totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[Nuke]

really. expensive. fireworks.

[Minmus Taster]

[.50calBMG]

Can't remember who it was that made that list of all the engines for Exo a while back, but I think after this we can add one confirmed catastrophic failure to it. 

[Minmus Taster]

Just now, Nuke said:

really. expensive. fireworks.

Occasionally aimed directly at someone's summer cottage 

[GuessingEveryDay]

19 minutes ago, Minmus Taster said:

Occasionally aimed directly at someone's summer cottage 

That is the scariest video of falling things. If you only see points, there's a pretty good chance that they'll hit you.

[Lisias]

7 hours ago, Minmus Taster said:

Seems like an engine exploded, vacuum raptor too possibly, that hasn't happened in ANY of the upper stage flights up to this point.

Clearly he needs to do it with a random failure mod installed.

You see... I disagree with the Ayuso's comment. Mars is not getting more complicated, only more expensive.

IMHO SpaceX is passing through some serious growing pains - they have a Process problem, not a Engineering one....

Heck, they caught a ~280 tons >20 stories building sized booster with two Godzilla styled chop sticks as this would be just routine. THIS is some serious accomplishment, perhaps second only to landing two naked monkeys on Moon and bringing them back alive, as well kicking two Romi Isetta sized space ships out of the Solar System and still being able to talk to them.

SpaceX appears to be suffering some serious Quality Control problems, the fast paced development is not cutting it anymore - this is probably a silly, very stupid mistake on the assembly line.

Edited Friday at 07:18 AM by Lisias
Hit "Save" too soon

[AckSed]

Stepping frame-by-frame back and forth in that RGV post of the mission-control engine-bay camera reveals:

A growing purple-orange glow of what I surmise is methane escaping the bell;

A bright flash fading to black, then an orange flame;

The white of escaping gas with the curve of the Earth starting to reveal the spin and in the last second, more purple-orange flame.

With the hot-spot, I'm reasonably confident that that was the RVac nozzle burning through, causing an explosion that took it out.

[cubinator]

21 minutes ago, Minmus Taster said:

 

That last one gives me the impression the ship didn't explode outright, it looks like it stayed in relatively few pieces up until burning up in the atmosphere - I think you can kind of see the 'hole' the main part leaves in the plasma trail as has been described.

[Minmus Taster]

You know what the worst part about this is? There will be no consequences, the FAA has no sway over this any more (Cough* Cough*) and I'm sure another ship will be ready to go in a month. I'm sure the issue will be fixed but at the pace their going at another fatal flaw is bound to pop up, in the next flight or worse, a crewed mission. And no one is left to stop that from happening. Eventually someone is going to get killed, possibly a non-American civilian, an international incident, they'll call it a bummer and keep on going.

[RCgothic]

This does look like the clearest candidate yet for an actual engine failure, but it could still not be the engine's fault if there's an external reason for the hole in the bell.

Didn't they say the other day something had collided with one of the mate guide cones on the hot staging ring to dislodge it?

It'd be pretty stupid if the collision had been with an RVac engine bell and they flew it anyway.

[Minmus Taster]

2 minutes ago, RCgothic said:

This does look like the clearest candidate yet for an actual engine failure, but it could still not be the engine's fault if there's an external reason for the hole in the bell.

Didn't they say the other day something had collided with one of the mate guide cones on the hot staging ring to dislodge it?

It'd be pretty stupid if the collision had been with an RVac engine bell and they flew it anyway.

The location of that hotspot WAS towards the end of the bell, I don't know if the collision could have reached that spot though.

[darthgently]

21 minutes ago, Minmus Taster said:

You know what the worst part about this is? There will be no consequences, the FAA has no sway over this any more (Cough* Cough*) and I'm sure another ship will be ready to go in a month. I'm sure the issue will be fixed but at the pace their going at another fatal flaw is bound to pop up, in the next flight or worse, a crewed mission. And no one is left to stop that from happening. Eventually someone is going to get killed, possibly a non-American civilian, an international incident, they'll call it a bummer and keep on going.

You are getting way out onto the thin twigs of speculation there

[Minmus Taster]

1 minute ago, darthgently said:

You are getting way out onto the thin twigs of speculation there

Speculation is all we have right now, though I acknowledge that we haven't gone far enough down this path to confirm this line of thinking. We'll have to wait and see.

FTS was safed before the blast and the SpaceX post describes the incident as a "RUD". So the ship either was destroyed in the failure or when it hit the atmosphere, yikes.

[Minmus Taster]

Wow, looks like a Yin & Yang

[tater]

1 hour ago, GuessingEveryDay said:

That is the scariest video of falling things. If you only see points, there's a pretty good chance that they'll hit you.

