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SpaceX Discussion Thread


Skylon

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I have a question: I believe in SpaceX's capability to push the technological and technical limits of spaceflight, but how can they ensure that not a SINGLE heat tile out of the 35,000 on the body of the Starship or so is going to fall off ?

I mean they are very fragile and they can be damaged by something like small space debris, fragments of ice, or simply the air flow during launch. And if the ship isn't resilient to the loss of a single tile in most places, it would reveal to be very hard to make the rocket reusable and capable of launching humans to LEO with that in mind. Any suggestions about the solutions that SpaceX will use ?

5 hours ago, darthgently said:

We already have a SpaceX thread and I imagine most posts related to this flight will be posted there as has been done for all the other test flights and all things SpaceX.  Just don't want you to be all by yourself here wondering where everyone is

Excuse me. I didn't realize that these were recent posts, and I thought that the thread was quite old.

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Posted (edited)
3 hours ago, anis said:

I have a question: I believe in SpaceX's capability to push the technological and technical limits of spaceflight, but how can they ensure that not a SINGLE heat tile out of the 35,000 on the body of the Starship or so is going to fall off ?

As of yet, no starship has been lost due to loss of a tile.

I consider the assumption that ss can be lost due to the loss of a single tile to be an assumption made to maximize safety.

Ss is intended to come home safe from Mars, and anything that can reenter from a Mars return trajectory will be more robust than what is needed for a return from the moon trajectory, which in turn is more robust than what is needed for reentry from low Earth orbit.

But musk wants 100+ passengers per SS to Mars, so he needs safety well beyond what is normal for manned flight.

Focusing his engineers on making SS safe for re-entry from Mars may give him that safety margin 

It is also possible that he does not want to make the same mistake that the shuttle program made with regards to loss of tiles being normal.

Edited by Terwin
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Posted (edited)
19 minutes ago, Terwin said:

As of yet, no starship has been lost due to loss of a tile.

I consider the assumption that ss can be lost due to the loss of a single tile to be an assumption made to maximize safety.

Ss is intended to come home safe from Mars, and anything that can reenter from a Mars return trajectory will be more robust than what is needed for a return from the moon trajectory, which in turn is more robust than what is needed for reentry from low Earth orbit.

But musk wants 100+ passengers per SS to Mars, so he needs safety well beyond what is normal for manned flight.

Focusing his engineers on making SS safe for re-entry from Mars may give him that safety margin 

It is also possible that he does not want to make the same mistake that the shuttle program made with regards to loss of tiles being normal.

Yes, it could be possible that these assemptions are to maximaze safety, but we don't quite now. Maybe starship can survive with a little number of tiles missing, with internal damages and the need for refurbishement. But it could be possible that SpaceX itself don't know if the ship can survive to that without actual testing in real life, so who nows ?

It's also possible that these safety margins for crewed flight to mars will be implemented later down the line, whith block 2 or 3.

We will talk more about this subject Tomorrow, when we will have (HOPFULLY) an example to look to :)

Edited by anis
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56 minutes ago, Terwin said:

As of yet, no starship has been lost due to loss of a tile.

As of yet, no Starship has survived re-entry, so I'm not sure I see what you are getting at.

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1 hour ago, Terwin said:

As of yet, no starship has been lost due to loss of a tile.

That's because no Starship has gotten far enough into a flight for tiles to matter.

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12 minutes ago, cubinator said:

That's because no Starship has gotten far enough into a flight for tiles to matter.

IFT-3 got far enough into flight to need tiles and was lost for the same reason that tiles are needed, but tiles were not the problem.

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51 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Seeing as I am still ShafowBanned from S#Sf... Will someone like this so I can get back here easily tomorrow? 

 

TIA. 

 

Me too its super weird. Don't suppose anyone is likely to fix it now.

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5 hours ago, cubinator said:

That's because no Starship has gotten far enough into a flight for tiles to matter.

Ya, I'd expect Murphy's law to apply here. As it is the most advanced rocket currently.

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4 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Seeing as I am still ShafowBanned from S#Sf... Will someone like this so I can get back here easily tomorrow? 

 

TIA. 

 

 

 I can see your posts.

  Bob Clark

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 FAA grants Starship launch license with wide latitude: 

https://twitter.com/marcushouse/status/1798136232402370622

Nice cover by SpaceX beforehand asking the FAA not to require a mishap report if any of these cited  failings occur. SpaceX can then continue to point the finger away from the Raptor as the cause.

A question: shouldn’t SpaceX be required to answer questions honestly to the FAA, the agency responsible for launch safety? Then here is a majorly important question that SpaceX needs to answer to the FAA, and the FAA as a public agency should be expected to ask:

Was the apparent fuel venting seen for *both* the booster and ship after their burns actual fuel leaks? If so, that suggests the problem is with the Raptor itself:

https://x.com/djsnm/status/1768268571531235669?s=61

https://x.com/nricolas360/status/1785764709313946057?s=61

https://x.com/goingballistic5/status/1769401675687579764?s=61

It is notable as well in the recent Raptor test stand explosion that there was a fuel leak first, then the RUD occurred. This goes directly to the question of whether the Raptor has the tendency to undergo fuel leaks, further justifying the necessity of asking the question if there were fuel leaks after both stage’s burns.

 Bob Clark

 

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2 hours ago, Exoscientist said:

 Nice cover by SpaceX beforehand asking the FAA not to require a mishap report if any of these cited  failings occur.

Makes sense to me.

The FAA is approving a particular test that SpaceX has defined. As long as it happens within the approved description of the test, the FAA is happy. If something happens that was not part of the approved test, the FAA wants to know about it.

If SpaceX says "we're going to do A, and then we expect either B, C, or D to happen", and then one of those three things does happen, then it's not a mishap. But if event E happens instead, then they need to explain why.

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2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Makes sense to me.

The FAA is approving a particular test that SpaceX has defined. As long as it happens within the approved description of the test, the FAA is happy. If something happens that was not part of the approved test, the FAA wants to know about it.

If SpaceX says "we're going to do A, and then we expect either B, C, or D to happen", and then one of those three things does happen, then it's not a mishap. But if event E happens instead, then they need to explain why.

This its an experimental program simlar to the falcon 9 first stage recovery trials. 
Its not very likely Starship survives and do and do an soft water landing. 

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8 hours ago, Ultimate Steve said:

What is S#Sf?

S&Sf when typed while not wearing glasses. 

'Science and Spaceflight'.  The forum won't let some of us into the sub, but we can backdoor into the threads. 

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6 hours ago, Exoscientist said:

 

 I can see your posts.

  Bob Clark

Its a weird bug for some of us where the spaceflight forum section comes up blank and you can’t navigate to any of the topics within in the normal way. For me its just on mobile. We can get here and by following notifications. 

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Anyone found a clean snip of the human-Millennium Falcon - Starship scale comparison? 

Asking for a friend. 

Going back to the fuel transfer plan - they just showed a graphic of the two ships laying belly to belly. 

Why try to mate two building-sized craft in that way, rather than using some kind of umbilical? 

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