It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

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It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

#1

Post by smp »


From Ars Technica:
"Today's the day. Probably.

After multiple ground-based tests of the propellant tanks inside its Starship prototype, and firings of the vehicle's three Raptor engines, SpaceX says the large vehicle may fly on Tuesday from the company's launch site near Boca Chica Beach in Texas."

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12 ... n-tuesday/

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Re: It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

#2

Post by smp »


From Space.com:
"SpaceX to attempt major Starship SN8 prototype test flight Tuesday"

https://www.space.com/starship-sn8-star ... ht-webcast

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Re: It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

#3

Post by smp »


From SpaceFlightNow.com:
"Gleaming prototype of SpaceX’s Starship ready for experimental flight"

https://spaceflightnow.com/2020/12/07/g ... al-flight/

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Re: It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

#4

Post by helicon »


Great article Stephen. It seems like Musk's vision will become a reality with Mars launches in a few years. 400 feet tall with 28 engines is incredible.
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Re: It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

#5

Post by pakarinen »


Hang on a second...
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Re: It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

#6

Post by notFritzArgelander »


helicon wrote: Tue Dec 08, 2020 4:17 pm Great article Stephen. It seems like Musk's vision will become a reality with Mars launches in a few years. 400 feet tall with 28 engines is incredible.
Musk's vision is limited by ignoring the radiation hazards of a trip to Mars for humans. Insufficient attention is being paid to that problem and there is an overemphasis on the relatively easy "rocket science" part.
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Re: It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

#7

Post by helicon »


notFritzArgelander wrote: Wed Dec 09, 2020 2:28 pm
helicon wrote: Tue Dec 08, 2020 4:17 pm Great article Stephen. It seems like Musk's vision will become a reality with Mars launches in a few years. 400 feet tall with 28 engines is incredible.
Musk's vision is limited by ignoring the radiation hazards of a trip to Mars for humans. Insufficient attention is being paid to that problem and there is an overemphasis on the relatively easy "rocket science" part.
True Enough, though I read somewhere that there had been some progress in dealing with that problem. Can't remember where, but it was on the interwebs so probably should be taken with a grain of salt.
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Re: It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

#8

Post by notFritzArgelander »


helicon wrote: Wed Dec 09, 2020 2:57 pm
notFritzArgelander wrote: Wed Dec 09, 2020 2:28 pm
helicon wrote: Tue Dec 08, 2020 4:17 pm Great article Stephen. It seems like Musk's vision will become a reality with Mars launches in a few years. 400 feet tall with 28 engines is incredible.
Musk's vision is limited by ignoring the radiation hazards of a trip to Mars for humans. Insufficient attention is being paid to that problem and there is an overemphasis on the relatively easy "rocket science" part.
True Enough, though I read somewhere that there had been some progress in dealing with that problem. Can't remember where, but it was on the interwebs so probably should be taken with a grain of salt.
I posted an ESA link recently on a long thread about near earth asteroids that had a novel idea about lithium shielding. It’s not mature enough to be deemed a solution yet.
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Re: It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

#9

Post by smp »


Here's an updated article I just saw on Ars Technica:
"SpaceX is fueling its Starship for a high-altitude flight"

"The company got very close to launching the "SN8" prototype on Tuesday evening before the attempt automatically aborted with just 1.3 seconds left in the countdown. It is not clear what caused the last-second scrub—perhaps a pressure or temperature reading just outside of acceptable levels—but SpaceX engineers appear to have addressed the issue."

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12 ... wednesday/

"Update 3:10pm EST: The webcast below is unlikely to begin more than five minutes before the launch attempt, which is now likely to occur no earlier than 3pm local time (21:00 UTC)."

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Re: It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

#10

Post by smp »


At 3:58 PM EST, SpaceX is live streaming.

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Re: It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

#11

Post by smp »


The countdown went on hold at T - 2:06 .

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Re: It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

#12

Post by smp »


Tentative T - 0 is now scheduled for 4:40 CST (5:40 EST) (2240 UTC).

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Re: It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

#13

Post by KathyNS »


Aside from the last 1/10th of a second, that looked like a successful flight.
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Re: It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

#14

Post by smp »


Wow. Very interesting. No commentary from SpaceX except for the countdown.

Liftoff. Then coming up to 2:00 into flight, one of the 3 engines flamed out. Again, at about 3:15 into the flight, a second engine flamed out. Finally the third engine flamed out, but I didn't remember the time. The entire rocket then actively pancaked back downward with small attitude rocket firings and then a lot of flight surface activities. Finally, some of the engines re-ignited and the rocket turned to attempt to land, but there was too little time to slow down, and the rocket came down too hard on its tail and exploded when impacting the ground.

That's the best I can recall. I'm sure there will be video released by SpaceX, along with some explanation of what wee got to see. It appears to me that a lot of things went well, but we won't know how much went well and what may have gone wrong until SpaceX explains it.

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Re: It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

#15

Post by KathyNS »


I wasn't sure when the first engine flamed out if that was intentional or not. I am still not certain. And the fire in the tail section after the first flameout was certainly unintentional! But the glide back looked good and got it to the landing pad.

Perhaps they intended to run more engines for the landing. It looked like it was only that third engine running. If one or both of the other engines malfunctioned, that could explain the hard "landing".
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Re: It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

#16

Post by Tim456 »


RIP SN8. From Musk himself:

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Re: It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

#17

Post by Tim456 »


A view from the pad. Definitely looks like the engines were starving during landing.

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Re: It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

#18

Post by smp »


Thanks very much, Tim, for those additional bits of info! Much appreciated!

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Re: It’s time—after myriad ground tests SpaceX will let its Starship fly free

#19

Post by smp »


This morning's article from Ars Technica:
"So, it turns out SpaceX is pretty good at rocketing"

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12 ... e-landing/

It says the engine flameouts were by design. Congratulations on a spectacular test, SpaceX!

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