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Report on Starship 7 and 8 failure:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/spacex-final … 06594.html
Fixes for Starship's upper stage came down to tightening some bolts at some of Ship's more critical junctures and improving the plumbing so flammable gases don't ignite when they aren't supposed to:
"Starship’s upper stage will receive additional preload on key joints, a new nitrogen purge system, and improvements to the propellant drain system. Future upgrades to Starship will introduce the Raptor 3 engine which will include additional reliability improvements to address the failure mechanism."
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GW Johnson, No word from your job application? When I applied in 2016, it took them a couple weeks to respond, but they did respond. I wasn't hired because I'm not a US resident. They suggested I reapply if I ever become a resident. They should have at least given you a rejection response.
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For all:
Update:
What time is SpaceX Starship launch today?
7:30 p.m. EDT
How to watch SpaceX's Starship Flight 9 launch and Elon Musk's Mars update today. SpaceX is targeting 7:30 p.m. EDT (2330 GMT) for the 9th Starship test flight. A lot of eyes will be looking at SpaceX today.3 hours ago
Update: Revised time for start of broadcast: 13:10 New Hampshire time. See revised time above
Launch Schedule
Spaceflight Now
https://spaceflightnow.com › launch-schedule
Launch time: 9:57 a.m. PDT (12:57 p.m. EDT, 1657 UTC) Launch site: SLC-4E, Vandenberg Space Force Base, California. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will launch 24 ...
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The countdown clock is (was) showing 6 minutes a few minutes ago.
Holding at 40 seconds.
This hold was released and then put back into effect.
The hold at 40 seconds is still on.
The hold has extended for five minutes.
Interesting.
OK ... released again ... all 33 engines show as on.
The audience is up to 1 million views.
Max Q
33 engines still going strong ... three engines ... separation ...
Starship ... nice view aft ...
Booster is on it's test trajectory
7 minutes in and Starship seems stable...
Starship down to 3 engines at 8 minuts in
All engines off at 9 minues
****
Starlink launch is coming up ... Opening payload bay door is next on the agenda ...;
The door did not open as planned....
The next focus is re-entry...
Re-entry will be in daylight.
*** Next planned test is to re-light a raptor engine.
At 38 minutes and for some time before, the background of the view has been filled with what look like clouds ... whatever this is is moving fast from left to right.
View count is up to 1.8 million ... impressive!
Is this display of color due to the engines firing? Or is the re-entry already in progress?
Ship has lost attitude control ... dumping propellant overboard ... That explains the strange display
Fully reusable heat shield was to be tested ....
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Here's an overview of Flight 9.... (provided by Google)
SpaceX's Starship Flight 9, which aimed to deploy test satellites and test reentry systems, ended in failure after the Super Heavy booster experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly (RUD) during landing. The Starship vehicle lost control and broke apart upon reentry after experiencing a propellant leak and spinning out of control.
Here's a more detailed breakdown:
Mission Objectives:
The flight aimed to deploy eight Starlink simulator satellites and test the Starship's reentry system with 100 removed heat-shield tiles.
Super Heavy Booster:The Super Heavy booster, which was the first flight-proven one used, experienced an issue after stage separation, resulting in its disintegration.
Starship Vehicle:
The Starship vehicle, launched from SpaceX's Starbase facility in Texas, experienced a propellant leak and lost control mid-flight, leading to its destruction upon reentry over the Indian Ocean.
Failure:
The Super Heavy booster exploded shortly after stage separation, and the Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly, breaking apart before it could complete its intended flight path.Key Milestones:
The Super Heavy booster was reused for the first time after successfully recapturing it on a prior test. The Starship vehicle was able to fly farther into space than in previous tests this year but was not able to achieve all planned objectives.Contingency Plans:
SpaceX had contingency plans in place for the Super Heavy booster's splashdown, but the Starship's failure was not a planned part of the test.
Impact on Future Flights:The failure of Starship Flight 9 provides valuable data that will inform future flights and development of the Starship vehicle.
