SpaceX loses its third Starship prototype during a cryogenic test

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From Ars Technica:
"This week, SpaceX workers in South Texas loaded the third full-scale Starship prototype—SN3—onto a test stand ​at the company's Boca Chica launch site. On Wednesday night, they pressure-tested the vehicle at ambient temperature with nitrogen, and SN3 performed fine.

On Thursday night SpaceX began cryo-testing the vehicle, which means it was loaded again with nitrogen, but this time it was chilled to flight-like temperatures and put under flight-like pressures. Unfortunately, a little after 2am local time, SN3 failed and began to collapse on top of itself. It appeared as if the vehicle may have lost pressurization and become top-heavy."

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/04 ... enic-test/

I guess it's a good thing that SpaceX is ramped up to make a lot of these ...

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[smp]

Here's another article from SpaceNews.com:
"Third Starship prototype destroyed in tanking test"

https://spacenews.com/third-starship-pr ... king-test/

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[KathyNS]

It sounds like the Starship tank is as fragile as the original Atlas tanks. The skin of the Atlas was so thin it could not support its own weight. It relied on the pressurization of its tanks to give it enough strength to stand up. You don't hear about Atlases imploding very often these days, though they are still flying, so I presume they have addressed the problem. Spacex should talk to ULA to find out how it's done.

[helicon]

I hope these kinks get worked out soon.

[notFritzArgelander]

It sounds like the Starship tank is as fragile as the original Atlas tanks. The skin of the Atlas was so thin it could not support its own weight. It relied on the pressurization of its tanks to give it enough strength to stand up. You don't hear about Atlases imploding very often these days, though they are still flying, so I presume they have addressed the problem. Spacex should talk to ULA to find out how it's done.

SpaceX might ask but would ULA answer?

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It sounds like the Starship tank is as fragile as the original Atlas tanks. The skin of the Atlas was so thin it could not support its own weight. It relied on the pressurization of its tanks to give it enough strength to stand up. You don't hear about Atlases imploding very often these days, though they are still flying, so I presume they have addressed the problem. Spacex should talk to ULA to find out how it's done.

SpaceX might ask but would ULA answer?

Oh, my! Let's hope that it doesn't take SpaceX 10 years to figure this out!

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[Tim456]

Prototype often I suppose.

[SkyHiker]

These one way trips to Mars might be shorter than you think.

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