bmks270 said:

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TexAgs91 said:

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I've been hearing that the next launch will be in a few months. But I think that's from what Elon said yesterday morning



That was at 9am. I wonder if he knew about the launch site damage when he said that. Within the hour Stage 0 pictures started coming out



There were also photos of large dents in the fuel farm tanks and I think someone said rebar had pierced one of those tanks. There's probably a lot of other stuff that we haven't seen yet.

I wonder how long it will take to get Stage 0 operational again and with a flame diverter and deluge system.

My other question is even if they do install a flame diverter and deluge system, that takes care of liftoff (hopefully), but what about catching boosters and starships when they're landing? Although by landing time they will be lighter and will require less thrust.

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Wait until it lands on the moon. What crater will that leave on the moon's surface?

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Probably a significant one, but the plus is that it will be low on fuel and won't require as much thrust to land on the moon, and it's only 1/6 G

ETA, I just remembered they won't land on the moon with the engines on the bottom

Thanks for that post, I had no idea they had such a simple launch facility. When I watched the video, I was wondering why there were huge brown clouds for a LOX/Methane booster.

That facility would not be adequate for a test stand. It looks like someone made the decision to not spend the money on a proper launch pad for the test. I was also wondering why there was no tower for a deluge system. The deluge system doesn't just cool the output, it protects the rocket from the shockwaves that will bounce off the ground, and there is no way pumps can output fast enough without an adequate input head.

I have worked in both human spaceflight and the 'fail fast' or rapid prototyping world (Bigelow Aerospace - the ultimate Class D minimum viable missions). They can say this all they want, but you don't blow stuff up for no reason, and that test was an utter waste of resources. It is like they had a bunch of obsolete test articles and they wanted to throw them away in the Gulf.

SpaceX has done some great things, but I get tired of the fanboys using the "Rapid Unplanned Disassembly, teehee" quotes. The clapping and cheering when the rocket blew up was just weird to me.

They can say it was just supposed to clear the tower, but it was obvious from the flaring on ascent the engines weren't operating properly, and it did not fly straight from the tower. Flight termination was way late as well. I'm not sure what range safety rules they are operating under, but it was obvious they were out of control from the first over rotation of the pitchover.

This was not faster, better, cheaper. It was just sloppy.

I agree with your post except about the flight termination system. I think they should have been free to collect data as long as they wanted, and maybe see if it would ever be able to stage, up until it veered off course and threatened populations. That's when you terminate the flight.

TexAgs91 said:

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There were also photos of large dents in the fuel farm tanks and I think someone said rebar had pierced one of those tanks. There's probably a lot of other stuff that we haven't seen yet.

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The two tanks with the big dents were water tanks. They have replacements ready to go for those (they are essentially old booster shells).

Same story for the LOX storage. Those aren't long poles for them.

The pad is.

Had not seen this image before... Found it on the beechtalk forum... pic.twitter.com/f3SseFAoIX

— Paul Breed (@unrocket) April 21, 2023

Getting a head start on the flame trench?

Kenneth_2003 said:

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It boils down to the fact that failure to meet 100% of mission objectives can still by all accounts and metrics be cited as a success.

Following Apollo 13, NASA said it simply. A successful failure.

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It's the same for any invention or new technology. You always have failures before the successful final version. Edison went through hundreds of iterations of the incandescent lamp before finding the right mix of element and atmosphere inside the glass bulb. Rockets are no different, they're just bigger and the failures more spectacular - and dangerous. You do your best to account for potential anomalies and safety considerations, but there will always be a level of risk. At some point though, you have to try it to see if it works.

Test, learn, adapt, test again ... and if you fail, fail fast and adapt quickly. Any significant new piece of equipment will have multiple failures before the final product. It's part of the creative design process.

Failures are good teachers and always take you one step closer to success.

Well at this point they can't exactly move the OLM and tower. They are going to have to design the flame diverter trench and deluge system into that mess. I'm assuming they expected this and used the launch blast as an excavator. I mean it's not like they didn't know this was going to happen after the earlier static fires. I guess it's a testament to the OLM design that it actually didn't become a twisted pretzel as well.

Perhaps they were unable to get a flame diverter in place on schedule?

Whoa…

You sure the undamaged engines were not operating properly to prevent catastrophic failure during launch by overcoming the ones that did fail for whatever reason?

Piers look intact!

Pucker factor x10

If it were my rocket, I'd love to have some early tests to look at minimum pad requirements.

Eventually this thing will go to Mars, with similar gravity to earth, and it's going to have to launch from Mars to return. Knowing the simplest pad they can get away with would be a good thing to know.

But I guess you're right. They tore up a simple launch stand. What a bunch of flamboyant morons!

There won't be boosters on Mars

They also just so happen to have had another orbital launch stand nearly ready for assembly nearby. Some had thought they'd be building a second OLT entirely, but I don't think so.

