Engineers could make another attempt to launch Starship as soon as Friday evening.
See full article...
See full article...
Ground system issue scrubs first launch of SpaceX’s Starship V3 rocket
- Thread starter JournalBot
- Start date
Apparently, jinxed by Nicki Minaj coming onto the official SpaceX broadcast to wax poetic about what a towering paragon of virtue Elon is...
Upvote
41
(62
/
-21)
Upvote
84
(92
/
-8)
Depends entirely on what the issue is. They've already done static fire tests so they know the engine design works.
Upvote
60
(62
/
-2)
On the first launch of such a major redesign for a system this large and complex, everything going flawlessly would be a more than minor miracle - no matter how much care was taken in design up-front.
That said, SpaceX did spend a great deal of effort and time, over the past 6+ months, torture-testing some representative v3 test tanks and hulls using purpose-built, elaborate test rigs; and they have been pretty methodical and thorough with ground tests of the pad as well as the flight hardware. And the engines have been in intensive testing for about two years already; the current production version serial numbers for Raptor 3 are already in the 170's (and there were many pre-productuon builds and test articles before that). Still, despite all that, it's likely at least something will go wrong with flight 12.
SpaceX's ability to quickly analyze the problems, then retrofit and fly the next build, is a positive thing as it seems likely to result in v3 starting to fly actual payloads to orbit within a year.
Upvote
91
(98
/
-7)
It sounds like all of the holds in those final seconds were due to problems with the launch structure and ground systems, not the rocket. It was the same thing with the scrub of Artemis II. I don't understand why ground systems seem to be the source of more scrubs than the rockets, which I would assume are much more complex?
Upvote
3
(20
/
-17)
Upvote
82
(83
/
-1)
A lot of complex stuff happens in the ground system.
It is dealing with a massive amount of propellants that have to be delivered rapidly and safely to the craft… propellants that are cryogenic and generally hard to handle and maintain at the needed temperatures / densities.
Additionally a range of inert gases have to be used to chill and purge all of the complex plumbing on the ground and on the craft. It needs to keep the propellants pure as possible in the process (prevent unwanted gases mixing in, etc).
It also has to support the craft during all of this, detach from the craft at the correct times using complex mating ports that have to deal with electrical, hydrologic fluids, cryogenic inert gases, and cryogenic propellants, etc.
You also have the deluge system that requires a massive amount of water driven at very high pressures, etc. (actually gas generators built from a set of Raptor derived power heads, rocket engine pressuring the deluge system).
Then in the case of SpaceX the ground systems also have to deal with recovering the craft stages.
Anyway the ground system is often the most complex aspect of a launch system or at least one par with the craft itself.
In the case Artemis they are dealing with low cadence of launches with long gaps in ground system use which impacts repeatable reliability. Also hydrogen fuel sucks to deal with.
In the case of this launch they are dealing with a brand new ground system and tower. It will have teething pains for the first few flights.
…a lot of values, a lot of actuators, a lot of plumbing, a lot of monitoring systems, storage tanks, etc
Upvote
147
(150
/
-3)
A bit of a roller-coaster watching the count-down repeatedly start up, then pop back to 40.
I'm looking forward to seeing the views from the satellite-mounted cameras!
I'm looking forward to seeing the views from the satellite-mounted cameras!
Upvote
43
(46
/
-3)
What's the track for the satellite mass simulators and close-range-photography-capable Starlinks? I would presume the lumps would follow their launch vehicle into approximately the Indian ocean, but are the operational ones going to burn like a bat out of hell to give themselves a longer mission or just dump data into the network until the plasma takes over?
Upvote
18
(18
/
0)
The two modified Starlink v2 Minis will burn up with all the rest. They're not capable of significantly raising their orbits, quickly enough to survive the low-apogee, suborbital trajectory they're initially deployed into. And that's before taking into account the extra bolted-on mass to shoehorn them inside a Pez dispenser designed for much wider v3 satellites.
Upvote
39
(39
/
0)
Ah, extra brackets would do that even more! I'm guessing that they can run fully internal until toast and won't need to deploy solar arrays, either. Should be another unique view from this development process (we've had a lot of those!).
