<edit out, related to an older version of the above comment>
The Multicam that NSF have is cool and I thoroughly recommend becoming a member if you love watching rocket launches and want even more footage than the content in the main stream.
thanks, but I guess it is still youtube under the covers? I try to avoid youtube. There used to be a NASA live TV stream hosted by IBM, but seems to be down.
While it is obviously a test flight and failure was a likely possibility, this looked a bit worse than I had expected. There were I think at least 5 engines out on the first stage, so quite a lot of engine failures. It's impressive it could still continue, but it does indicate that there is still quite some work on Raptor left. And stage separation failed, so while they certainly gathered data they did not gather all the data they would have liked.
The interesting part will be to see the turnaround time until the next test.
At T+6ish seconds, while the vehicle is still on the launch pad, you can see a massive explosion at the base of the first stage. Then another engine blows the side of the ship apart shortly after getting airborne (T+29s), then a few more engines go later. It's possible the later failures may have been a result of the big one at the start.
I'm wondering if the fist stage simply didn't get the speed necessary for the second stage to safely separate. *edit: Looking at it again, it appears to me at least, that it started tumbling well before expected separation. With no payload, I can imagine they decided not to separate for safety reasons.
I noticed the same during ignition/lift-off, there was a chunk of debris catapulted way high up and my first thought was an "oh oh!". I wasn't actually expecting it to go too far from the launch pad, was pretty surprised the rocket kept going.
This is likely expected, given that there is not enough weight on the craft to warrant using all engines. If it can fly without them, that gives them a great idea as to how much payload it can take up when they are lit.
Edit: I may be wrong, apparently they have a great telemetry integration with their stream to show which engines are lit and which are not.
Yes. With 33 engines of a new design losing 1 or 2 would be pretty unremarkable and worth adding to the graphic. Losing 5 is getting into "needs improvement" and I'm sure SpaceX will be looking hard at the data they collected to see what about the design or ignition sequence they can improve next time.
Does anyone know what the failure rate on these engines is and what the "safety margin" will be on the final version? As in x/y engines being out is fine?
The forced/unnatural feeling clapping/cheering from the video feed is so weird. It seemed like there would be a short silence in the room when something bad happened, then the "APPLAUSE" sign would go on.
> Can't believe it took that long for FTS to end things.
There's no reason to activate the Flight Termination System until it leaves the launch corridor and safety becomes a factor. It's a test launch, you want to gather as much data as possible, even if the test doesn't go as you hoped.
It's good to know that I am not the only one who gets a little choked up about spaceflight. Yes, we have many things we need to do on this planet - but, we cannot keep all of our eggs in one single basket - humanity needs to reach for the solar system, then the stars.
Same. Seeing the rocket clear the launchpad and race humanity towards the heavens... amazing stuff from SpaceX, the entire Starship program is a fraction of NASA and other space agencies' annual budgets yet SpaceX continues to conjure the future.
I tuned in late and was just about to rewind to the takeoff when it blew up... Oh well, with the speed they've developed this, I'm sure the next attempt won't take long.
This could be the only flight where they get data on actual aerodynamic forces during a spin. It's crazy expensive to test that again so might as well make the most of it.
Yes, but still, blowing it up too soon would mean collecting less data, and the more data you have to "debug" the issue that obviously happened, the better.
When it exploded it was already very clear that stage separation had failed previously. So the disappointing part was 10-20 seconds before, the final explosion was inevitable, and well it was an explosion so it looked nice.
It surviving far enough to (hopefully) have a good amount of data on what might have caused the failure of the stage separation already with the first test flight is pretty great.
Getting into the air and having an obvious failure last that long -- meaning the automated abort didn't think it would escape the cleared area until then -- rather than make it explode immediately means a lot of data to make the next launch better.
Those are people that have worked hard to get to this point. I don't fault them for being excited and having some fun with it. Feel like they earned it.
Indeed.
that wasn't the issue. Issue was that the coverage of the launch was dominated by it.
