lajoswinkler Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 21 minutes ago, s_gamer101 said: Was the explosion actually one of the largest man-made non-nuclear explosions or was too much fuel burned before the explosion for that? Not even close. Flight termination system disassembled the rocket and it spread in the air. It was a deflagration, not a detonation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tg626 Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 29 minutes ago, mikegarrison said: Not anymore. (There was pavement, but it didn't survive the launch.) Huh... If only there were some disipline... I dunno, maybe some kind of engineer, who could calculate the forces and maybe predict the required material strength req... Oh wait... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StrandedonEarth Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, tater said: “What do you hear, Starbuck?” ”Nothing but the rain, sir!” (phone not letting me format this how I want) I was able to watch the launch while pausing my work, but only on my phone. Lost some of the glory that way, but at least I saw it. Even so, that was epic for sure. It took me half an hour to catch up on this thread on breaks… It cleared the pad and delivered a crudton of data, so a successful attempt… Edited April 20, 2023 by StrandedonEarth Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenperforce Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 Holy mother of mackerel look at the debris hitting the ocean after it gets off the pad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minmus Taster Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 50 minutes ago, RCgothic said: Surreal image. After Booster FTS, moments before Starship FTS. Downward facing flap cam. What's even happening in that image? It looks like there is still a chunk of booster stuck to the ship. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RCgothic Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 (edited) 51 minutes ago, tg626 said: I've seen video of flying debris and a shot of the stand where it appears as though the engines eroded a hole in DIRT. Is there seriously NO pavement, let alone a flame trench, under that launch pad? It's not just concrete under the pad. It's refractory heat-resistant concrete. And it got excavated like so much sand. They need a serious redesign. 3 minutes ago, Minmus Taster said: What's even happening in that image? It looks like there is still a chunk of booster stuck to the ship. Yes. The ship was FTS'd a few moments after the booster and survived the initial deflagration. What you're seeing here is the ship with the top of the booster still attached with the deflagration/spill of booster LOX/Methane blown out into clouds behind it. Edited April 20, 2023 by RCgothic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minmus Taster Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 4 minutes ago, RCgothic said: Yes. The ship was FTS'd a few moments after the booster and survived the initial deflagration. What you're seeing here is the ship with the top of the booster still attached with the deflagration/spill of booster LOX/Methane blown out into clouds behind it. Jeese, interesting it survived all of that! Where did the footage get released? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RCgothic Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 2 minutes ago, Minmus Taster said: Jeese, interesting it survived all of that! Where did the footage get released? Seems like an internal leak of a still from a starship flap cam. Nobody's owning up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ultimate Steve Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 1 hour ago, RCgothic said: Seems like an internal leak of a still from a starship flap cam. Nobody's owning up. Reportedly the telemetry is unencrypted so it could have also been an enthusiastic amateur with an antenna and some brains. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaceception Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 The only thing that could've made this launch more Kerbal is, after tumbling once or twice, Starship finally separated and lit its engines to continue the flight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minmus Taster Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenperforce Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 16 minutes ago, Spaceception said: The only thing that could've made this launch more Kerbal is, after tumbling once or twice, Starship finally separated and lit its engines to continue the flight. And then started re-entry while still burning for orbit... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Little 908 Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 Space x confirmed its only gonna to be a few months until they build up it again, I think. So yeah fun… It costs around $10 Million US, so It was a $10 million firework Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 15 minutes ago, Little 908 said: It costs around $10 Million US, so It was a $10 million firework 39 engines at 1-2 million $ each ($250k is aspirational). The metal is cheap, but of course labor, etc. Well north of $10M. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RCgothic Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnemoe Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 3 hours ago, CBase said: Actually I have a feeling stress on launch pad was anormal already. They did spin up quite early and long and then after ignition there was rather some detonation than reflected thrust. I noticed in the NASA Specaflight video that flames where way faster upwards than transmission from other cam Launch plan was to ignite engines in 3 banks with over one second separation, it was also an multi second hold before release. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minmus Taster Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 Actually found this in the Intercept Discord, I have no clue if it's real. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Royalswissarmyknife Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 Just now, Minmus Taster said: Actually found this in the Intercept Discord, I have no clue if it's real. Seems real but I would take that image with a grain of salt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Minmus Taster Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 Just now, Royalswissarmyknife said: Seems real but I would take that image with a grain of salt This seems to be the source and it's probably real Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Piscator Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 If it's real, the heat shield tiles seem to have held up rather well. At least compared to the engines. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnemoe Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 13 minutes ago, RCgothic said: I say they are digging an flame trench now. Yes old joke by now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnemoe Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 6 hours ago, sevenperforce said: The concern with metal plates was that the spalling could be worse than with concrete because concrete disintegrates but metal can slough off like the shaped charge in an antitank missile. Clearly nothing could be worse than this, in terms of spalling. The concrete just got deleted out of existence. They may need to go to a super-heavy...uh...ultra-heavy?...steel diverter and just flood the hell out of it. Way, way more water. Really, yes its over pressure but that would be insane, now you might get metal separating, with armor its an issue is that even if the armor survive the hit the explosion travel trough armor and release fragments on the inside who is bad news inside an tank or gun turret. Here the distance is much longer and I assume these fragments would be small. Still an issue to repair. But metal flame directors are pretty common in flame trenches. And not something concrete has any chance of surviving. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RCgothic Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Codraroll Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 I've been mulling a bit over the total destruction of the launch mount, which caused the debris shower that chewed apart the rocket (and, seemingly the launch complex, but most relevantly the HPUs and a few Raptors). This wear and tear was clearly a lot more than they had expected. Dramatically so. To the point where it seems way too much to be a simple underestimation of the margins. It's not like they guessed 120 erosion units and got 125, but more like they guessed 80 and got 600. What happened to that pad was so much worse than it was rated for, that I suppose we're looking at more than just a sloppy under-estimate of wear and tear. Because the engineers know the engine specs and they know the material properties. A thorough assessment would have been within the ballpark, especially with all the safety margins. Engineering calculations rarely miss by an order of magnitude. I'm wondering if that happened because the rocket accelerated off the pad slower than expected, so the engines spent way more time torching the pad at close range instead of lifting off and getting away. The pad could have been rated for, say, three seconds of maximum exposure, and then got ten instead. After all, the rocket looked quite sluggish after the engines were ignited, as if it spent more time getting off the pad than it was supposed to. But then, what caused the rocket to accelerate slowly in the first place? Presumably not the engines that were pelted with concrete debris, because that would have happened after the rocket had failed to launch properly already. Was the pad erosion caught by the rocket misbehaving, instead of the other way 'round? What failed first here, and what worked to specifications? The pad or the rocket? I guess we'll know soon enough. It's interesting to speculate, at any rate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RCgothic Posted April 20, 2023 Share Posted April 20, 2023 We were briefed an 8s engine ignition and hold down release period, and that's about what we got. It did look slower than it could have been after release, but not sure if that's an illusion caused by it being so big. With TWR =1.5 it should jump off the pad. It wasn't at full thrust and had some engines out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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