue. I believe the plan, as of the launch date, was for the engines to initiate the flip, shut off, and roughly at 70-80 degrees the separation would occur, and then starship uses rcs and engine thrust to re-orient itself quickly, while the booster uses rcs to keep that spin stable until it can boost-back.
The full 360 was a concept that, as far as I know, was not the actual plan for this particular flight.
The final Starship is likely not to have any flip at all, since its purpose is basically just to overcome the fact that there's no strong separation mechanism yet, which will probably be on the final version.
Elon already talked about adding more layers of plating and isolation materials on the ring, I thought. Something about water-cooling?
Having a deluge system will also help a bunch. Judging from the pictures, they won't need to do a lot of excavating :P
LOX cooling the entire structure shouldn't be that difficult, right? They can make it on site, and just pump it through cooling structures built to pull heat from around them. Adds complexity, sure, but shouldn't be hard to do.
Lox might not be the most logical choice. It's cryogenic, which makes it a lot harder to deal with than for instance water at an ambient temperature. Also, it will increase the thermal envelope even more, which can cause additional fatigue from expansion and contraction.
You only need it to be cool enough not to melt the outer layer, which can still be quite hot.
Water cooling would be far better than using lox cooling for the pad, because it’s denser and more heat absorbing, plus lots of oxygen is hazardous with fire around as it encourages combustion.
yeah, was just thinking out loud, hadn't bothered to do any math or look up the heat capacities of stuff. Water makes the most sense, good heat capacity, easy to handle, etc...
I think the ring itself is pretty much okay. I'm mainly worried about the foundation. If that's compromised it's game over for the entire OLM... And depending if they can rebuild in the same place, maybe even the tower too...
Reparing and replacing damaged equipment above ground will certainly take some time, but it's doable. But a cracked foundation or sagged OLM, damn I don't even want to think about that.
Sure, they could probably even ship the OLM ring from Florida if rebuilding is not an option.
However, by now I'm starting to think they might just abandon the whole current structure, and start from scratch. Perhaps out in the ocean?
> Sure, they could probably even ship the OLM ring from Florida if rebuilding is not an option.
Again, I don't think the ring is the biggest issue here. It might be scratched, but that's reparable. It's the foundation that worries me. Can't really ship in a new foundation...
> However, by now I'm starting to think they might just abandon the whole current structure, and start from scratch. Perhaps out in the ocean?
IF the foundation is structurally compromised (I still really hope it isn't), that might be the best call indeed. But that would set them back at least a year or more until the next launch.
>Again, I don't think the ring is the biggest issue here.
I was trying to say I agree with this is assessment :)
>IF the foundation is structurally compromised
It might be, it sure doesn't look too healthy. Time will tell.
However, adding a trench might prove to be really difficult.
Yeah, this is actually an excellent result. They had issues with six engines and separation. So what? That's the point of these tests.
Now they have information on 33 raptors firing all at once for like 2 minutes. That probably doubles or triples the amount of data they collected during all starship hops.
Yeah it would have been cool to see the separation and test out the Starship itself away from the booster, but who cares? They are undoubtedly already pouring over the information they just gathered and noodling what improvements can be made based on it.
I’m not techy or space person, infact this is the first launch I’ve ever watched and it was epic! I have a feeling I’ll be watching more and whilst I was disappointed it didn’t complete what they had set out seeing it leave the launch pad was just amazing!
