SpaceX Celebrates Third Launch of Starship Rocket Despite Loss of Contact (wftv.com) 70
sixoh1 writes: On the third attempt, SpaceX's Super Heavy booster lofted the Starship vehicle to space on a sub-orbital parabolic trajectory. The test was successful for nearly all of the objectives, including payload delivery functions on Starship that will be used for Starlink deployment and in-space fuel transfers. Unfortunately the booster did not soft-land, and the Starship vehicle was destroyed during re-entry, likely due to unspecified issues with re-starting the Raptor engine and then maintaining attitude control during re-entry. You can watch Starship's third flight test here.
Heat tiles flying off? (Score:2)
Re:Heat tiles flying off? (Score:4, Informative)
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No - looks more like frozen condensate falling off which is common.
There was something else falling off around the 45 minute mark that wasn't frozen material. If you look at about 45:03 point of the mission, there appears to be a brown or orange paper-like material on the left side of the video that tumbles down the fuselage along with other thin material. Perhaps the hatch test left the hatch partially open and it caused uneven aerodynamic drag? We will need to wait for SpaceX to release more information.
https://youtu.be/8htMpR7mnaM?s... [youtu.be]
(Scott Manley's analysis of the
Re:Heat tiles flying off? (Score:4, Insightful)
No - looks more like frozen condensate falling off which is common.
There was something else falling off around the 45 minute mark that wasn't frozen material. If you look at about 45:03 point of the mission, there appears to be a brown or orange paper-like material on the left side of the video that tumbles down the fuselage along with other thin material. Perhaps the hatch test left the hatch partially open and it caused uneven aerodynamic drag? We will need to wait for SpaceX to release more information.
https://youtu.be/8htMpR7mnaM?s... [youtu.be]
(Scott Manley's analysis of the launch is worth watching in its entirety.)
If it was heat tiles, they've already redesigned the way those tiles are attached, but this particular launch, since it wasn't expected to be recovered, still used the older method of attachment. Still a hell of a lot of fun to watch, and I'll bet they gathered some tremendous amounts of new data from the mission.
It's so rare to have these big positive moments now, it was a genuine thrill to watch it happening.
Re:Heat tiles flying off? (Score:4, Informative)
There seem to be excess roll and the vehicle went into the atmosphere in a wrong angle. You've got to admit, it's one hell of 30 seconds of plasma show.
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No - looks more like frozen condensate falling off which is common. The last 60 seconds prior to the final lost signal didn't provide anything clear as to the cause. Some of the early views of the plasma was pretty insane, though.
I had legit spine tingles from the moment you could see the fins starting to glow to the moment there was liquid fire pouring off the underside of the craft. What a spectacular view that was. I'll probably be reviewing that every few days for weeks to come just staring in awe at it. I can't wait to see the next flight.
Starship was tumbling. (Score:5, Insightful)
It didn't maintain attitude control, and so when it entered it was rolling and tumbling. So both the unprotected top side of starship, and at one point, its engine bay, was pointed in the direction it was going. While we don't know what failed, it wasn't going to make it like that. And it was too high up and the atmosphere too thin for the flaps to exert enough force to correct the spin and tumble. Probably enough to maintain control, but not enough to recover control.
More stuff learned to guide them in the next flight. B11 and ship 29 are close to being ready.
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Re:Starship was tumbling. (Score:5, Informative)
?? they have gobs of data being transmitted back in real time, including multiple camera feeds. It's true those transmissions end once the ship explodes, but i doubt there's much to learn beyond that point anyway.
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Anybody know how they maintain connectivity at all aspects, even while tumbling? Do they just blast it out in all directions from multiple antennae?
During the broadcast I know they said something about having at least two starlink connections broadcasting. Not sure how many different antennas that would involve, but it'd really only take one on either side of the ship to keep it active. I was shocked by how much of the plasma burn we saw. I figured that kind of heat would, if not outright kill, at least maim beyond decoding ability any signal traveling out from the ship. Fantastic view during that period before it was lost though.
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Who says that it doesn't have a flight recorder? I'm willing to bet that it has a number of them - planes typically have at least two. It's probably easier to make multiple lighter weight recorders that are "heavily" shielded as opposed to "extremely" shielded, and just rely on redundancy to recover at least one of them.
