Space Stuff and Launch Info

[berkeman]

Its trajectory avoids inhabited land.

"Hey Skipper, are those fireworks?"

"I don't know, Gilligan, but we better get under the beach umbrella!!"

 

[Astronuc]

Its trajectory avoids inhabited land. The debris is ~100 km up, so even with a relatively steep angle it's still far away.

View from a cruise ship

It caused some chaos for aircraft who planned to fly through the area after the launch. You don't want to do that when it's not clear if all debris has hit the ocean yet.

Reuters reports - SpaceX's Starship explodes in flight test, forcing airlines to divert
https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/spacex-launches-seventh-starship-mock-224420332.html

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A SpaceX Starship rocket broke up in space minutes after launching from Texas on Thursday, forcing airline flights over the Gulf of Mexico to alter course to avoid falling debris and setting back Elon Musk's flagship rocket program.

SpaceX mission control lost contact with the newly upgraded Starship, carrying its first test payload of mock satellites but no crew, eight minutes after liftoff from its South Texas rocket facilities at 5:38 p.m. EST (2238 GMT).

Video shot by Reuters showed orange balls of light streaking across the sky over the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, leaving trails of smoke behind.

 

[renormalize]

"Hey Skipper, are those fireworks?"

"I don't know, Gilligan, but we better get under the beach umbrella!!"

"I don't know, Gilligan, but we all better get under the beach umbrella!!"

 

[Flyboy]

I'm curious to hear what went wrong in the engine bay to cause the fire and progressive failure on Starship.

 

[mfb]

Tweet:

Preliminary indication is that we had an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall that was large enough to build pressure in excess of the vent capacity.

Apart from obviously double-checking for leaks, we will add fire suppression to that volume and probably increase vent area. Nothing so far suggests pushing next launch past next month.

I don't think they can finish the accident investigation and get it approved by the FAA that fast, but if it was a simple manufacturing defect then it's easy to fix.

 

[QuarkyMeson]

Tweet:

I don't think they can finish the accident investigation and get it approved by the FAA that fast, but if it was a simple manufacturing defect then it's easy to fix.

When does Nasa decide to pull the plug on SpaceX's HLS? They have to be getting nervous about their ability to meet contract requirements.

 

[Flyboy]

When does Nasa decide to pull the plug on SpaceX's HLS? They have to be getting nervous about their ability to meet contract requirements.

I suspect that they’re going to pull the plug on SLS before HLS. I’m not saying that as a SpaceX fanboy or anything, it’s a purely objective assessment of the situation. We’re years from needing HLS at this point, given the paltry launch cadence of SLS/Orion. I wouldn’t be surprised if the incoming administration just kicks the can down the road on deciding what to do with HLS and focuses on seeing if there’s any way to salvage the SLS program first.

 

[QuarkyMeson]

I suspect that they’re going to pull the plug on SLS before HLS. I’m not saying that as a SpaceX fanboy or anything, it’s a purely objective assessment of the situation. We’re years from needing HLS at this point, given the paltry launch cadence of SLS/Orion. I wouldn’t be surprised if the incoming administration just kicks the can down the road on deciding what to do with HLS and focuses on seeing if there’s any way to salvage the SLS program first.

I doubt it, the SLS program is a gravy train for a bunch of a state senators. For moon missions the SLS isn't technically required anyway, you could use the most reliable rocket ever, an Atlas V, with some modifications. You could also just use a delta 4 heavy. Orbital refueling depots would open a whole bunch of other doors. None of this works though because need to keep the SLS as a jobs program.

The SLS program itself is mostly funding SpaceX's starship. I just can't be the only person looking at the number of launches required, the in orbit refueling, the dead weight and all the other issues in light of the failure of every launch so far and not think it's crazy to keep spending tax payer money on this.

 

[mfb]

When does Nasa decide to pull the plug on SpaceX's HLS? They have to be getting nervous about their ability to meet contract requirements.

Why? It's going to be delayed. Name something that isn't.

Atlas V couldn't even launch Orion to Earth orbit. Delta IV Heavy is retired.

The SLS program itself is mostly funding SpaceX's starship.

??? They are different rockets. Not a single cent of the SLS program is going to SpaceX.

