SpaceX Starship and Super Heavy: 120-meter stack tested

[.Scott]

Currently, the FA has TFRs registered for Starbase for Thursday (tomorrow) through Tuesday the 25th. That include Saturday and Sunday.

 

[mfb]

~90 minutes until the launch window opens. Fuel loading of the booster has started.

SpaceX stream
NSF
EDA

 

[Borg]

Looking good today. Fueling nearly complete!

 

[mfb]

We are farther than on Monday, so the valve issue has been solved.
Last 4 minutes.

Possible hold up to 15 minutes at T-40s, this is different from Falcon 9 which basically has to fly or do a larger recycle.

 

[mfb]

Hold at -35 seconds. Might go back to -40 seconds or earlier.

 

[.Scott]

SpaceX Starship Launch at 8:33am CDT (local time) - cleared the pad and still going.

 

[mfb]

LIFTOFF

 

[.Scott]

Five engines appear to be out.
Now six Stage 1 engines are out.

 

[mfb]

6 engines now. Yeah, there were some smaller explosions. We'll see if that is enough thrust to reach orbit.

 

[mfb]

That trajectory looks really wrong

 

[.Scott]

No stage 2 separation - The whole thing is tumbling - RUD.

 

[mfb]

Well, that flight was a bit shorter than planned, but certainly very exciting!

It did clear the pad, so that should be ready for another launch relatively quickly unless they decide it needs a major redesign. It reached something that looked like max-Q even though the thrust was lower than expected and it survived that.

They'll have to check what happened to the engines and work on that.
They'll have to find out why the ship started the separation maneuver that low and why it didn't separate.

Starship became the heaviest object ever to fly.

 

[berkeman]

That was weird when it was tumbling and it blew up and everybody was cheering...

 

[Borg]

I noticed that also. Cheer like your Twitter account depends on it!

 

[mfb]

Well, when it was tumbling there was tension what would happen. After it blew up people celebrated the steps that worked. It didn't reach orbit, but it still went farther than most expected.

 

[.Scott]

That was weird when it was tumbling and it blew up and everybody was cheering...

If you were watching the SpaceX feed, "everyone" was that crowd of SpaceX employees in the flight control building. The SpaceX objective was to clear the tower (rebuilding it would take months) and collect enough data for the next try. They have additional rockets built and close to ready.

They already have some Stage 2 data from a few years ago - so the rocket made it through much of the remaining uncharted engineering territory.

 

[nsaspook]

Flipped 4 times, that's an impressive structural success.

 

[hutchphd]

Flipped 4 times, that's an impressive structural success.

Note that neither stage fell apart during those somewhat parapatetic final maneuvers. To my eye the first stage and then the starship destruction charges were required. The loss of five engines (including one pretty obvious RUD) upon ascent was concerning but impressive nonetheless. Huge.

 

[berkeman]

What was supposed to happen? They said something about the full rocket would tilt back and the upper stage would separate and then the 1st stage would do a retro burn to return? I'm guessing the upper stage would then re-orient and fire its engines to proceed to orbit? Why is the reorientation needed before separation?

 

[mfb]

The engines of the booster started a slow rotation of the rocket. After releasing the clamps that rotation was supposed to separate booster and ship naturally - the rotation *is* the separation mechanism. The ship would have ignited its engines, got into the right orientation again and kept burning to reach an almost-orbital trajectory. The booster would have kept rotating (maybe even used an engine to speed it up more) until it could fire a few engines to reverse its course to return to the coast (30 km offshore in this case, the landing site later).
It's very impressive that the rocket survived in every orientation at a pretty low altitude.

The next ship/booster set might be ready soon but they'll probably have to upgrade the launch pad.
Tank farm damaged
Concrete raining down here

People were joking about Starship digging its own flame trench because SpaceX didn't build one. Looks like the jokes were right, it left a literal crater under the launch mount:

It did take off significantly slower than planned so a nominal launch should damage the pad less than that, at least.

We also learned that an exploding engine doesn't take out the whole ship. It looks like it took out an adjacent engine in two cases (or two engine pairs failed due to a common cause each), but overall the engine failures were well-contained.

 

[.Scott]

Except for an area 4nm in diameter around Starbase itself, there are no active Temporary Flight Restriction areas.

 

[.Scott]

What happens when you leave your car parked in the launch evacuation zone:
https://gizmodo.com/spacex-starship-launch-pad-damage-video-1850357836

 

[nsaspook]

 

[mfb]

SpaceX statement

Starship gave us quite a show during today’s first flight test of a fully integrated Starship and Super Heavy rocket from Starbase in Texas.

At 8:33 a.m. CT, Starship successfully lifted off from the orbital launch pad for the first time. The vehicle cleared the pad and beach as Starship climbed to an apogee of ~39 km over the Gulf of Mexico – the highest of any Starship to-date. The vehicle experienced multiple engines out during the flight test, lost altitude, and began to tumble. The flight termination system was commanded on both the booster and ship. As is standard procedure, the pad and surrounding area was cleared well in advance of the test, and we expect the road and beach near the pad to remain closed until tomorrow.

With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and we learned a tremendous amount about the vehicle and ground systems today that will help us improve on future flights of Starship.

Thank you to our customers, Cameron County, and the wider community for the continued support and encouragement. And congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an exciting first flight test of Starship!

Former Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield discussing the flight

As far as I understand the booster had two hydraulic units to gimbal engines. It looks like one of them failed early during flight. That means half of the engines were unable to change their thrust direction. The other half compensated for a while, but when it came to the flip maneuver something went wrong. It's possible the upper stage didn't separate because it never reached the planned conditions for that.
This won't be an issue in the future as SpaceX will change to electric motors for gimballing.

It's likely most of the damage we saw came from launch pad debris hitting stuff. If they can minimize that then a second flight should be much smoother.

 

[Tom.G]

Except for an area 4nm in diameter around Starbase itself

I must be slow this evening.

I initially read that as 4nanometers - thought that couldn't be right - then settled on nautical miles.

 

[phinds]

I must be slow this evening.

I initially read that as 4nanometers - thought that couldn't be right - then settled on nautical miles.

I'm still thinking it's nanometers, 'cause that's a better story.

 

[.Scott]

The methalox combustion resulted in a zone just below the engines where the "flames" were entirely transparent. Before Starship cleared the tower, the length of this zone was as little as dozens of feet.

But once it got going, it provided a completely unobstructed view of the white-hot engines.

They look like an array of flood lamps. Six of the bulbs need to be replaced.

Some day you'll have to explain Mach Diamonds to your kids by telling them to look at old videos of jet engines, rocket launches, or engine tests.

 

[mfb]

6 engines are out - two at the top, one top right, two bottom right, and the left of the 3 center engines.

Each of these engines has enough thrust to fly two or even three Boeing 747.

 

[PeroK]

6 engines are out - two at the top, one top right, two bottom right, and the left of the 3 center engines.

Each of these engines has enough thrust to fly two or even three Boeing 747.

That's a lot of Boeings blown to pieces!

 

[gleem]

The next ship/booster set might be ready soon but they'll probably have to upgrade the launch pad.

I believe there was some criticism of the design of the launch pad. It seems they were right. I wonder how the repair/redesign will extend the next launch date.

I just found a more dramatic video of the launch pad debris.

https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-medi...0,w_1315/a24c2b340df0ce8847adefa6b2f48d41.mp4