I love watching launches, find it relaxing, exciting and extremely thought provoking about our place in the cosmos. I also love watching live sport. but not at the same time.
SpaceX gives you an audio feed of onlookers who act like rabbid fans at a rock concert and only patches audio of the control room when they find it convenient. It's extremely annoying but you get used to it.
Impressive achievement, looked to me like the vehicle started rotating before the flip was due. I wonder what the tolerance is on the number of engines that can be out? It seemed like nobody was overly concerned that several weren't firing.
(That shot of the engines in flight was pretty amazing though, bright circles like a Spielberg alien ship.)
I find that part particularly, interesting, how fault tolerant the system is that such a number of engines fail to fire and it still looks like a nominal launch.
I recall old interviews stating 3 off is fine for nominal flight of a loaded starship. It was empty (no payload) so probably more failure is ok.
But there are limits on how assymetrical the boosters force can be. With 5 then 6 out I wonder if spin was due to too much assymetry.
I hope we get more details.
>(That shot of the engines in flight was pretty amazing though, bright circles like a Spielberg alien ship.)
I had similar thoughts too. When it first cut to the shot exposed for all of the thrusters, I spoke out loud how gorgeous it was and I'm sitting here by myself. This shot plus the recent spirals from fuel dumps, SpaceX has given us some cool imagery lately.
I'm wondering what the term "launch window" is referring to here. When one is going somewhere in space, it makes sense to me, as one wants things to be lined up well for an efficiency (/possibility). i.e. the launch window is when we can get where we want to go, and if we launch outside of it, we wont be able to. But if one is just going up and going down without any real concern of going anywhere in specific, what does a launch window mean?
I can imagine it perhaps has to do with having a "clear space" to launch, but that seems something much more flexible. I'm wondering what it means here?
They have NOTAMs out to keep the airspace clear, and also have to keep a few different sections of sea clear of marine traffic (2 landing zones, and an area surrounding the takeoff zone). Add to that road closures, people evacuated from the local village etc, you just can't carry on with all this for an extended period of time.
A Notice to (Airmen|Air Men|Airman|Air Missions) is a notice filed with an aviation authority to alert aircraft pilots of potential hazards along a flight route or at a location that could affect the flight.
Might be helpful to fellow aviation-challenged folks.
As others have said, scheduling no-fly zones on multiple locations (Starship will crash land near Hawaii), but also things like "we only have so much super chilled liquid oxygen and it's going to be boiling off".
Tim Dodd's stream said a few minutes ago that once they get within 45 minutes of launch, they are either launching today or not for two more days, because by that point if you try to unload all the fuel and oxygen too much boils away and you need to bring in truckloads of it more for the next attempt.
Also, keep in mind that this is an (almost) orbital launch, and that it's re-entering. In this case, it's re-entering just north of Hawaii, so there may be reasons in that region to limit the launch window.
What I was really worried about was an explosion at the launch pad, that would have really delayed things so I'm glad that didn't happen. Par for the course in developing a new rocket seems to be two failures in the first 10 launches, so they can have their next one fail too and still not get a bogey. I hope they at least make it to stage separation next time though.
I had never seen a rocket with twice the thrust of a Saturn V doing loop-de-loops before exploding live in front of everyone. Neither had anyone else. Great success.
Yeah you could immediately tell it went off-nominal if you played kerbals before. I always thought the way kit works in KSP isn’t realistic. Well turns out it’s quite the opposite :)
The average user knows what SpaceX is about, likely has heard the falcon 1 rocket achieved a milestone with rocket reuse after multiple successful launches.
But, why this launch is so important? why so much is riding on this ?
This will be the first ever launch of "Starship" SpaceX's next generation rocket.
Starship (and more specifically the Super Heavy booster that carries Starship) is the most powerful rocket in history and is designed for the purpose of carrying humans to Mars. SpaceX's new Starlink satellites are much bigger than the old ones and really require a larger rocket - this will be Starship.
This is also the first ever orbital flight test of a "Full Flow Staged Combustion Engine" [0], making the Raptor Engine the most advanced rocket engine in the world. Many people didn't think that full flow staged combustion would work so this is a great vindication of the concept.