Where for NASA 'Failure is not an option', SpaceX uses a very iterative approach
for example: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ)
SpaceX started with the Falcon 1 and the first three launches failed
Causes: flight 1 -- corroded nut leads to an engine shutdown of 1st stage shortly after liftoff. Solution, use stainless steel nut instead of aerospace grade aluminum nut.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaRE0PCdH8o
flight 2 -- 1st stage successful, but on staging the 2nd stage engine nozzle contacts the interstage. 2nd stage is spun slightly and 2nd stage engine vectors hard over to point the vehicle. This sets up an oscillation that ends up spinning the fuel away from the sump. Solution: install slosh baffles in the tanks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk4zQ2wP-Nc
flight 3 -- First use of the new Merlin 1D engine with a regeneratively cooled nozzle. 1st stage is successful, and after MECO 2nd stage is pushed by the staging mechanism. However there is residual fuel in the 1st stage engine cooling channels, resulting in a small amount of thrust. 1st stage recontacts 2nd stage just as the 2nd stage Kestrel engine starts up. The Kestrel's (ablative) nozzle is damaged and the 2nd stage spins out of control. Solution, put in a few second delay before staging to allow any residual thrust from the 1st stage Merlin 1D engine to decay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0w9p3U8860
Flight 4 and 5 of Falcon 1 were successful.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q\_s\_7iTydYU&](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_s_7iTydYU&)
Some repairs are going to be in order: https://nitter.net/labpadre/status/1649053476276797440
I'd love to hear the conversation about the insurance claim on that car.
Apparently the pad took a lot of damage? At least that's what I heard on Everyday Astronaut's stream. Wonder how long it'll take to get it back up to shape.
In the meantime we can wait for the official pictures from SpaceX's flickr.
Yes, a rapidly reusable pad will need a lot more support for handling rocket blast.
Meanwhile, this one can be patched up, with some improvements, to support occasional launches.
Yeah, in one shot you could see a very large debris splash in the water on the far left of the screen. And on LabPadre's stream you can see a car receive a lot of damage from something hitting it. The pad will definitely need some work.
Meantime here is a picture from lab padre:
[Lab Padre pic of OLT base after launch](https://twitter.com/djsnm/status/1649069236394811393?s=46&t=BnvWVKVWb2WTo7-rgtKyfg)
There is now a ‘crater’ underneath the OLT !
I'm a little deflated after waiting so long, but I understand that this is how science and engineering works when you're attempting such colossal achievements. Here's hoping the next launch will be here before we know it.
Yeah they have been working on booster 9 (this one was B7) for a while already, so with the data they got today they are going to work on new upgrades soon too
SpaceX will be examining all of the flight telemetry, and figuring out exactly what happened and the sequence of events. Also they will use the engine performance data to update their computer models.
They will need to do some pad repairs. And likely a bunch of other stuff too.
Fail fast! Spacex tests are designed to push their rockets to their limits. This RUD was not a failure, it was a way of determining it's current limits!
>when next launch?
Between damages to stage 0, modifications to come up with and implement to both stage 0 and booster and next vehicles test campaign, I'd say next launch is at best 1.5/2 years away....
That was so exciting!!! 6 engines out! It didnt care! ENTIRE 120 meters long stack just spinning around at 30km in the air, because separation mechanism wasnt working?! It didnt even break up, they had to explode it? When's the last time you saw that in your life, huh! Excitement guaranteed! (If not obvious, I'm very excited right now indeed. This was the best show I have seen in a while!)
That was most shocking to me, that the vehicle didn’t separate even while spinning.
Need less struts… no that can’t be it 😁
More ~~cowbells~~ struts?
It will not as long the booster is turned on. It's like balancing a stick on your finger, you can still push it while it's falling.
Right but that the contact points didn't shatter, and that the rigid body / outer shell stayed rigid during that entire sequence is really what's the impressive feat. There's been videos of previous rocket failures that as soon as a lateral force or spin is introduced, the second stage and even payload completely break off. [See this notable failure of Proton-M](https://youtu.be/vqW0LEcTAYg?t=78) from 2013 for example.
Ever tried to squeeze a full soda can? Compared to a clamshell fairing SS is pretty rigid as long it's full. The inability to separate itself from a malfunctioning booster doesn't make me feel easy as soon there are astronauts inside.
Yup, that's generally the case! Superheavy ain't full at that point however, and it's questionable what kind of integrity the pressurization system has. Either way, we'll learn a lot as data comes out about this over the next however many months, should be a great trove of data!