I just can't be the only person looking at the number of launches required, the in orbit refueling, the dead weight and all the other issues in light of the failure of every launch so far and not think it's crazy to keep spending tax payer money on this.

That's the fun of a reusable rocket: You can fly it often. Falcon 9, even though it's only partially reusable, has flown 10 times this year already. What's the big deal of 10 flights if you have that launch cadence, or even just half of it?

What do you mean by "failure of every launch so far"? Flights 4 and 5 were fully successful in every aspect. Flight 6 was a full success except for the booster catch, which was aborted due to a technical issue with the launch tower. Flight 7 had another booster catch.

 

[Astronuc]

Tweet: Preliminary indication is that we had an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall that was large enough to build pressure in excess of the vent capacity.

I don't think they can finish the accident investigation and get it approved by the FAA that fast, but if it was a simple manufacturing defect then it's easy to fix.

That's an interesting comment on oxygen/fuel leak, which are separate systems until combined in the combustion chamber.

Could it be an internal flaw that eventually propagated under tensile stress, or perhaps fatigue?

Were the part(s) that failed re-used?

Design flaw? Did they over-estimate the performance life?

Wrong material for the service application?

I'm certainly curious about the findings of the investigation.

 

[Flyboy]

No parts on Starship have been reused yet. Every vehicle has been destroyed, scrapped, or scuttled after a flight.

Design elements have been carried over from V1 to V2, but I suspect that they’re not the issue. They’ve proven decently robust.

Superheavy reused Raptor 314 on the last flight.

 

[QuarkyMeson]

Why? It's going to be delayed. Name something that isn't.

The other things that are delayed are seen as jobs programs.

Atlas V couldn't even launch Orion to Earth orbit. Delta IV Heavy is retired.???

It just retired last year; pulling it back out should still be cheaper. I could be very wrong, but I thought Atlas V had more than enough payload capacity to put a dry Orion into LEO, where it could be supplied, manned, and then sent on its way via a TLI with an additional launch. This, of course, would be easier with a Delta IV Heavy, since you could put it into LEO wet. The newer, heaviest Vulcan should be able to do this too.

They are different rockets. Not a single cent of the SLS program is going to SpaceX.

You're right, I misspoke. When I was saying SLS I was really talking about the Artemis program in general, in which the HLS (starship) recieves funding.

That's the fun of a reusable rocket: You can fly it often. Falcon 9, even though it's only partially reusable, has flown 10 times this year already. What's the big deal of 10 flights if you have that launch cadence, or even just half of it?

I don't know if reusability is always a good thing. The shuttle was also nearly completely reusable, with the only disposable part supposedly being the external fuel tank. The boosters (or parts thereof) were also reused, just without the theatrics of landing under power.

I don't know how much reusability factors into the cost of a Falcon 9 because I can't see company financial statements. The number of Falcon 9 launches doesn't seem super relevant since SpaceX's biggest customer is SpaceX. No other company I'm aware of needs to launch that much material into space. I'm not sure how much reusability factors into this cadence versus if it was completely disposable.

What do you mean by "failure of every launch so far"? Flights 4 and 5 were fully successful in every aspect. Flight 6 was a full success except for the booster catch, which was aborted due to a technical issue with the launch tower. Flight 7 had another booster catch.

I guess it depends on how you quantify success.

Flight 4: The Starship exploded during splashdown, and it also experienced partial heat shield failure during re-entry. The same issue occurred, to a lesser degree, during Flight 5. In Flight 6, the Starship had similar heating problems in the same fin area. After splashdown, it was on fire, but at least it didn't explode.

They've all had issues with re-entering the atmosphere due to heating. If you watch the video from the 6th launch again, you can see that the stainless steel shows tempering coloration in places where it shouldn't.

Not to mention, they've never reached orbital velocity (on purpose I assume, I don't know), and they haven't transported any cargo into space. (This is more confusing, why wouldn't you at least have a dummy load)

 

[Flyboy]

Delta IV cannot be returned to service. There are no engines for the first stage, and there is no longer tooling to make the tanks. Same for Atlas V. ULA has fully committed to Vulcan production at this point and it’s not viable to restart production on their older boosters.

