Scott Manley is right now on the boat that it was one of the 6 engines not involved in the reentry burn with a possible second engine failure.
SpaceX Launches, Landings and News
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Scott Manley is right now on the boat that it was one of the 6 engines not involved in the reentry burn with a possible second engine failure.
SpaceX has put out it's user guide for Starship. Well it put out a six page pamphlet that it is calling the user guide at least. For perspective the average user guide is a couple hundred pages and even people making tiny rockets like Rocket Lab and other small sat launchers have 40+ page. If we assume SpaceX is being competent and only putting the worst case numbers in there then this is at best useful for people to look over and go "well I guess this thing I'm already building could be put on a Starship if it can also go on a Falcon Heavy." but not good for actually designing a Starship only payload.
Lets be honest, this is a PR thing more than a technical document.
Well it's useful as a starter point, it does have some bits of data on the kind of spacing, accelerations, acoustics and shock environments will be like. As well as a rough guide line for mass to certain locations. It's enough to at least get a sense if your payload could work with it. Wonder if some more details will show up once they actually finish it and have its real world performance metrics.
Well technically it imploded then fell over. Given the mention of bad testing configuring they probably weren't pumping in enough nitrogen gas into the bottom tank to compensate for the cold induced loss of pressure.
You don't actually need a vacuum to cause that kind of failure pattern. Just having to much nitrogen in the upper tank without keeping the lower tank at a high enough pressure means just the weight of the upper tank can crush the rocket like a aluminium can. Still a pressure problem just more like a balloon tank failure than an implosion.
VhenRa
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Can't we file that under "Things we already know."?
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Looks like they know what happened with the engine on the previous Starlink flight:
So it is both an issue that could effect even new engines that could lead to failure to deliver payload depending on when it happened but also one that is easily fixable. It seems like both the extreme pessimists and the extreme optimists were right at the same time.
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It seems like both the extreme pessimists and the extreme optimists were right at the same time.
Sounds about right.
Which is which now? An issue unrelated to wear is good for reuse prospects, even if it had/does lead to a delay on this first launch.
I'm not entirely sure what you are saying here but it sounds like you didn't/couldn't read the embedded tweet. In which case the issue is that a small amount of cleaning fluid got trapped in a sensor on the failed engine and exploded in flight. This is a problem that could occur on any flight, since presumably the engines are cleaned before every flight, but probably wouldn't be an issue going forwards now that they know it is something to look out for.
I am catching up on the StarLink build-out (thanks for the Scott Manley video link @Tasrill from a month back), and I am confused given the number of launches which would necessitate exponential levels of attention to detail, why then was the March 18th return flight compromised by cleaning fluid?
Perhaps somebody thought it should be extra clean for a historic flight.
@thuealing what @UberJJK said pretty much.
It is now believed that the engine that was shut down was one of the three able to relight. Since Starlink was a high energy cargo that needed all three engines the first stage canceled the landing attempt and blew itself up or crashed into the ocean. As for why, most likely thanks to the scrub. They probably did an extra cleaning to unclog the sensor and make it work correctly and then some sensor (didn't even have to be the one with problems) just dried out far more slowly then they expected. After all inspecting tiny tubes in the middle of some complex pipework is going to end up getting things dirty most likely and just make you clean the entire thing again.
The fix is probably just going to be either blowing air into the rockets pipework to help dry things out or just letting the thing sit longer after cleaning before firing.
It is now believed that the engine that was shut down was one of the three able to relight. Since Starlink was a high energy cargo that needed all three engines the first stage canceled the landing attempt and blew itself up or crashed into the ocean. As for why, most likely thanks to the scrub. They probably did an extra cleaning to unclog the sensor and make it work correctly and then some sensor (didn't even have to be the one with problems) just dried out far more slowly then they expected. After all inspecting tiny tubes in the middle of some complex pipework is going to end up getting things dirty most likely and just make you clean the entire thing again.
The fix is probably just going to be either blowing air into the rockets pipework to help dry things out or just letting the thing sit longer after cleaning before firing.
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NASA awards lunar lander contracts to Blue Origin, Dynetics—and Starship
So, NASA officially acknowledged Starship as a thing that exists in Elons imagination at least. They have a contract now, along with Bezos and Dynetics.
So, NASA officially acknowledged Starship as a thing that exists in Elons imagination at least. They have a contract now, along with Bezos and Dynetics.
Well Starship rather far into the prototyping stage and what Nasa needs doesn't require any of the 'hard' parts of Starship other than in orbit refueling. So it all seem reasonable. I'm more shocked that SpaceX actually submitted the risk minimized version of Starship. I guess someone keep Musk distracted while Shotwell sent out something tailored for NASA.
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Given that IIRC Commercial Crew was supposed to be taking people to the ISS by 2017, I think 2024 is very optimistic.
It possibly is, yeah. But for once trying something that is a bit harder and quicker again will certainly show how well NASA can still manage such endeavors. And I think if they get some what close to that date, that they'll have done pretty well for themselves.
Now for some more actually good news for SpaceX and shockingly the Lunar Gateway
arstechnica.com
The gateway may not make sense from a DeltaV position or a maximizing science position but it seems to be doing pretty good so far as a way to turn goverment dollars into commercial moon launch and landing abilities.
NASA planning to launch an integrated Lunar Gateway in 2023
NASA has already assessed the viability of the Falcon Heavy for the task.
arstechnica.com
The gateway may not make sense from a DeltaV position or a maximizing science position but it seems to be doing pretty good so far as a way to turn goverment dollars into commercial moon launch and landing abilities.