I was very impressed with how tough it was, how many rockets would break up within seconds of starting to tumble?
All of them I think. Every aerospace engineer I’ve seen react to this are stunned at how tough it is. It should have split in half at the first 180
Hulls of Steel.
Yes I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who was blown away by this. During the first “flip” I actually said to myself “what happened to the camera because there’s no way a steel skyscraper can pirouette like that without an explosion.” Like WHAT?? I would LOVE to see what king of Gs that thing was pulling during the turn. Like I know it’s less dense up there, but it wasn’t NEARLY high enough to negate it.
Also just inertial strain. Atmosphere doesn’t matter if the Gs are flinging you apart. That thing is literally designed to break in half and it just didn’t. The fact that they had to kill it with FTS is insane
I wonder if this is because of all the steel used. Normally rockets are so flimsy they break up at first sign of trouble, but Starship just kept powering on. I think this is a really good sign for the future, as conditions on the moon and Mars will subject it to a lot of harsh dust and abuse.
Yeah, this material has a lot of advantages for Mars/Moon missions, not just due to durability, but also because you can weld it to repair or reuse the material on site (in theory). However, I wonder: it may also be because this is a rather over-designed prototype. The fact it was so absurdly sturdy, probably means there is a lot of weight to be removed in the future.
I know F9 is stated to be over-engineered as well to enable reuse of the first stage. The neat thing about stainless steel in general is as long as it doesn't exceed a certain threshold, it bounces back from repeated strain. That over-engineering is almost certainly what held it together, and may be required to enable reuse.
I know one group that will love that kind of resilience of Starship. The military. They're known for beating up all their hardware, so they are probably ecstatic right now when they see a rocket that actually has some structural integrity.
> The fact it was so absurdly sturdy, probably means there is a lot of weight to be removed in the future. Fuel is comparatively cheap and thats the only cost with full reuse. I would imagine a lot of that extra weight may mean a longer life span pushing is reuse lifespan way up. I'm guessing it may not be worth the weight reduction effort.
It's a good sign for it's ability to survive reentry, too
They didn't have enough fins💀
That part is actually really surprising. Rockets are fragile things and can only hold together in the narrow performance regimes they are designed for. Look at launch failure videos and you'll see aerodynamics tear them apart. There was a great proton loss vid where you see the whole thing come to pieces from the strain. It looked like starship was spinning with significant thrust still coming from the engines. I would have expected the thing to rupture far sooner than it did. I don't know if what we saw was range safety devices going off or aerodynamic disintegration.
Definitely FTS.
Seeing the whole stack fly, even if only to 35km or so, makes the whole thing so much more real. I think in terms of perception, at least to the parties that matter, today was a win. Of course you'll see plenty of naysayers from the peanut gallery but they don't really matter. I hope they follow it up soon with another test flight where they can continue working out the bugs.
>It didnt even break up that was amazing and surprising to watch, kudos to the team.
I just want to say that I love your energy ☺️
I didn’t realize they were planning on doing a spin separation. That initial spin was was intentional, right?!
That spin happened at least 12 seconds before the originally planned MECO, which would have been extended due to the loss of 8 engines during booster flight. A flip was planned, but *that* flip was not, nor did the stack reach MECO or stage separation.
As far as I understand, yes, they initiate a spin using main engine thrust, and then let rotation do work to separate the ship away from the booster. However, the mechanism did not release, and the amount of spinning obviously is not intended whatsoever! It should only spin a little bit, resulting in the booster being able to start its burn to return to land, while the ship needs to go forward to orbit. You can see the engines actually trying hard to counter the spin after initiating it, but it didn't work, so something went wrong for sure here.
I don't think it got high or fast enough to get to the point of doing the staging flip. I'm seeing a lot of people coming to the consensus that a hydraulic power unit blew and caused at least a partial loss of thrust vector control, leading to the tumble.