Starship not being fully reusable yet is not a issue, imo. They’re pushing well into uncharted territory now, and they’re learning a lot. They’re also running a very hardware rich development cycle, so much so that lessons learned on flight 6 are probably not going to fly until maybe flight 11 or 12. Everything between those flights is either complete and awaiting a launch, or too far along in fabrication to make major changes to the design.

 

[mfb]

The other things that are delayed are seen as jobs programs.

Who thinks the space suits are a jobs program?

Delta IV Heavy is retired and there is no realistic way to bring it back. The factories used to make its components have been building Vulcan or other stuff for a while now. The Vandenberg launch pad is now with SpaceX for future Falcon launches, the Cape Canaveral launch pad might go to SpaceX for Starship launches.

Atlas V can launch up to 19 tonnes to LEO under ideal conditions. Orion with European Service Module is 26.5 tonnes and the launch escape system adds another 7 tonnes early on.
Besides the lack of payload capability, all remaining Atlas V are already assigned to other missions.

Vulcan can't do it either, by the way, only 26 tonnes to LEO. Delta IV Heavy at ~29 tonnes would have been very marginal.

I don't know if reusability is always a good thing.

Sure, but we know it works well for Falcon. Starship is designed with all the lessons learned from Falcon - it won't do worse in that aspect.

The number of Falcon 9 launches doesn't seem super relevant since SpaceX's biggest customer is SpaceX.

Why would the payload matter? Falcon shows how reuse allows a high launch cadence at much lower cost.

Flight 4: The Starship exploded during splashdown

Expected and irrelevant. The ship isn't supposed to land in the water, ever. The mission ends at zero velocity and the altitude where it would rest on the launch tower.
We don't call an Atlas V launch a failure when the booster blows up on reentry either - all its boosters blow up, they are not designed to land.

The heat shield was damaged, sure, that's something SpaceX is still working on. But it already works well enough for the ship to survive reentry and land. It's not rapidly reusable in this form, but it's likely reusable with refurbishment once it's caught by the tower.

Not to mention, they've never reached orbital velocity (on purpose I assume, I don't know)

Yes, on purpose. They fly missions so close to orbital velocity that it would be trivial to reach a proper orbit, but reentry is part of the test program so the ship deliberately cuts off the engines a few seconds earlier.

and they haven't transported any cargo into space. (This is more confusing, why wouldn't you at least have a dummy load)

Because it's not reaching a proper orbit. Flight 7 had some Starlink simulators that would have been deployed into the same almost-orbital trajectory to test the deployment system.

 

[QuarkyMeson]

That all sounds reasonable then.

 

[mfb]

We get another batch of Moon missions, with up to 6 landings this year.

Blue Ghost Mission 1 by Firefly Aerospace and Hakuto-R Mission 2 by ispace were launched January 15. Hakuto-R mission 1 crashed in 2023.

Blue Ghost has entered a Moon orbit, a landing is planned for March 2. Firefly is very active on YouTube, e.g. with this in-flight update or the orbit insertion update.

Hakuto-R has made a flyby. It goes to the Moon on a slower lower-energy trajectory and will only enter a Moon orbit in April or May. No landing date has been announced yet. It's the smallest lander.

IM-2 is scheduled to launch February 27. It's the second mission of Intuitive Machines after their first lander landed in a tilted orientation and was only half functional. It goes to the Moon on a direct trajectory, likely landing in March. On board is the μNova "hopper" which can move around with short bursts of its rockets. IM-3 is planned for October this year.

Blue Origin wants to launch a Blue Moon prototype soon, potentially as early as March. With a launch mass of 20 tonnes it's an order of magnitude larger than the other "large" landers.

Astrobotic Technology plans to launch its Griffin lander later this year.

 

[mfb]

Starship flight 8 is planned for Friday. Live coverage will probably appear on this site, even though it hasn't been created yet (just following the URL pattern of the previous flights):
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-8

The plan will be the same as for flight 7. Launch to an almost-orbital trajectory, catch the booster. Test the deployment of Starlink mass simulators, ignite Raptor in flight for a simulated reentry burn, then reenter and land (splash down) in the Indian Ocean. If successful, flight 9 might attempt a ship capture at the launch site.