And a "few feet" of steel might actually make it MORE vulnerable. it might be better to have some sort of protective shell that keeps it intact through the spacecraft breaking up, then th
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I think that "flight recorder" is a bit of an understatement for the data collection, reaction, transmission and (likely) storage systems they are using, and while not likely being able to survive a mach3 impact with the ocean, are likely fairly durable
I suspect that there may have been bits that continued to transmit between breakup and hitting the ocean
In regards to the "reaction" bits, I thought the closeups of the booster grid fins and SS elonerons up to failure were _fascinating_
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I suspect that there may have been bits that continued to transmit between breakup and hitting the ocean
Unlikely. It is only due to the size of Starship allowing it to have a "wake" in which the plasma does not flow that allows them to transmit upwards to the Starlink satellites for relay down to Earth outside the plasma effect that the contact was maintained once the plasma began. When it broke up it would not have sufficient size to do so and the plasma would totally block outward (and inward) radio signals.
Recovering the recorder would be too costly. (Score:2)
Remember, these rockets are coming down over the deep ocean. If they break up high in the atmosphere, the debris will be scattered over hundreds of square kilometers. Searching that much ocean floor just isn't worth it.
They could make a device that is released from the craft in some manner and floats, sending out a tracking signal, but that's probably more difficult than it is worth. Stream the data live via TDRIS and Starlink.
And they won't be launching Starlinks soon. For that they need to go fully orbita
Re: Disposal burn (Score:1)
In this particular test, a disposal burn was neither planned nor necessary. The trajectory of this mission was designed so that the ship was coming down without needing an end-of-flight burn. The burn they wanted to do - but didn't for some reason - was for testing the ability to re-light the engines in space and wouldn't have had a big impact on re-entry.
But your point is good; before putting this in any kind of orbit where it can do actual useful work they'll certainly need to work out that whole re-light
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One of the mission objectives was to relight the Starship engines [spacex.com] at around T+40 minutes [youtu.be]. It wasn't necessary - Starship was going to reenter anyway - but in normal operation Starship is going to need to perform such deorbit burns.
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The planned burn would actually have increased velocity, i.e., the opposite of a deorbit burn. On this occasion they had a long landing zone to allow for the burn to take place or not.
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In this particular test, a disposal burn was neither planned nor necessary.
Only partially correct. The burn was not needed to de-orbit but was to be done anyhow to confirm that the re-lighting would work when needed on future missions. Due to the rotation on its axis this burn was cancelled by the onboard computers. The rotation seems to be connected with icing of attitude thrusters.
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A few feet of steel should be able to protect the electronics.
And how are you going to find that on the bottom of the ocean? It would have to open after landing to release a floating device with EPIRB. It could be done, but probably a lot easier to transmit telemetry.
Maybe some sort of small black box designed to survive a RUD during plasma blackout, and transmit until hitting the ocean?
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Yeah, I think it lost control well before re-entry. Nobody said the rolling it started doing while coasting was intentional, so I'm wondering if it had problems already then with the attitude thrusters. Like you said, the flaps are not useful at that point.
Re: Starship was tumbling. (Score:2)
The roll only started during the fuel transfer test, which makes me think it was intentional to create centrifugal force to pump the fuel. They clearly didnâ(TM)t have enough ullage gas to stop the spin though.
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Re:Heat tiles flying off? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think one or both of the tanks lost pressure after engine cut off.
The interior of the nose had some sort of fog inside it while it was in space, which is very odd considering there was no reason for it to be pressurized. They tried to cycle the payload door but it was bound up (probably pressure damage.) Then without ullage gas for the thrusters, the ship started tumbling out of control and reentered facing the wrong way (engine side first) which destroyed the wiring and plumbing back there.
Without the internal pressure, the ship was crushed like a soda can after it started experiencing atmospheric drag.
Re: Heat tiles flying off? (Score:2)
The pressure in the cargo bay could easily just be that there was enough of a seal around the door to keep some air in, and that as it ascended that pressure then held the door more and more shut. I donâ(TM)t see any evidence that that was a tank leak. I do agree that it looked like it ran out of ullage gas, but itâ(TM)s unclear why that was.
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I think I even see evidence this was not a tank leak. If whatever was in the payload bay came from the ship's tanks, it would have spread out uniformly quite quickly. The clouds we saw looked like clouds within another gas. In other words: this must simply have been air.