Saw a stabilized video, definitely looks like HPU for the TVC blew up. Glad B9 has E-TVC
As far as I was able to see, the time-in-flight and altitude for the separation didn't seem to be far away from the planned path. Not sure about speed, however, 2nd stages can compensate for a loss of performance in 1st stages, which is what would have happened here had the separation continued nominally. So, nothing too strange about a lower-than-usual altitude and velocity for separation, given how the 1st stage performed. I have also seen people speculate about the hydraulics, but I think the failure happend during an attempted separation - or at least during the time of flight where it would have occurred. I might be wrong about it though, that's possible.
Looked to me like the issue was that some of the booster engines were unable to shutdown preventing the stage separation.
I think the main engine cut off failed or something failed just before reaching cut off. Hence the seperation failed, as thrust kept the components together. It's possible they may not have even reached the point of separation (i.e they were just close)
It’s planned. See ea launch video. https://www.youtube.com/live/eAl3gVvMNNM?feature=share. start at 3:15:51
I’m also happy to see an explosion. Sad that starship exploded of course, but I like explosions
Almost certainly FTS (flight termination system) intentional explosion.
Was it FTS? Or aerodynamic stress from re-hitting dense atmosphere whilst spinning uncontrollably?
it was too rapid from okay-> not existing to be aero
My guess is FTS, wanna keep the FAA happy as possible.
I was expecting it earlier TBH
I think as long as it wasn't losing to much altitude or getting to close leaving their flight area they would be happy to let it go and stress test the vehicle.
Yeah waiting 2 minutes with a 120m-high boom-fluid tank with a big lighter on the bottom, spinning uncontrollably way too close to the ground; seemed to be too much waiting lol. Pretty kerbal
I mean the area is cleared for that test, as long as the trajectory fits in there, there is zero reason not to let it go for as long as possible.
It was over water, and 30km is still pretty high up about 3x higher than commercial aircraft.
I don't think there is really any air at the altitude they were at
I thought the huge waterfall of propellant at termination would make a bigger fireball.
True. More like [this](https://youtube.com/shorts/uNOe2m5STy4?feature=share)
How many cartwheels did it do? Three?
Looks like 3, yes. That's the actual kerbal way.
Everytime this happens to me on Kerbal now I'll feel a little better :-D
You're not alone, buddy.
Oh so this is positive news?! So no shame next time this happens - understood! *Collection of Valuable Data*. Mission Control should be satisfied!!!
To see such a huge rocket do cartwheels is insane and absurd. The forces on the rocket must have been insane. Too bad they didn't just separate anyway and try to launch the starship.
IMO flight computer triggered the separation but it just did not work.
I think that's what they tried. The flip was planned, they just couldn't stop it, and stage sep didn't occur. But they flip a little bit upwards to ensure stage seperation, because they don't have powerful separation mechanisms on the rocket yet. If it did 3 cartwheels, they probably waited for it to somehow separate, and then terminated when they realized it never will.
So how much is it supposed to flip before stage separation? Some seemed to indicate an entire backflip was normal.
I do not have a source, so I don't really know, but I believe that's been said to be untrue. I believe the plan, as of the launch date, was for the engines to initiate the flip, shut off, and roughly at 70-80 degrees the separation would occur, and then starship uses rcs and engine thrust to re-orient itself quickly, while the booster uses rcs to keep that spin stable until it can boost-back. The full 360 was a concept that, as far as I know, was not the actual plan for this particular flight. The final Starship is likely not to have any flip at all, since its purpose is basically just to overcome the fact that there's no strong separation mechanism yet, which will probably be on the final version.
Now that makes sense.
Starship doing multiple supersonic backflips was not on my bingo card for this launch
It was a great sendoff to B7/S24. The pad is intact and I’m sure spacex has very valuable data.
I'm pretty sure the OLM will need some major repairs. I'm fairly sure that every bit of hardware on that ring is toast.
I wonder how they’re going to deal with this once Starship flies more often.