Starship will also be the lunar lander for the upcoming NASA Artemis moon landings.
I'd argue not that much actually _riding_ on this, it might just blow up on the launchpad or it might go up in the air. Either way they will try again in a few months.
So the difference between success (defined by musk as getting far away enough from the launchpad not to damage it) and failure (rud on pad) is a few months on the development timeline and money to rebuild the (quite complicated) tower.
Will be fun to watch either way, unless its a scrub.
If they have, like, 3 consecutive launchpad explosions over the next few years, then maybe we'd start talking about the whole project being in trouble.
If it actually does the whole flightpath then that will be pretty amazing.
The other question, why is this important: Its the biggest, most re-usable most ambitious rocket ever made. The 33 engines, apart from being numerous, are of a design more ambitious/challenging than any other rocket engine we've ever seen.
>> Even each one of the 33 engines has more complicated design than any other rocket engine we've ever seen.
I was with you up to there. Spacex loves simple designs. The Raptor seems much simpler that the Space Shuttle main engines for example. Moat advanced design maybe, but not sure about "complicsted".
ok maybe complicated is the wrong word, but my understanding is that full-flow staged combustion was rated as very hard to develop verging on impossible a decade or two ago
Complicated can be more than physical complication. I understand (though I could be wrong) that these engines have a much more finicky timing sequence for things like startup than other engine types. I think calling that sort of thing a complication fair.
The cheapest and most popular rocket today in terms of cost per kilogram sent to low-earth-orbit is the SpaceX Falcon 9, which is estimated to cost about $2700/kg. If the Starship meets its goals, it will cost $10/kg to LEO. It has a payload capacity and infrastructure which can economically deliver massive payloads to any solid surface in the solar system. It could send three full-sized bulldozers to Mars in a single trip. This is the largest scale space project ever conceived and portents a major shake-up to the space industry and a big step towards establishing a permanent human presence off Earth.
>The cheapest and most popular rocket today in terms of cost per kilogram sent to low-earth-orbit is the SpaceX Falcon 9, which is estimated to cost about $2700/kg. If the Starship meets its goals, it will cost $10/kg to LEO.
I've read that the cost will be $2700/kg even if Starship is completely expended; that is, no reuse. But far, far, far larger payloads, of course.
It is. The Falcon 9, of which there have been hundreds of launches already, costs $60 Million per launch. And somehow Musk thinks he can make a rocket that is 10 times bigger 30 times cheaper? Wishful thinking. Best case imho is that they take the launch cost down to about 200M-ish over the next 15 years. That's a cost of $1000/kg and sounds about right to me.
How much of a setback would disaster be? Would SpaceX keep going, or would failure leave room for competitors to take over? (If there are competitors? I don't even know tbqh.)
SpaceX has followed a tech startup-like model of iterative development AKA "move fast, break things", in which many rockets go boom and (as saberdancer said) every boom is studied to reduce the odds of the next one go boom. Basically an edit-compile-debug loop writ large. This is why SpaceX's official countdown schedule states "excitement guaranteed" at T-0:00.
>Would SpaceX keep going, or would failure leave room for competitors to take over? (If there are competitors? I don't even know tbqh.)
As saberdancer said, there is no serious competitor. Rocket Lab has achieved ~~reusability~~ recovery of small rockets and has a good launch record, but a) has not yet figured out how to get them to land other than on the ocean and b) can't launch them weekly/daily like SpaceX. Bezos's Blue Origin actually landed rockets before SpaceX, but only suborbitally. ULA (US) and Arianespace (Europe), the two large commercial-payload providers pre-SpaceX, aren't at the point of test launches of any reusable rockets.
The above is all before Starship, which if it works will give SpaceX a) a fully reusable launch vehicle (existing SpaceX rockets' upper stages aren't reusable), and b) the ability to launch gigantic payloads. The combination of the two will further massively cut launch cost. I've read that even if Starship is fully expended, it will still be the same $2700/kg that existing SpaceX rockets cost, with that aforementioned gigantic payload capacity.