The tank leak (or failure to close a valve) scenario it not an unlikely one, though; it would explain the loss of attitude control and the failure to light the engines. However, I don't think it leaked into the payload bay.
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Yeh, I can absolutely believe that one or more of the RCS thrusters had a stuck valve, and that the hot ullage gas then leaked through that, both increasing the spin rate, and making it impossible to either un-spin, and impossible to pressurise the tanks for engine relight.
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Because if you look closely it was leaking gas all the times with engines off which resulted unto tumbling. By the time of re-entry the rocket was rotated with tiles on the wrong side. It's a shit show really.
The objectives were achieved because the expectation were set so low this time. Hat's off for not blowing up the rocket of course, but otherwise it was a nothing burger.
Re: Heat tiles flying off? (Score:2)
It only started tumbling during the fuel transfer test, which suggests to me that they were using centrifugal force to move the fuel. Iâ(TM)d bet that they ran out of ullage gas to stop the spin. The puffs of gas didnâ(TM)t look like leaks from any particular location, more likely random stuff on the outside evaporating.
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"It's a shit show really."
Definitively not a shit show. The objective of these test flights is to come up against weaknesses and gather data. Which is exactly what happened.
However, as usual, the 'neat and tidy'/OCD brigade are out in force, ramming their world view down everyone's necks (wahhh wahhh it wasn't perfect so its crap).
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"It's a shit show really."
Definitively not a shit show. The objective of these test flights is to come up against weaknesses and gather data. Which is exactly what happened.
However, as usual, the 'neat and tidy'/OCD brigade are out in force, ramming their world view down everyone's necks (wahhh wahhh it wasn't perfect so its crap).
To be completely fair, which I hate to be in this case, SpaceX is the first big space project with a "iterate quickly, study the failures as we go" philosophy. For the long-time space nerds, this is a completely foreign concept, and many still rail against it as the absolute wrong way to go about doing anything. Add in that there are a lot of older aeronautics/space companies angry as hell that SpaceX is making progress so quickly, and there's plenty of reasons for every SpaceX success to be painted as a ma
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Re: Heat tiles flying off? (Score:2)
It burning up was almost certainly mainly caused by not being in the correct orientation. It was badly out of control, and presenting entirely the wrong side to the plasma. Iâ(TM)d bet lots of plasma cooked the electronics through the engine bay is the culprit.
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I don't think it was the tiles, rather Starship seemed to have a spin the whole time it spent in space, and it kept spinning on re-entry. If you look at the video, you'll see the plasma cloud even on the non-tiled side before losing contact.
Still, it was spectacular, seeing the tiles starting to glow red hot from atmospheric friction, and then the plasma cloud developing and starting to gently wobble, all while siting in front of my 4k TV, is something no other human generation could have enjoyed but ours.
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At this time ONLY Starship can transmit during re-entry due to only it is big enough to have "wake" with a gap in the plasma to transmit through and only Starship is equipped with multiple starlink dishes to connect UPWARD to starlink rather than trying to communicate DOWNWARD through the plasma (which totally blocks it).
Its been a long road (Score:3)
getting from there to here
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Nonsensical headlines (Score:5, Informative)
Ridiculous how out of wack the headlines and other statements are. Apparently all rocket launches are failures. When was the last time any satellite launch by ULA included a booster landing and a spacecraft splashdown? Never. This launch achieved nominal (sub-)orbital insertion while expending the launch vehicle. You know, the set of actions that is called success for every other rocket on the planet except SpaceX's other rocket. This is like somebody winning a gold medal and setting a world record but then having it reported as a failure because their shoes came untied at the end. Both the booster and the spacecraft were planned to basically crash-land into the ocean. They just crash-landed in a slightly different way than planned. (That is, all the headlines that report it as "destroyed" make no sense because it was going to be destroyed anyway.)
But then there is the never-before-seen LIVE feed of the formation of the plasma sheet around the re-entering craft. Stunning. And this headline reports it as "loss of contact". Since when was doing things that were previously thought impossible so ripe for criticism.
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Fifteen years ago or so, there was the same mood in reporting about early SpaceX launches with Falcon. There were blow-ups and other failures, and as I recall, a lot of mocking and skepticism.
(It's hard to believe that it was actually quite some time ago, depending on your sense of time. Falcon 1 program was 2005-2009.)
The skeptics were all wrong.
The comments you made are "right on the money", and they point out that the (some) media are doing the same thing now, but last laugh will be on them.