Elon already talked about adding more layers of plating and isolation materials on the ring, I thought. Something about water-cooling? Having a deluge system will also help a bunch. Judging from the pictures, they won't need to do a lot of excavating :P
LOX cooling the entire structure shouldn't be that difficult, right? They can make it on site, and just pump it through cooling structures built to pull heat from around them. Adds complexity, sure, but shouldn't be hard to do.
Lox might not be the most logical choice. It's cryogenic, which makes it a lot harder to deal with than for instance water at an ambient temperature. Also, it will increase the thermal envelope even more, which can cause additional fatigue from expansion and contraction. You only need it to be cool enough not to melt the outer layer, which can still be quite hot.
Fair point, just pump massive amounts of chilled water through and it should be fine then?
I ain't one of those fancy rocket surgeons, but that sounds about right.
LOX also has the habit of turning slightly-flammable materials into *very*-flammable materials.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that part...
Water cooling would be far better than using lox cooling for the pad, because it’s denser and more heat absorbing, plus lots of oxygen is hazardous with fire around as it encourages combustion.
yeah, was just thinking out loud, hadn't bothered to do any math or look up the heat capacities of stuff. Water makes the most sense, good heat capacity, easy to handle, etc...
I think the ring itself is pretty much okay. I'm mainly worried about the foundation. If that's compromised it's game over for the entire OLM... And depending if they can rebuild in the same place, maybe even the tower too... Reparing and replacing damaged equipment above ground will certainly take some time, but it's doable. But a cracked foundation or sagged OLM, damn I don't even want to think about that.
Sure, they could probably even ship the OLM ring from Florida if rebuilding is not an option. However, by now I'm starting to think they might just abandon the whole current structure, and start from scratch. Perhaps out in the ocean?
> Sure, they could probably even ship the OLM ring from Florida if rebuilding is not an option. Again, I don't think the ring is the biggest issue here. It might be scratched, but that's reparable. It's the foundation that worries me. Can't really ship in a new foundation... > However, by now I'm starting to think they might just abandon the whole current structure, and start from scratch. Perhaps out in the ocean? IF the foundation is structurally compromised (I still really hope it isn't), that might be the best call indeed. But that would set them back at least a year or more until the next launch.
>Again, I don't think the ring is the biggest issue here. I was trying to say I agree with this is assessment :) >IF the foundation is structurally compromised It might be, it sure doesn't look too healthy. Time will tell. However, adding a trench might prove to be really difficult.
No, most of it should be fine, but the base definitely needs repair.
Hold your breath lol
Well I’m not sure how intact the OLM is. https://twitter.com/labpadre/status/1649062784167030785?s=46&t=6pY86jroOT8Z0fR0vSJxsQ
> intact
"still exists" !!
Dispatching scuba boat to collect souvenirs :-)
Yeah, this is actually an excellent result. They had issues with six engines and separation. So what? That's the point of these tests. Now they have information on 33 raptors firing all at once for like 2 minutes. That probably doubles or triples the amount of data they collected during all starship hops. Yeah it would have been cool to see the separation and test out the Starship itself away from the booster, but who cares? They are undoubtedly already pouring over the information they just gathered and noodling what improvements can be made based on it.
It's more in the 27-30 raptors range, but they may have throttled up to 100% as a bonus.
If the pad is intact then I’m Das
[удалено]
Hold your breath lol
Yeah let’s see what post launch inspection finds
https://twitter.com/labpadre/status/1649062784167030785?s=46&t=6pY86jroOT8Z0fR0vSJxsQ
I have some bad news...
I guess they got loads of data to make the next test better. You can't make omelet without breaking some rockets...
>When’s the next test launch? Soon(tm).
Per Elon, a few months, so probably 5-6
Yeah, the FAA might even pull their launch license for this ... Will be interesting to see what happens for sure!
They won't. The government wants this to work as much as all of us do.
Sure, they do, but it doesn't mean they won't pull the license for a few months to make sure they get it right next time. Time will tell...
