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Skylon

By Skylon
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JoeSchmuckatelli

JoeSchmuckatelli

Posted
Posted
25 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Hmm. I was busy playing BG3 and forgot this was going to happen. I tuned in, and the second stage was burning. But they said the first stage was destroyed? And then, well, they lost contact with the second stage and said it appeared as if the FTS had activated.

That seems like a pretty serious issue -- at that point in the profile shouldn't the FTS be safed?

The commentary I heard was LOSignal - there's apparently a lack of ground options along the flight path and the hope was that Starlink could pick up (also part of the test).  

But that's just commentary.  There's possibilities including they saw something they did not like and blew it, or perhaps there was a robot system on the ship set to blow it if something went wrong.

Truth / reasonable explanation probably coming out soon.

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JoeSchmuckatelli

JoeSchmuckatelli

Posted
Posted
23 minutes ago, Codraroll said:

Now I want to see pictures of the launch pad. Hope it survived better than last time. The fact that all engines lit up indicates that there wasn't too much of a carnage there, at least.

Everyday Astronaut showed a cam angle that indicates minimal if any damage - at least nothing on the scale of the first oops.  All the press cams were still standing.  Some possible debris - but maybe not debris in the shot - which, tbh, was very far from the pad.

So... yeah... looking for someone's better angle on the pad environ

 

6 minutes ago, AckSed said:

Over on NSF forums, someone has a timelapse gif of both RUDs caught on radar: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=59871.msg2541337#msg2541337

The puffs of green confetti are when the SH and then SS went boom.

Interesting how far the exhaust cloud spreads in that loop.  Also - I would have thought SS was a LOT further down range when it went boom.

Thanks for the link!

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AckSed

AckSed

Posted
Posted
11 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckateli said:

Interesting how far the exhaust cloud spreads in that loop.  Also - I would have thought SS was a LOT further down range when it went boom.

I noted that pre-launch the cloud of vapour blanketed the site and surroundings, so a weather satellite would pick up on clouds.

I think that puff of vapour just after SECO we saw on EA's stream might have been the SS going bye-bye.

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AckSed

AckSed

Posted
Posted (edited)

I noted that SH tried its best to flip after staging and succeeded even as the engines shut down. Which is why I was so surprised when it went boom. There was swearing.

Edit: just before termination there is a big vent that matches the expanding cloud of gas after termination, and dwarfs the cold-gas thrusters. I think it was the hot-staging, and it caused a leak.

Edited by AckSed
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Royalswissarmyknife

Royalswissarmyknife

Posted
Posted (edited)

I was NOT expecting all 33 engines to work!

The launchpad seemed to have a very little amount of debris get launched (it was most likely a tarp so nothing to worry about that much.)

It looked like from certain camera views things might have fallen off of the Booster but it could very easily have been my eyes playing tricks on me. It was ice falling off.:blush:

The hot staging was too out of focus to tell how it looked but I'm assuming it wasn't nominal because of what happened later in the flight

The puff's from the Booster are a bit concerning but much better then exploding engines. The booster looked to flip very fast and then those really large puff's seemed to not be good considering it was followed by FTS.

The ship seemed to fly quite well after stage separation until the plume looked to rapidly expand and then be followed by FTS.

The FTS and the raptors seemed to work very well for this flight!

Overall it was a VERY successful test flight and I'm looking forward to the third flight! :D

Spoiler

I should note that the puff's have a large chance of being the RCS.

What's the chance we get another starship flight on Elon's favorite day next year?

Edited by Royalswissarmyknife
Minro Splleing Misteka
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Spaceception

Spaceception

Posted
Posted (edited)
13 minutes ago, Royalswissarmyknife said:

Overall it was a VERY successful test flight and I'm looking forward to the third flight! :D

My guess: They're going to push hard for IFT-3 in December, with a full test campaign, but likely launch in January/February.

Edited by Spaceception
Guess, not a source.
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JoeSchmuckatelli

JoeSchmuckatelli

Posted
Posted (edited)
16 minutes ago, AckSed said:

I noted that SH tried its best to flip after staging and succeeded even as the engines shut down. Which is why I was so surprised when it went boom. There was swearing.

Edit: just before termination there is a big vent that matches the expanding cloud of gas after termination, and dwarfs the cold-gas thrusters. I think it was the hot-staging, and it caused a leak.

CNN has a good view of the flip (@ 2:40 in the vid)  See moment SpaceX launched world's most powerful rocket (cnn.com) 

- and to my untrained eye, it looked great.  Ship flipped and looked to end up with the rockets in line with direction of travel.  (Much better than random tumble!)

I've stared at the top end (trailing) of the booster over and over again and can't see anything particularly wrong.  Looks like the ignition did not go well - leading me to think @sevenperforce 's comment about 'slosh' might be a culprit.

(the 'venting' I see in this vid looks more like the attitude thrusters more than anything)

 

Edited by JoeSchmuckatelli
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cubinator

cubinator

Posted
Posted
17 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckateli said:

Gotta love France.

SpaceX Starship test flight fails minutes after launch on second attempt (france24.com)

(I mean, the press)

I call this a successful flight test.

"Failure" is relative.

 

Indeed...though it technically is the correct term for what happened to the steel after the FTS went off.

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JoeSchmuckatelli

JoeSchmuckatelli

Posted
Posted
3 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Indeed...though it technically is the correct term for what happened to the steel after the FTS went off.

I know.  I have to tell my students that while the 300 did not 'win' at Thermopylae, they did 'accomplish the mission'.

So, yeah.  Not achieving total success can be called failure... but again, everything is relative.

Looking forward to how rapidly they can test the next iteration.  Given what did / did not occur during the previous attempt; this certainly achieved several other milestones down the line toward a 'successful flight' (hopefully in the near future!).

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Royalswissarmyknife

Royalswissarmyknife

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, Spaceception said:

They're going to push hard for IFT-3 in December, with a full test campaign, but likely launch in January/February.

Depends on the condition of the GSE but I could imagine them start testing Ship-28 this month and Booster-whatever in early December if the GSE is in good condition.

It also heavily depends on how much they need to change the hot-staging ring's design.

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Spaceception

Spaceception

Posted
Posted
6 minutes ago, Minmus Taster said:

Seriously? Where did you hear that? I was expecting flight 3 to be in April/May

It's a guess of mine, I edited my reply for clarification. This test was great in terms of ascent, and if the pad held up, we're likely going to see them begin the test campaign for the next ship/booster very soon. I don't think it'll be nearly as long from IFT-2 to IFT-3 as IFT-2 was from IFT-1, and SpaceX will probably want to see if they can squeeze out one more launch out of 2023 so they have 5/5 more possible launches in 2024.

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