Edit: Some new views of flight 7

 

[.Scott]

The cause of the January RUD is described as fuel and oxygen leaks in an enclosed but vented region above the engines. A fire ensued - cutting telemetry and resulting in the flight termination system explosively ending the mission.

Their solution includes better ventilation in that region. This suggests to me that the "leaks" are part of the design. The problem isn't that they leaked but that they leaked too much. This doesn't surprised me. We are talking about cryogenic plumbing that's under a lot of vibration and stress. The plumbing likely needs to have some give - even at the expense of leaks.

Although the spacecraft detonated within the pre-planned debris area, I am surprised that SpaceX has not addressed the littering issue. I would have expected them to put some small "per pound" bounty on any debris that is readily indefinable as theirs.

 

[.Scott]

I just don’t see the point in continuing to claim that they’re “not stranded” with an emphasis on the quotes.

Sure, they're stranded. But they are test pilots - and that's what they signed up for and are paid for.
And I strongly suspect they had a major say in whether they wanted to use Starliner for the return home.
Besides, given a choice between being stranded 9 months on a tropical island or the ISS, I would definitely pick the ISS.

 

[Flyboy]

Sure, they're stranded. But they are test pilots - and that's what they signed up for and are paid for.
And I strongly suspect they had a major say in whether they wanted to use Starliner for the return home.
Besides, given a choice between being stranded 9 months on a tropical island or the ISS, I would definitely pick the ISS.

They are not stranded and haven’t been for months. There are two seats on the Dragon currently docked at the station dedicated specifically to them and that has been the case since Crew-9 launched nearly six months ago.

 

[.Scott]

They are not stranded and haven’t been for months. There are two seats on the Dragon currently docked at the station dedicated specifically to them and that has been the case since Crew-9 launched nearly six months ago.

So, they were stranded for 3 months and then their ride showed up - but they still have to wait.
And if you were stuck at the airport overnight because you missed your bus and the next one wasn't scheduled to leave until morning, you would not use the word "stranded" to describe your plight. Got it.

I'm not going to fight the semantics. Whether they are "stranded" or unexpectedly having to wait, it's still not a big deal.

 

[robphy]

Blue Ghost has entered a Moon orbit, a landing is planned for March 2. Firefly is very active on YouTube, e.g. with this in-flight update or the orbit insertion update.

Live Moon Landing broadcast

 

[mfb]

Successful landing. The first commercial lander that managed to land properly.

Their solution includes better ventilation in that region. This suggests to me that the "leaks" are part of the design. The problem isn't that they leaked but that they leaked too much. This doesn't surprised me. We are talking about cryogenic plumbing that's under a lot of vibration and stress. The plumbing likely needs to have some give - even at the expense of leaks.

They fix the leak source as well, obviously.
The launch is now planned for Monday.

 

[mfb]

The launch is now planned for Monday.

In ~12 hours. Livestream:

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-8

They run tons of experiments with the heat shield, it's a bit different in many places. So far it has never failed completely, so they are confident they can test what works best for future reuse.

Edit: Scrub, next attempt possibly tomorrow.

 

[mfb]

Ready for the second Moon landing (attempt) within a week? A Nova-C lander by Intuitive Machines in under 24 hours:



Starship has been delayed to Thursday.

Edit: Successful or at least mostly successful landing of IM-2. It's on the surface, they have contact, but one of the two antennas seems to have issues.

 

[mfb]

Starship launched. The booster returned to the launch site and was caught successfully (3rd booster catch), but the ship lost 4 of its 6 engines late into the launch (~30s before cutoff) and then lost attitude control. It looks quite similar to the flight 7 failure, although it seems to have made it a bit farther this time (so hopefully less impact on airspace). Will be interesting to watch the accident investigation.

Ariane 6 made its second flight, successfully launching a French military satellite. This time the upper stage completed its reentry burn.

Edit: Apparently the reentry of Starship debris was visible from the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos, similar to the previous flight.

 

[Flyboy]

Man, I don't know what they changed about the propellant feed lines in Starship V2, but it is not working.

Good to see they're nailing the RTLS/boostback and recovery, though.

 

[Flyboy]

The X-37B reentered and landed at Vandenburg SFB overnight, after a (relatively) brief 434 day mission.