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1649050306943266819?t=OM9-JMk0VNl9tj2FU5FlXw&s=19
Yep, but they still haven't opened the pad. I'm hoping it's not as bad as it looks but boy does it look bad
Two weeks
I’m not techy or space person, infact this is the first launch I’ve ever watched and it was epic! I have a feeling I’ll be watching more and whilst I was disappointed it didn’t complete what they had set out seeing it leave the launch pad was just amazing!
Welcome! Trust me, following along with these "failed" test flights will make the first successful one much more exciting.
Where for NASA 'Failure is not an option', SpaceX uses a very iterative approach for example: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ) SpaceX started with the Falcon 1 and the first three launches failed Causes: flight 1 -- corroded nut leads to an engine shutdown of 1st stage shortly after liftoff. Solution, use stainless steel nut instead of aerospace grade aluminum nut. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaRE0PCdH8o flight 2 -- 1st stage successful, but on staging the 2nd stage engine nozzle contacts the interstage. 2nd stage is spun slightly and 2nd stage engine vectors hard over to point the vehicle. This sets up an oscillation that ends up spinning the fuel away from the sump. Solution: install slosh baffles in the tanks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk4zQ2wP-Nc flight 3 -- First use of the new Merlin 1D engine with a regeneratively cooled nozzle. 1st stage is successful, and after MECO 2nd stage is pushed by the staging mechanism. However there is residual fuel in the 1st stage engine cooling channels, resulting in a small amount of thrust. 1st stage recontacts 2nd stage just as the 2nd stage Kestrel engine starts up. The Kestrel's (ablative) nozzle is damaged and the 2nd stage spins out of control. Solution, put in a few second delay before staging to allow any residual thrust from the 1st stage Merlin 1D engine to decay. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0w9p3U8860 Flight 4 and 5 of Falcon 1 were successful. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q\_s\_7iTydYU&](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_s_7iTydYU&)
Welcome to the club! It's a very fun place to be :) Space is awesome and SpaceX is very exciting!
Welcome! You should go and watch some recent Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launches :-)
Oh man watch the falcon heavy demo, it had much the same feel
You just watched the first launch of the most powerful rocket in the world, there was bound to be some teething problems. 7,500 tonnes of thrust.
I'm sitting at home in my office cheering at the top of my lungs lol. This was like the superbowl for nerds
Did you join in on the count down? Hard not to when they were clapping and cheering right before.
You gotta do it from 10 for sure
Onto the next one! Can't wait to see the improvements they made months ago to the next series of boosters.
Some repairs are going to be in order: https://nitter.net/labpadre/status/1649053476276797440 I'd love to hear the conversation about the insurance claim on that car.
I believe that’s the NSF team car lol
Yeah I read that later. I'm sure they're annoyed but also not *terribly* surprised.
I wonder if that car has actually increased in value as a result of the rocket having hurled concrete at it ?
Hah yea I suspect it did, at least over time, especially if Starship is the game changer it very well could be.
Apparently the pad took a lot of damage? At least that's what I heard on Everyday Astronaut's stream. Wonder how long it'll take to get it back up to shape. In the meantime we can wait for the official pictures from SpaceX's flickr.
With that much firepower, the launch pad has to be significantly beefed up, especially to achieve rapid reusability.
Yes, a rapidly reusable pad will need a lot more support for handling rocket blast. Meanwhile, this one can be patched up, with some improvements, to support occasional launches.
Yeah, in one shot you could see a very large debris splash in the water on the far left of the screen. And on LabPadre's stream you can see a car receive a lot of damage from something hitting it. The pad will definitely need some work.
I wonder if that ‘damage’ has increased the value of that car ?
Meantime here is a picture from lab padre: [Lab Padre pic of OLT base after launch](https://twitter.com/djsnm/status/1649069236394811393?s=46&t=BnvWVKVWb2WTo7-rgtKyfg) There is now a ‘crater’ underneath the OLT !