It would range from unfortunate to a non-issue. The entire flight is not expected to be successful, the purpose is data gathering. The worst case scenario is that it fails on the pad and damages the launch infrastructure, which would be a huge setback to the project. If it fails anywhere else it's probably fine.
I haven't followed this specific launch in much detail, but part of why SpaceX has been so successful is they expect a certain amount of failure and don't pin the failure of the program on the failure of any one test. This allows them to iterate faster than other programs that might have less test launches and thus rely more on the success of the launches they do perform. I've heard for example that this rocket is already out-of-date and the next planned rockets already have a bunch of improvements.
Not a big setback at all. They would have to analyze reasons for failure and make changes. There are no serious "reusability" competitors, especially at Starship size.
SpaceX is trying to iterate quickly on this rocket so they have several already assembled. Next two launches will also be fully expendable.
Disaster is complete demolition of the launch site, setting their schedule back many months and costing them a rumored hundreds of millions to rebuild. They've run enough tests to support reasonable confidence that won't happen. The directionality towards mass manufacturing the rockets, instrumenting to observability scale data collection to feed engineering course corrections, and resilience to setbacks is promising.
The hundreds of millions figure doesn’t sound implausible either way necessarily, but I wonder if it includes the R&D costs? I.e. building number 2 would be incrementally much less expensive than building number 1.
I wouldn't be surprised R&D numbers were included in the rumored figures, but considering their lessons learned today from the extensive concrete spalling incurred by the launch, there is even more R&D to perform with the next build-out. Especially when we take into account some observers are claiming SpaceX is installing a deluge system [1] for the next build.
I'd like to hear from some rocket nerds why launch pads don't sit on top of a giant, deep water body, as the deluge systems as I vaguely understand them seem primarily to manage the shock and secondarily the heat, and concrete is a difficult material to manage over a long period of frequent use as a shock absorber.
It also provides us with a kind of access to space that we lost when the Space Shuttles were grounded. It's interesting that the Shuttle was considered a hugely wasteful boondoggle in its day and age, yet now a private profit-seeking enterprise is making something that's just as capable on a way bigger scale.
The shuttle ended up having a cost of $1.5B per launch. Starship is aiming for a cost of $2M per launch. They'll likely miss that goal, but even missing by an order of magnitude will be a huge game changer. And obviously price will be very different from cost.
We're looking at the cost of a tonne to orbit being similar to what a kg was during the shuttle era.
the problem with the space shuttle is that it's minimum payload was an airplane with room for 7 people. it's like if you wanted to mail someone a letter so you put the letter in a van, and called a towing company to send the van.
I would argue that the Space Shuttle was mostly wasteful because it really wasn't that reusable. You had to fully refurbish the SRBs, you lose the tank, The Shuttles required a ton of refurbishment themselves, all for a rather small amount of mass to orbit.
It is the same idea that they had for a Space Shuttle. Reusable vehicle that can be used many times and make space accessible. Unfortunately, Space Shuttle did not make that a reality as it was too complex and required a large multi month refurbishment after each mission.
Starship should be able to solve that issue and make space accessible. At least that is the idea. We will see how it ends up.
Arguably the entire concept was flawed, fueled more by a sci-fi concept of "wouldn't it be cool if" rather than a sober cost-benefit analysis. It was a space station, built into a rocket, built into an airplane that is also a reentry vehicle - most of the motivation to reuse the vehicle in the first place goes away if you don't make it so damn complex!
It just makes so much more sense to launch big payloads on heavy lift rockets, humans separately on human rated craft, and leave the space station part (robot arm etc) in orbit.
(The one type of mission you can't do without something like an orbiter is satellite retrieval. This capability was used a total of 4 times. Not really worth it.)
TL;DR it’s the tallest and most powerful rocket, is reusable, designed to refuel in space, and intended to take cargo/humans to Mars, and thus its successful launch marks the beginning of us becoming a multi-planetary species, per Musk’s plan.