 

[mfb]

It turns out that IM-2 landed in the wrong orientation, just like IM-1.
After less than a day, the Athena lander is dead on the Moon
IM-3 is planned for next year.

Crew-10 is scheduled for March 12. After a few days of handover, Crew-9 will return home. This includes Barry Wilmore and Sunita Williams, who launched on Starliner in June. A planned 8-day mission that became a 9-month ISS stay. The astronauts probably don't mind - it's likely the last flight of their career and being in space is what they trained their whole life for.

ULA is preparing an Atlas V to launch the first batch of 27 Kuiper satellites. No specific launch date yet, but likely within a month. They destacked a Vulcan rocket to make space for the Atlas V. In order to secure its allocated spectrum, Kuiper needs to launch half of its 3200 satellites before August 2026, which would mean almost one launch per week. That's unlikely to happen, but if they can show a significant effort to use the bandwidth then they are likely to get an extension.

 

[mfb]

Crew-10 launched, Crew-9 returned. Watch one last round of misinformed people shouting all sorts of nonsense about the Starliner crew, but now they are back on Earth.

Isar Aerospace is in the final preparations for its first launch of Spectrum, with daily launch opportunities from March 20 to 30. The first orbital launch attempt for a German rocket (Arianespace is just partially German), and the first orbital rocket using propane. With 1000 kg to low Earth orbit, this is a relatively large rocket for a startup. Germany doesn't have a spot for a launch site, so this rocket launches from Norway. They want to use Kourou later, too.
News, company website
As usual with startups, it would be very surprising if they reach orbit on the first try, but the test flight should give them tons of data to improve the rocket for a second attempt. At least two more rockets are already under construction.

Some interesting discussion about supersonic retropropulsion (igniting a front-facing engine at high speed in an atmosphere). NASA had a test plan that would have needed ~300 million, then SpaceX decided to do it with Falcon 9 boosters after their main mission. NASA scrapped the test plan as SpaceX had shown it to work.
The full interview is worth watching, too.

 

[mfb]

Fram2 is now scheduled to launch April 1, 03:20 (Mar 31 local time). It will be the first crewed mission in a polar orbit ever, flying right over the poles before returning a few days later. The crew will use Resilience, the same Dragon capsule that also launched Inspiration4 and Polaris Dawn.

 

[mfb]

Isar Aerospace is in the final preparations for its first launch of Spectrum

They had the rocket fueled today, but it was too windy for a launch. Looks like there is no live coverage and their website has been down for a while now.

 

[glappkaeft]

I saw a upper stage venting while trying out a new telescope mount. Got this images using my phone. I think this is the Space X NROL-69 launch. The time was pretty much 19:00 UTC and it launched 17:48. Location was outside Linköping, Sweden.

 

[mfb]

It was that launch. The second stage vented propellant and prepared to deorbit over the Indian ocean. It produced a spiral that was widely visible from central Europe.

Some more pictures here, here, here, here.

 

[mfb]

Liftoff of Spectrum - unfortunately it lost thrust and/or attitude control soon after launch. It fell down into the ocean near the launch pad.
NSF coverage

The launch site looks amazing:

Edit: Video of the rocket falling back

 

[nsaspook]

A nice first launch attempt. It cleared the tower.

8.5

 

[berkeman]

A nice first launch attempt. It cleared the tower.

LOL. I think this is my favorite quote from the launch "success" evaluation...

"Our first test flight met all our expectations, achieving a great success," Daniel Metzler, Isar's chief executive and co-founder, said in a news release. "We had a clean liftoff, 30 seconds of flight and even got to validate our Flight Termination System."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rocket-isar-aerospace-crash-takeoff-norway/

 

[Flyboy]

Optimism!

 

[Filip Larsen]

Eric Berger had a nice interview with Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams about their experience of docking Starliner while handling multiple thruster failures:
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/...starliner-was-like-when-its-thrusters-failed/

 

[mfb]

Losing 6 degrees of freedom control is wild. It's crazy that Boeing wanted to return the astronauts in that capsule.

Fram2 launched and is now flying in its polar orbit. A tweet from space.

 

[berkeman]

Losing 6 degrees of freedom control is wild.

