Starship Orbital Test Flight - 4/20 Launch

[cvalue13]

 

[JBee]

Great show and attempt while it lasted... just wouldn't separate with Stage-2

https://www.cnn.com/webview/us/live...h-04-20-23#h_fc5e5ee51ce726799d5589703d1a2edd

The seperation is actually a bit different on Starship in that it needs to rotate it to keep both vehicles stable while they seperate. The seperation occurs purely from the inertia difference between the Starship which is 5x as heavy as the booster at the time of seperation, because the booster is empty of fuel and Starship is still full.

So there's no mechanism that actually pushes the two apart, there's just a ring that contracts and releases the mechanical connection between the two, and they drift apart, with Starship travelling clear of booster before igniting its engines, to avoid damaging booster. Booster has to remain functional and rapidly reusable without repairs.

In all the test was a massive success, it cleared the pad despite loosing 3 engines on launch, then another 3-4 on the way up to 38km, shy of seperation altitude that has to happen in a partial vaccum. For Falcon 9 that's at 80km.

It looks like it was burning something hydrocarbon based, from just after launch like hydraulic oil etc, because methane burns clean and clear without white/grey smoke. There were also a series of flashes on the way up, where I think some major parts dropped off and burnt up in the plume.

After throttledown and passing through MaxQ, (which it survived with flying colours!) It then seemed to lose the ability to accelerate further, most likely because of the loss of so many engines, and then it ran out of fuel, lost attitude control (the ability to steer) and started doing barrel rolls, without achieving seperation. After tumbling down a bit venting fuel they set off the self destruct and that was it.

Overall they would of had heaps of new data, which was the purpose of the test. But I think they might need to have a look at Stage 0 (the ground part) and lock down all that debris and dust cloud because I think the engine blast is causing damage to the site and the ship as well. Apparently, Lapadre said there was a 25ft hole in the concrete under the pad....to much heat, force and vibration. The sound vibrations alone can break apart concrete and seeing they don't have a water deluge system yet, it was surprising to see how well it mostly still worked without it.

The other thing is I think the seperation method needs to be good enough to sperate whilst it's unstable, especially for a manned launch, so they have an escape vehicle...that is if at all they have that functionality planned. Apparently EM isn't fan of it, but in this situation seperation would of meant another Starship test, with in flight high altitude engine ignition, flight control on the way down from 40km etc.

Anyways, I'm certain we'll find out more over the next few days. Hopefully they can build a electric instead of hydraulic actuated booster in the mean time, and get it ready to test for the 4th July...

 

[Gurule92]

The separation attempt represents someone trying to get my cybertruck reservation from me. Holding on for dear life.

 

[JBee]

Well I'm not sure who was holding onto who and didn't want to seperate from the other.

I'm thinking that Starships 6 raptor engines didn't have enough thrust to maintain altitude and velocity at the height they got up too anyway, so they didn't allow seperation. I'm thinking it was Starship on top, that was holding onto Super Heavy after that wild ride being thrust up towards space, and with that their fates were sealed, and it all ended in the fury flames of inorganic passion.

 

[Zabhawkin]

It definitely went Kerbal. I am sure they got a lot of good data.

 

[Crissa]

They'd lost five engines by that point, and I think it was a matter of control authority not giving it the smooth ride it needed to separate. The computer would have kept trying to balance it until they decided they'd seen enough.

Such is the life of robots. Are they the program and data that lives on, or the hardware they left behind?

I don't think they even released the clamps for the stage separation.

-Crissa

PS, watch the angle it left the pad, too. It may have been too slow to accelerate.

 

[LoneWolfO6]

3mm, 4mm Stainless, it never stood a chance?! But those spectators sure were excited failure or not?!

 

[hridge2020]

Yep some engines were out.

Some were too busy watching the launch

Final thoughts??

 

[Kahpernicus]

3mm, 4mm Stainless, it never stood a chance?! But those spectators sure were excited failure or not?!

Those spectators are SpaceX engineers and people who worked on it.

The launch was a success once it cleared the tower.

 

[Friday]

Dang, by the looks of the launchpad post takeoff, Starship tore the Earth asunder and took some of it with it. One of the camera angles low on the the launch looked like there was a volcanic pyroclastic flow, with deadly debris flying.

Well, looks like launchpad redesign will be to the forefront before we see another attempt. Don't know what you don't know until you know it.

 

[JBee]

There was a fair bit of chatter pre launch about how the pad would fair. Most agreed it wasn't going to be pretty without the water deluge system, let alone the noise. They already had issues with the Starship landing tests, and that only has 3 engines on taleoff and a fraction of the fuel, not 35 like the booster. That dust cloud was huge though, especially considering it all came from the thrust coming off the bottom of a comparatively tiny rocket.

I'm thinking it was kind of intentional, in that they need to gain experience for landing and taking off on unmade pads, because there is none on the moon or Mars. That's why the lunar version has thrusters higher up, otherwise it becomes a boring tunnel excavator instead.

I really wonder if one day we get a propulsion system that is less "brute force" than what we're using atm. The need for launching so much fuel just to burn it off before reaching orbit seems so counter-productive, even if it is super-cool to watch. I was jumping in my seat...

We need something like a vortex generator that harvests energy from the environment and creates a tornado we can surf, which accelerates the craft fast enough to make into orbit and up to space. Would be a good prop for a sci-fi movie at least. ?

 

[CyberGus]

You can always count on Facebook for entertainment

 

[JBee]

You can always count on Facebook for entertainment

What they forgot to explain is that the firmament mentioned starts from the "ground up", meaning we are all living in Heaven so long we're "above ground" and not dead in it.

So given this interpretation it's even biblically wrong to say there is a firmament above us that would stop us from leaving the planet. It's one of the greatest hoaxes in religion to sell the concept of a heaven "above" for profit "down on earth", whilst ironically trying to turn the "heaven" we're actually in, into a hell.

So given the above, the sky is not the limit, even to people's foolishness. ?

 

[jerhenderson]

Those spectators are SpaceX engineers and people who worked on it.

The launch was a success once it cleared the tower.

imagine the forces on the rocket while it was spiraling - and it didn't break apart. wow.

 

[JBee]

imagine the forces on the rocket while it was spiraling - and it didn't break apart. wow.

But did you see the 25ft hole it made and the mini hurricane it created that broke all the youtube camera gear....I'm pretty sure debris was the cause of some of the motor failures on launch. That thing was insane.