The good news is, there is another launch mount that is likely near completion right now. Definitely expecting to see that transported to Starbase ASAP

— Zack Golden (@CSI_Starbase) April 21, 2023

I still think this is a few different things; (a) Elon really wanted 4/20 as a launch date, (b) they didn't have time for the deluge system install/verification to do that, (c) they don't care about replacing the launch ring because that's a relatively cheap thing and can be rebuilt with materials on hand possibly incorporating better the deluge/diverter stuff, (d) the multiple engines out made it sit near the launch ring/concrete for 3-8 seconds longer than expected so the damage is a bit worse.

This is also why it took until 1:25 to hit maxQ instead of the planned 55 second mark. They weren't getting the acceleration/thrust planned for. Incredibly, it was still within the margin for controlled flight at least until that pneumatic control unit blew (which is another throw away developmental item never to be re-flown again).

Anyway, as stated testing this thing to be controllable with so many engines out/that much debris blasting around is pretty great. It was fire it up or scrap it, as it was just an experimental iterative test article, not a prototype. I'm not a fan of their mechanism for stage separation, but whatever, their money, their choice.

There are plenty of failure stories in private spaceflight (oh, I dunno, maybe New Glenn's flight record since development began 11 years ago is a good reference). Starship isn'T one of them at all.

It hasn't been confirmed by SpaceX, but the tilt of Starship was most likely planned.

About one second after launch, the Saturn V made its first flight manoeuvre. The yaw program was the disconcerting-looking tilt of the rocket away from the launch tower, a move designed to protect it from any swing arms that failed to move away or a strong gust of wind.

https://www.popsci.com/why-does-rocket-need-to-roll-going-into-orbit/#:~:text=About%20one%20second%20after%20launch%2C%20the%20Saturn%20V,move%20away%20or%20a%20strong%20gust%20of%20wind.

So can someone explain why they couldn't use thick steel plate as the base instead of concrete?

True, it'll be starship only.

I can't recall now, did they ever launch a starship from the ground or were they all way up on the tower?

Those things can all be done by a static fire test, but I suppose if you don't want to spend money on a proper test stand, just terminating the flight over the ocean is cheaper.

That's what I thought when I first watched it. On second viewing, it did not look like any thrust vector control, and the yaw was pretty pronounced.

Shuttle did the same thing, but in a slight different manner. The main engines ignited at T-6 seconds, and the entire stack pitched forward. It was timed to ignite the SRB's and blow the hold down points as it pitched back and away from the tower. There was a mission in the 80's where the SSME's ignited then shut down and the stack just swayed until everything was safed. Bit of a pucker factor for the crew, but operated as designed.

The was no yaw straight off the pad for Shuttle because the frangible nuts blew and the studs had to retract to prevent hang up. I wrote up the Stud Hang Up analysis paper to deliver to the STS-114 Return to Flight board. (not saying I did the analysis, just wrote it up and walked it through the Integration Control Board)

OnlyForNow said:

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So can someone explain why they couldn't use thick steel plate as the base instead of concrete?

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It's not your normal house foundation concrete. It's stronger than steel, cheaper, and eventually won't have to be repaired. Whereas steel will melt.

Concrete (specialized martite) handles intense heat and compression/hardness factor really well. It does much less well under tension/shear forces. Again I think they really didn't plan on it sitting there 'warming up' so long.

wangus12 said:

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Ag_of_08 said:

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Chris Hadfield shutting a reporter down. Been interesting to see several astronauts speak on today's events.



Just catching up on a lot of it, mom fell and ended up in the ER today. Nothing broken thankfully.

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Maybe its gatekeeping, I despise listening to modern media members talk about space flight.

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It's not gatekeeping, they tend to be every bit as annoying as that one was. I just enjoyed Hadfield basically telling him to stfu lol

There had to be engine damage and other damage to the vehicle from concrete sprall and debris. I am surprised the thing left the tower.

nortex97 said:

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Concrete (specialized martite) handles intense heat and compression/hardness factor really well. It does much less well under tension/shear forces. Again I think they really didn't plan on it sitting there 'warming up' so long.

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They did plan on it being there that long before rising. They said before the launch that it would be 7 seconds after ignition before it started to move.

But it was 14 seconds wasn't it? Engines started igniting at t-:07 and kept firing until t+:07 before it lifted off.

Yeah it's crazy how long it sat there, ripping the pad to shreds and tearing the ship to hell, before it lifted, but that part was always intended.

Compared to the maturity of a Falcon launch, this was like the Redstone missions. Just cowboy *****

Edit;
I counted about 8 seconds from ignition to liftoff. Either t-2 to t+6 or maybe vice versa but that's what I remember from last I watched.

This is a great thread (despite being on the politics board ). Thanks for all the contributions.

Marcus House used my drone video at 5:50

YellowPot_97 said:

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OnlyForNow said:

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So can someone explain why they couldn't use thick steel plate as the base instead of concrete?

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It's not your normal house foundation concrete. It's stronger than steel, cheaper, and eventually won't have to be repaired. Whereas steel will melt.

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Concrete is also comparatively easier to transport to mars to fabricate there (if/when they are also making water), vs. steel/many other materials.