They currently send up Starlink satellites in batches of about 50 on the Falcon 9. On a more or less weekly cadence or 4 times/200 satellites a month.
When Starship gets going it might carry as many as 400+ per launch. In other words eventually they'll be able to throw more stuff into orbit in 1 month than they currently can in 1 year.
It literally means their bottle neck will be producing enough starlinks, and other payloads, per day. Incidentally, those things are also used by the military and in Ukraine.
Having this much payload capacity at this moment in time is very important. Without SpaceX people who want to put satellites into orbit would be somewhat at the mercy of Russia and China as capacity elsewhere is extremely limited.
The end is nigh: Mr. E. Musk was reasonable and sensible while talking about starship first flight, "if it goes far enough from the launch pad before something goes wrong, it will be a success".
This end should point toward the ground if you want to go to space. If it starts pointing toward space you are having a bad problem and you will not go to space today. [1]
Crazy that YouTube recommended me this fake Space X channel on YouTube. It's a mix of the actual stream but with deep fake Elon Musk voice trying to get you to send him cryptocurrencies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOBZqwS0ELQ
I award this comment 218 doge for wholesome attitude. That clears all debts between us my good sir. Perhaps one day you can buy me a space beer on mars.
Seeing that much SpaceX employees cheering after the explosion was kind of strange.
OK this is not complete failure, but this is still a failure. Things did not go according to plans.
I understand the need for PR and damage control, but I am not comfortable with it, this is not a success, this is work in progress and so far this launcher is unproven.
This is assuming a strategy that aligns with your values. SpaceX has been made successful with their strategy. Look at their entire history of explosions and see that every major issue like this has taught them well. They are eating EVERYONE's lunch
I say this only half-jokingly: think of the satisfaction you feel when a challenging piece of code finally compiles. You know there is a lot of debugging ahead, but progress is progress.
Not blowing up on the pad is a huge success. The rocket got past max-q, and they’ve proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that 33 engines can work together on one booster. I remember a couple years ago when folks like you were confident that it was impossible to run that many engines simultaneously.
That's really not how engineering tests work - the objectives of the test were met, by definition that's a success. Not achieving stretch goals doesn't make it a failure.
Of course it's a work in progress and the launcher is unproven. But damn, that was an amazing first attempt. With more vehicles already in integration, I have little doubt they'll eventually nail this.
Having the culmination of your work for the past several years actually culminate in a test flight is definitely a thing to celebrate in my opinion. The test flight is a ... test ... of a hypothesis that this system will make it to space (technically not orbit this flight).
Even with the failure they undoubtedly gathered loads of metrics to address for their next attempt.
The promise of Starship will lower the financial and logistical barriers of getting to space significantly which has the potential to open our civilization to tons of new possibilities that we haven't even considered yet.
Launching rockets is very hard, clearly, and this one is quite big.
At this point, I don't believe Elon Musk words, I think the guy is not "fully there", unfortunately, I've heard too much bullshit.
I also think that some of the best rocket engineers on the planet are working at SpaceX and that they could achieve their mission, but I'll fully believe it when it is done.
It was a test, an experiment. The outcome gave them lots of valuable data. They all knew the likelihood of it failing was very high, so its nice to have it work better than expected.
What's up with the presenters' audio? Either they all have a lisp, or something is not configured right. It sounds like they're saying 'Starschlip' instead of 'Starship'.
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Launch in about 3 hours (13:28 UTC), which would be:
- 6:28 Pacific
- 7:28 Mountain
- 8:28 Central
- 9:28 Eastern
- 15:28 European
- Other: https://www.timeanddate.com/countdown/generic?iso=20230420T0...
Official video stream starts ~45mn beforehand
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- Resources/info:
https://old.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/12n02uf/rspacex_int...
https://twitter.com/SpaceX
https://twitter.com/elonmusk
https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-...
- Resources/watch:
LabPadre Multi Plex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2BQKCnPkIc
NASASpaceflight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uouujjgkR3A