totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[Royalswissarmyknife]

Hold

Scrub

[AckSed]

"Hold due to probability of landing failure."

#JustSpaceXProblems

Edit: Scrub. I get it; it probably wouldn't look too good right now if their workhorse rocket crashed on re-entry.

Edited April 26, 2023 by AckSed
Update

[tater]

Try again tomorrow.

 

[tater]

Course we only have to wait 9 hours for another launch:

Falcon Heavy

 

[tater]

This doesn't look great, though:

 

[tater]

Severe weather looks to be 4-5 pm local. Launch is after 7, so maybe it clears. Though 2" hail would not be awesome.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

According to an ESA post - they kick off their water deluge system 6 seconds before launch.

 

 

In this video - the SS Flight test - the system seems to kick on only about a second or two before launch

 

 

In the Booster Test, the deluge system seems to have been active for quite a while before they kicked off ignition:

 

 

But looking at the system itself - it just seems almost notional rather than measured against the expected energy of the rocket:

 

 

 

Compare that to what NASA had planned and implemented for SLS:

Water Deluge Test is a Success at Launch Pad 39B | NASA

 

Not saying that a proper deluge system would have made a whole lot of difference - but it seems like the implementation SX chose was to just mitigate against unplanned fire, rather than actually absorb and dissipate energy - which NASA seems to do.

[tater]

Weather looks like it probably clears by launch.

[steve9728]

2 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Compare that to what NASA had planned and implemented for SLS:

Enthusiasts vs PRO

[mikegarrison]

25 minutes ago, steve9728 said:

Enthusiasts vs PRO

I don't think I would really put it that way.

Part of the issue is SpaceX's "plan for success" mentality. Works great when it works. When it doesn't work, it can cause issues. Yes, you can learn a lot from failures, but most of what you learn is "don't do that again," which you might argue it would be better to have learned without the expensive failure. Meanwhile NASA and their contractors can't afford the public embarrassment factor of an expensive failure. But that's part of why SLS is so expensive and took so long to fly.

But another difference is that NASA undoubtedly has all sorts of design standards (that they have learned from their own failures) that restrict their options on such things. These can get in the way of innovation, but can also help to make sure that previous lessons learned remain learned.

Anyway, it's particularly an issue for SpaceX that not only are they heavily invested in their current launch architecture at Boca Chica, but they have already started building a duplicate in Florida. If they need a massive redesign, now they will need to redo two launch pads and not one. This is a definite hazard of moving so fast that you don't even wait to see if you break things before starting to duplicate them.

[steve9728]

3 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

I don't think I would really put it that way.

Part of the issue is SpaceX's "plan for success" mentality. Works great when it works. When it doesn't work, it can cause issues. Yes, you can learn a lot from failures, but most of what you learn is "don't do that again," which you might argue it would be better to have learned without the expensive failure. Meanwhile NASA and their contractors can't afford the public embarrassment factor of an expensive failure. But that's part of why SLS is so expensive and took so long to fly.

But another difference is that NASA undoubtedly has all sorts of design standards (that they have learned from their own failures) that restrict their options on such things. These can get in the way of innovation, but can also help to make sure that previous lessons learned remain learned.

Anyway, it's particularly an issue for SpaceX that not only are they heavily invested in their current launch architecture at Boca Chica, but they have already started building a duplicate in Florida. If they need a massive redesign, now they will need to redo two launch pads and not one. This is a definite hazard of moving so fast that you don't even wait to see if you break things before starting to duplicate them.

I know and agree with that, what I said just kidding hahaha

But just in terms of visuals, that's the first comparison that popped into my head.

[tater]

24 hour delay on FH

So doubleheader

 

[tater]

 

[tater]

 

Music

 

[tater]

Norminal so far, booster heading home

[Geonovast]

Nice fireball on depress there..

[tater]

Landed, nominal orbit insertion. Another routine trip to space (and back).

 

[sevenperforce]

1 hour ago, Geonovast said:

Nice fireball on depress there..

It's done with work and so it's cosplaying Delta IV. 

[StrandedonEarth]

1 hour ago, Geonovast said:

Nice fireball on depress there..

Wasn’t sooty enough…

[darthgently]

1 minute ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Wasn’t sooty enough…

A little rollin' coal victory dance there

[RCgothic]

 

Press X to doubt.

[tater]

2 hours ago, RCgothic said:

Press X to doubt.

Actually, this make me more likely to believe them, not less likely.

By all accounts SpaceX is very good about their NASA relationship WRT crew/cargo, and this relates to Artemis.

"Nelson says SpaceX has told NASA that it can repair the pad and prepare the next Starship in about 2 months. Last week’s failure is “not a big downer”.

My bold. Note that preparing the next vehicle does not mean launching in 2 months, it means they can put a booster on the OLM and start testing any repairs that were required to the GSE, etc. Work can continue under/around the pad as that happens.

 

The actual quote from Nelson is better:

Quote

...as of today SpaceX is still saying that they think it will take about at least two months to rebuild the launch pad and concurrently about two months to have their second vehicle ready to launch...

More conditional. Which is reasonable.

Edited April 27, 2023 by tater

[magnemoe]

22 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

I don't think I would really put it that way.

Part of the issue is SpaceX's "plan for success" mentality. Works great when it works. When it doesn't work, it can cause issues. Yes, you can learn a lot from failures, but most of what you learn is "don't do that again," which you might argue it would be better to have learned without the expensive failure. Meanwhile NASA and their contractors can't afford the public embarrassment factor of an expensive failure. But that's part of why SLS is so expensive and took so long to fly.

But another difference is that NASA undoubtedly has all sorts of design standards (that they have learned from their own failures) that restrict their options on such things. These can get in the way of innovation, but can also help to make sure that previous lessons learned remain learned.

Anyway, it's particularly an issue for SpaceX that not only are they heavily invested in their current launch architecture at Boca Chica, but they have already started building a duplicate in Florida. If they need a massive redesign, now they will need to redo two launch pads and not one. This is a definite hazard of moving so fast that you don't even wait to see if you break things before starting to duplicate them.

Agree, but it depend on that you are doing. Starship landings, its a lot like falcon 9 first stage landing tests, try 20 times before it works. 
Launch of superheavy, and they bombed the pad, had things got worse as in N1, they had nuked it. 
Here fails are expensive, Dragon on the other hand was handled  very well. 
I and I think most other thought that Boeing Starliner would be the first to bring crew to IIS. 

But scale of project is also an matter, build an aircraft carrier who can not operate aircraft and its an problem. This get way worse if you set up an much more expensive production line for cars with serious fails. 

[tater]

4 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

But scale of project is also an matter, build an aircraft carrier who can not operate aircraft and its an problem. This get way worse if you set up an much more expensive production line for cars with serious fails. 

This vehicle doesn't cost that much. They've probably spent on Starship so far maybe what Boeing will get paid when they actually fulfill their crew contract.

Starbase apparently employs ~1800 people (mentioned on stream I think). If the average is $100k/head, that's ~$200M/yr on payroll. Steel is cheap, engines are who knows right now... but well under $2M/ea by now I would expect, $1M? Less? So maybe they spend $1B/yr on this?

[tater]