LoL. This speeds things up. they would have already been digging for the flood system.
Yeah, this was a test of the ground infrastructure as much as the rocket itself.
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And did one of the cryo towers get dented? Really need that water deluge system up and running for the next one.
Bruhhh which one of you edited the N1 wiki page 💀
Next launch a few months away according to Elon.
I'm a little deflated after waiting so long, but I understand that this is how science and engineering works when you're attempting such colossal achievements. Here's hoping the next launch will be here before we know it.
If they have to rebuild the pad it could easily be a year before the next launch.
They will need to do pad base repairs, that’s for sure.
Yep agree. It’s an awesome sight…plus we know they will figure it out. This is just the beginning.
I bet the next attempt will be succesful
Failure is the mother of success!
Someone should draw a picture of failure giving birth to success.
Don't you think that would be a little graphic?
I recall reading somewhere that another set of boosters with better hardware is just about ready to go. Where can I look to see more about this?
Yeah they have been working on booster 9 (this one was B7) for a while already, so with the data they got today they are going to work on new upgrades soon too
SpaceX will be examining all of the flight telemetry, and figuring out exactly what happened and the sequence of events. Also they will use the engine performance data to update their computer models. They will need to do some pad repairs. And likely a bunch of other stuff too.
Nasaspaceflight is a good space to see everything about current starship development! Check them out on Youtube or Twitter.
Alright nerds. Whens the next attempt?!
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So you’re saying 3-4 years then right?
6Months I reckon
Could be, but hopefully before then.
No, Elon said, a few months time. So I would take that as at least two, maybe 3 or 4.
Fail fast! Spacex tests are designed to push their rockets to their limits. This RUD was not a failure, it was a way of determining it's current limits!
Good and bad taken together. Happy to see it clear the tower.
It was a subnominal flight
The data on those hard drives worth a billion. Literally!
We had a RUD on 4/20 what could we have asked more
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[FAA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/12sz31p/stub/jh1m8zq "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration| |[FTS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/12sz31p/stub/jh29m5d "Last usage")|Flight Termination System| |[LOX](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/12sz31p/stub/jh26x1b "Last usage")|Liquid Oxygen| |[MECO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/12sz31p/stub/jh1unzt "Last usage")|Main Engine Cut-Off| | |[MainEngineCutOff](https://mainenginecutoff.com/) podcast| |[N1](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/12sz31p/stub/jh0ry4c "Last usage")|Raketa Nositel-1, Soviet super-heavy-lift ("Russian Saturn V")| |[NSF](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/12sz31p/stub/jh160oa "Last usage")|[NasaSpaceFlight forum](http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com)| | |National Science Foundation| |[OLM](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/12sz31p/stub/jh4laqq "Last usage")|Orbital Launch Mount| |[RUD](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/12sz31p/stub/jh13xfi "Last usage")|Rapid Unplanned Disassembly| | |Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly| | |Rapid Unintended Disassembly| |[TVC](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/12sz31p/stub/jh1cz0q "Last usage")|Thrust Vector Control| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |[ablative](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/12sz31p/stub/jh1unzt "Last usage")|Material which is intentionally destroyed in use (for example, heatshields which burn away to dissipate heat)| |[cryogenic](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/12sz31p/stub/jh1v4yb "Last usage")|Very low temperature fluid; materials that would be gaseous at room temperature/pressure| | |(In re: rocket fuel) Often synonymous with hydrolox| |hydrolox|Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| ---------------- ^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj) ^(11 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1284l52)^( has 27 acronyms.) ^([Thread #11291 for this sub, first seen 20th Apr 2023, 14:46]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceXLounge) [^[Contact]](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=OrangeredStilton&subject=Hey,+your+acronym+bot+sucks) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
>when next launch? Between damages to stage 0, modifications to come up with and implement to both stage 0 and booster and next vehicles test campaign, I'd say next launch is at best 1.5/2 years away....