Agree, the
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Re: Nonsensical headlines (Score:2)
To be fair, Musk seems to go out of his way to provoke that hatred. If heâ(TM)d just stick to his engineering and leave the anti-semitism to the professional bigots, heâ(TM)d generate a lot less blowback.
Re: Nonsensical headlines (Score:1)
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HLS isn't needed till Artemis III. Artemis II doesn't fly until at least September next year. Artemis III will likely be at least 2 years later regardless of HLS being completed.
Covid delayed things. The lawsuit stopping work on the HLS (by BO and others) delayed things and yes SLS being late and taking months to actually launch as Artemis I even once taken to the launch pad. The FAA having long delays and repeated environmental assessments isn't helping. NASA apparently is unwilling to allow the Fl
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The earliest Artemis III can possibly fly is in 2026. Boeing cannot make SLS core faster than once every 18 months. And they have to wait for the RS-180 rocket engine at $200 million a pop (need 4).
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Artemis III also require a whole new launch pad that's also late and over budget.
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Since when was doing things that were previously thought impossible so ripe for criticism.
Since the reporters gave up on journalistic integrity, stopped trying to be unbiased, and decided to take sides in the culture war. The one where "they've" decided that Elon Musk is "da enemy" and so anything related to him must be evil.
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Bam! https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Still enjoying the elevator music though ...
Can't Elon sell that on a CD?
Being a sub-circle of the tech-bro culture, can't they offer multiple music options on these feeds? That elevator music is more grating to me that Black Metal. Give me some thrash/death metal tunage next go-round SpaceX. Come on.
It was FANTASTIC progress (Score:5, Insightful)
SpaceX is living proof of the power of rapid, incremental development and destructive testing. I was thrilled watching the booster liftoff, I could immediately tell they had solved a whole host of issues with Stage 0. And the hot stage separation went beautifully as well, the second stage made it all the way through its flight path until that last 100km. 100 TONS of cargo per flight! Fully 1/5th of the total payload lifted in a year.
My guess is we'll see a controlled landing of the booster back to land within the next five test flights, and of the second stage within ten.
Re: It was FANTASTIC progress (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: It was FANTASTIC progress (Score:2)
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Gwynne Shotwell is SpaceX's day-to-day leader, by the way, and she has a 22-year track record of success at SpaceX unmatched by any executive in the space launch business. She completely pulverized all the clowns and astroturfers (like you?) who said ________ could not be done.
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I think they are on a launch every 4 month cadence.
Fairly early to pin down a cadence after only two gaps. Seven months between 1 (April 2023) and 2 (Nov 2023) and four months between 2 and 3 (Mar 2024).
I see three main factors that necessitate waits between test launches. Time to build. Time to test out pre launch. Waiting for government.
Time to build really has not been a problem. The build facility has an area called the Rocket Garden where constructed rockets are being parked while they wait their turn for testing, finishing and launch. Even with
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Re: It was FANTASTIC progress (Score:2)
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SpaceX is living proof of the power of rapid, incremental development and destructive testing.
The "power" of incremental development and destructive testing? Give me a break! More like trial-and-error development with a lot of error.
Historical perspective: The very first Saturn V launch occurred almost 60 years ago. It was a nearly perfect flight, and all subsequent flights were also successes--the Saturn V had a perfect launch record.
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Apollo 13's booster suffered severe pogo effects and had a center engine shutdown. Postflight inspection revealed it was one cycle away from a catastrophic failure. There's more.
Boeing was awarded the S-1C contract in 1961 and manufacturing started in 1963. It wasn't until late 1967 that the first on
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Saturn did NOT have a perfect launch record, they just got lucky. Read up on Apollo 6, which was not a success at all: two stages had failures and the mission would have been aborted if it had been manned.
I define success here as putting the payload into orbit. All Saturn V launches accomplished that. Yes, the Saturn V had a longer development cycle than Starship, but that was in the early 1960s when spaceflight was barely a few years old. It was roughly the equivalent of a 747 being developed and flown in the 1920s. SpaceX has had half a century of progress and developments to build on.
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Saturn V is sadly not available today.
Anyway it was more expensive and less capable than Starship.
The short version (Score:2)
"I fired a rocket, and it blew up. I fired another rocket, and it launched, then blew up. I fired a third one, it launched, went up, then burned up and fell over into the swamp. But the fourth..."