Yeah, and like a good pilot, he was already thinking/planning for what else could go wrong ("what if we lose comms too?)... Scary stuff.

 

[nsaspook]

Could those Boeing pressure suits have been used for an emergency EVA (they were close) to the ISS if those thrusters didn't get recycled back into operation and more were lost until even a great pilot couldn't fly it to docking or reentry?

 

[Flyboy]

I don’t know. I think, but can’t find proof either way, that the launch and entry suits lack any sort of internal life support, and are part of a redundant system integrated into the capsule itself.

 

[Filip Larsen]

The Starliner suit seems to be clearly classified as an IVA pressure suit with limits mainly designed to cope with in-vehicle emergencies (loss of cabin pressure, smoke or fumes). In the (rather annoying) video included at https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/new-spacesuit-unveiled-for-starliner-astronauts/ there is a short sequence showing the wearer holding a box with the text indicating the suit (and box) supports emergency pressurization and some extend of emergency life support. If the box contains an oxygen bottle able to deliver flow to the helmet one guess could be it can supply the suit for some amount of time, perhaps with carbon dioxide rich suit air being vented by some over-pressure valve (I would be very surprised if the box contain any form of circulatory flow, like scrubbers). Could be interesting to know if emergency EVA transfer of the Starliner crew (or any other crew visiting ISS for that matter) is something that is planned and trained for, because if so then the suit most surely must be designed to allow this. However, given how surprised Boeing seem to have been that a systematic error lead to a zero-fault tolerance situation during a test flight (!) any such emergency EVA procedure, should it exist, is probably not driven by Boeing.

 

[mfb]

Could those Boeing pressure suits have been used for an emergency EVA (they were close) to the ISS if those thrusters didn't get recycled back into operation and more were lost until even a great pilot couldn't fly it to docking or reentry?

No. The suits don't have an independent life support system. They rely on the capsule for air, thermal control and so on. They have zero propulsion either because you don't need that inside the capsule. In addition, the Starliner capsule has no mechanism to start an EVA.
You are basically missing all the development that SpaceX did for the Polaris Dawn mission, and then something in addition (the suits for Polaris were still connected to the capsule and had no propulsion).

 

[nsaspook]

No. The suits don't have an independent life support system. They rely on the capsule for air, thermal control and so on. They have zero propulsion either because you don't need that inside the capsule. In addition, the Starliner capsule has no mechanism to start an EVA.
You are basically missing all the development that SpaceX did for the Polaris Dawn mission, and then something in addition (the suits for Polaris were still connected to the capsule and had no propulsion).

I'm not missing the Polaris Dawn mission EVA suits and their normal mission capability. I just couldn't find as much information on the Boeing IVA suits emergency capabilities or if they even had any for an extremis ("in the farthest reaches" or "at the point of death") abandon ship scenario.

Sure, a EVA from the Starliner capsule would be dangerous even with a full qualified EVA suit but as sailors/pilots we trained for abandon ship where the alternate of staying on the ship was worse than the danger of being shark food.

 

[mfb]

It's not dangerous, it's guaranteed death.

Docking with the ISS needs precision, deorbiting is much more forgiving. You need to reach roughly the right orientation for the deorbit burn and you want the heat shield to face forward as you start reentry (once drag becomes relevant, the capsule steers by shifting its center of mass) - but position is completely irrelevant, giving you extra redundancy.

 

[Flyboy]

The capsule also has separate RCS thrusters for orientation during reentry. Once you cut the service module loose, you have pointing control.

The issue would be maintaining attitude control authority during the deorbit burn.

 

[nsaspook]

 

[mfb]

The US Department of Defense has awarded $14 billion for "Phase 3 Lane 2", covering various launches until 2033: $5.9 billion for SpaceX, $5.4 billion for ULA, $2.4 billion for Blue Origin. Lane 2 has the highest requirements so only these three had a realistic chance to win, Lane 1 is more flexible and will be awarded later.

Zena Cardman, who didn't get to launch with Crew-9 due to the Starliner issues, will now fly on Crew-11 (planned for July). Stephanie Wilson didn't get reassigned to Crew-11, maybe she'll fly with Crew-12.

The first batch of Kuiper satellites is ready for launch, bad weather shifted the launch date to April 14.