Because it's descending over the horizon?

1 hour ago, Minmus Taster said:

You know what the worst part about this is? There will be no consequences, the FAA has no sway over this any more (Cough* Cough*) and I'm sure another ship will be ready to go in a month. I'm sure the issue will be fixed but at the pace their going at another fatal flaw is bound to pop up, in the next flight or worse, a crewed mission. And no one is left to stop that from happening. Eventually someone is going to get killed, possibly a non-American civilian, an international incident, they'll call it a bummer and keep on going.

I hope they fly again as soon as possible.

Every other rocket in history has stages taking baths every launch—many not controlled/well-placed at all, simply roll of the dice (China) where the booster lands.

 

Oh, and that image, larger:

[Minmus Taster]

An analysis from Scott:

Spoiler

7 minutes ago, tater said:

Because it's descending over the horizon?

I hope they fly again as soon as possible.

Every other rocket in history has stages taking baths every launch—many not controlled/well-placed at all, simply roll of the dice (China) where the booster lands.

 

I hope they fly as soon as they're ready, as in they're confident this exact failure won't happen a third time.

FAA Statement:

[Ultimate Steve]

I've been pretty bullish on Starship thus far but it is getting a little less justifiable.

If it was an RVac burnthrough as suggested above, this reminds me an awful lot of the second flight of Delta III which did everything right but just got unlucky in a sense, the normally quite reliable RL-10 decided to fail. Obviously RVac has nowhere near the flight history as RL-10, but still, parallels. If this turns out to be  related to the harmonics issue on flight 7, well...

I also find it quite strange that the ship kept going with only 2 RVacs. Maybe there's some non intuitive reason, and I'm not super informed, but at least on the surface level, keeping a compromised ship with no attitude control burning faster into a spiral seems like a bad idea.

[darthgently]

1 hour ago, Minmus Taster said:

1 hour ago, darthgently said:

 

Speculation is all we have right now,

Well, there is not speculating.  At least not out onto the thin twigs of super-speculative speculation.  Crewed?  Someone is going to die?  Please.  That is far beyond these test flights and you know it.  Don’t be a FUD monger.  You seem better than that

Edited Friday at 02:26 AM by darthgently

[tater]

31 minutes ago, Minmus Taster said:

FAA Statement:

Yes, they will do as they do every time, as every other launch provider does. Determine what they think caused the issue, correct it, and try again.

[Minmus Taster]

[tater]

There's a nonzero chance that whatever caused the last RUD was the same, and they missed the actual cause. Hopefully they got more data this time.

[Minmus Taster]

29 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I've been pretty bullish on Starship thus far but it is getting a little less justifiable.

If it was an RVac burnthrough as suggested above, this reminds me an awful lot of the second flight of Delta III which did everything right but just got unlucky in a sense, the normally quite reliable RL-10 decided to fail. Obviously RVac has nowhere near the flight history as RL-10, but still, parallels. If this turns out to be  related to the harmonics issue on flight 7, well...

I also find it quite strange that the ship kept going with only 2 RVacs. Maybe there's some non intuitive reason, and I'm not super informed, but at least on the surface level, keeping a compromised ship with no attitude control burning faster into a spiral seems like a bad idea.

To my understanding FTS was safed just before the incident, so it wouldn't have destroyed itself.

As for an overarching cause the mechanical cause is likely easy to determine, it's the mindset I'm concerned about. I myself have always been optimistic about Starship but the clear rush to get this ship into the air was setting off alarm bells before the first attempt was made, especially with the chunks coming off during the restacking efforts. If they don't slow down and perform proper evaluations their hardware will continue to fail in avoidable ways.

3 minutes ago, tater said:

There's a nonzero chance that whatever caused the last RUD was the same, and they missed the actual cause. Hopefully they got more data this time.

That was my first thought, though this one seemed to be far more violent and sudden then the last incident. My current thought is that their different issues in the same system.

[DAL59]

Hear me out: why not replace the current Starship with a "dumb" upper stage (no heatshield, sea level engines, or wings).  Now that booster catching is a proven technology, ship production is the limiting factor, so they should churn out "dumb" upper stages like hotcakes to reach orbit, deploy starlinks, and test refueling ASAP.  

[Exoscientist]

In flight explosions on 6 out of 8 test flights. In any other space company questions would be raised of the Chief Engineer. Unfortunately for SpaceX, the Chief Engineer is the owner of the company. 
 

  Bob Clark

[DAL59]

5 out of 8, I don't think IFT-6's controlled, preplanned booster splashdown should count.