Upvote
12
(12
/
0)
Upvote
94
(98
/
-4)
Question
I've read (from people that are SpaceX critics Ithink) that the flights so far have carried "payloads" that are below the specs required for effective launches. Is that correct? Does it matter (e.g. that is not what they are trying to accomplish and when it is they will get close to the design requirements)?
Why not use a lowercase v?
I've read (from people that are SpaceX critics Ithink) that the flights so far have carried "payloads" that are below the specs required for effective launches. Is that correct? Does it matter (e.g. that is not what they are trying to accomplish and when it is they will get close to the design requirements)?
Why not use a lowercase v?
Upvote
-19
(8
/
-27)
People here might raise an eyebrow at a ground system problem but have you seen the size of those arms? Only my mother -in-law has larger ones.
Upvote
18
(21
/
-3)
It's a version number. Specifically, Version 3. You're reading way too much into it.
If tacking version numbers onto things makes someone a Nazi then I'm guilty and so are an awful lot of engineers and developers. In fact I had an email from a vendor trying to talk me into upgrading to a higher Version this very morning. Maybe I'll write them back accusing them of Nazi sympathies....
Upvote
112
(117
/
-5)
FFS, no one other than the most desperate mental gymnasts is associating the V for version with WW2 Nazi rockets. A stretch to make a joke, maybe, but "isn't a good look"?
Upvote
108
(113
/
-5)
Any system mass that you can move from the vehicle to the ground systems directly improves performance. Any system complexity that you can move from the vehicle to the ground system directly improves reliability and cost, because it is a lot easier to make a cheap reliable system if it doesn't have to be flight weight.
The perfect rocket would be 100% ground system, if your occupants could survive the acceleration and there wasn't so much air at ground level.
Upvote
55
(56
/
-1)
Perhaps the company that has built the most reliable, most available and most frequent launch vehicle knows something about improving systems and processes to be repeatable and successful?
Upvote
77
(88
/
-11)
The most N1-like piece of this rocket - the Super Heavy booster - has actually been the most successful and reliable piece of the architecture to date. The more difficult piece - Starship - is the real wildcard with regard to whether or not this design will successfully achieve full and rapid reuse. But even if full reuse remains out of reach, flying SS/SH in partially reusable mode - like a vastly upscaled Falcon 9 or New Glenn - would still yield unprecedented performance and historically low cost of mass to orbit.
Upvote
82
(83
/
-1)
Resistance
Wise, Aged Ars Veteran
Oh please, even someone who hates Musk as much as I do can recognize the realistic assessment that SS is likely to be very successful.
Last edited:
Upvote
72
(77
/
-5)
Not so much working for one launch, as working flawlessly for the inaugural launch. There is a huge difference there, but it might be too subtle for you to pick up on...
Upvote
46
(46
/
0)
Hopefully fewer years than you’ll be posting ignorant slop like this.
Upvote
38
(45
/
-7)
Maybe the just repeat what they do with the F9 every day ?
Upvote
37
(37
/
0)
"...Starship will never work..."
That's a bold and confident prediction.
Have you bet a lot of money on it?
Or just your, er, credibility?
Upvote
31
(32
/
-1)
Why would anyone who was not deranged care? Vn stands for 'Version N' - a commonly-used construction - and in fact I think SpaceX internally use 'Block N'. The V does not stand for 'Vengeance Weapon', and Starship is not a ballistic war missile.
Upvote
44
(46
/
-2)
Zach Golden's latest video deals with the design of the new deluge system, and he reckons the new gas generators aren't raptor derived. There's no turbopumps in there at all - it looks to be gaseous O2 and CH4 being fed into a combustion chamber that then warms up a massive flow of N2.
The generators were originally christened "Baby Raptor", but that was before they had any idea of how they worked.
Upvote
41
(41
/
0)
That's the thing, it's only deranged people who think this way.
Upvote
21
(26
/
-5)
I get that 11 million is a large number that reads impressive, but it's also completely meaningless to me and I guess a lot of other readers. Personally I think that 5000 metric tons gives a much better impression of scale. Please and thank you
Upvote
14
(32
/
-18)
Assuming Google AI's extract from the Australian War Memorial is correct:
Aggregate seems to mean "unit" in the context of building machinery.
Upvote
-11
(5
/
-16)
Unfortunately we've entered an epoch were derangement is becoming more and more common.
Hari Seldon would be having a field day.
Upvote
24
(28
/
-4)