Successes:Despite the failure, the flight successfully tested the reusability of the Super Heavy booster and provided data on the vehicle's performance at higher angles of attack.
This video provides a comprehensive overview of what happened during SpaceX's Starship Test Flight 9:
My impression is that SpaceX was planning to dispose of the Super Heavy so I question whether a failure actually occurred. I'm hoping NewMars members will post any additional details they might find. I doubt the Super Heavy was supposed to explode, but the increased angle of attack during descent might have broken something.
Other details that will be of interest include:
1) Why the payload bay door did not open
2) What led to loss of control - a hint is a possible propellant leak
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Starship Flight 9 delivered a smooth ride to orbit aboard a flight proven booster. All indications were that the performance of the Raptor engines was nominal. The Starship itself did not "blow up", so at this point the issues with the main propulsion system seems to be reasonably well sorted out.
SpaceX attempted an extreme AoA "broadsiding" maneuver with the booster, which failed. Their simulations told them this was the most likely outcome, but they needed to confirm this through real world testing to obtain flight data in agreement with their simulations.
Starship itself still suffers from severe propellant leaks somewhere in its plumbing, quite likely due to excessive thermal load. Both the Super Heavy Booster and Starship intentionally vented some propellant after the Raptor burn was completed, earlier in their respective flights, which did not appear to cause a problem. However, Starship suffered another propellant leak later in the mission.
Starship needs an effective RCS system to prevent loss-of-control from propellant venting. GOX / GCH4 would be pretty good candidate propellants since there's clearly an over-abundance of that stuff in the propellant tanks causing leaks.
There appears to be frozen condensation forming inside Starship's cargo bay, likely from the cryogenic propellant tanks below, or a propellant leak, which may have caused the payload bay door malfunction that precluded deployment of StarLink satellite simulators.
Edit:
I think Starship needs Spray-On Foam Insulation (SOFI) on the parts of the vehicle not covered by TUFI tiles, even though that will cost more and add more weight.
Last edited by kbd512 (Today 08:56:38)
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As near as I could tell from the data readouts on the screen (as viewed on SpaceX's site), staging occurred at 60 km altitude, 4700 km/hr (1.31 km/s, which seems low to me), and somewhere near a 40 degree upward path angle (which seems high, so I'm unsure that indicator on the screen really means anything). The directional forces from the specially-shaped hot stage ring seemed to do that flip force job very well indeed. I'm unsure, but I think a few booster engines were lit to settle the propellants.
The failure after the high AOA entry looked to me to be a failed engine ignition. I saw a lot of fire in the engine bay, which did not really spike into the expected engine plumes, and then dimmed just as the view was lost. If I had to guess, I'd say the 45-deg AOA airloads cracked something, venting propellants, so that there was nothing the engine turbopumps could acquire to get proper ignitions. The fires in the bay likely melted open the bottom of the adjacent tank, breaking up the stage.
Early after staging, I could see propellant venting from some sort of opening on the leeside skin of the vehicle. This was right after staging, and I'd almost bet that was not supposed to be happening. The view in the payload bay showed entirely too many little white flakes of something floating around. I was disturbed to see that, it should not have been happening either, certainly not in such numbers with such persistence over time. Unsure what they were, but the odds favor frost flakes. Which points to propellant leaking into the cargo bay somehow.
I do not know what means are used to open the cargo bay door, but if it was propellant evaporation gas pressure, that venting since staging would explain why the door failed to open. That same propellant evaporation gas pressure is what powers the only attitude control thrusters they have, which are cold gas. I thought I saw the vehicle spinning since about the time the door failed to open.
I think Kbd512 is exactly right: they need attitude control that is independent of tank pressurization. They have something on board that independently powers the flaps, I don't understand why that doesn't also power the cargo door. But it cannot do attitude control, you need some sort of thrusters for that.
If I were Shotwell, I'd tell the team to put the Dracos from the cargo Dragon on Flight 10. It would be worth it to recover the vehicle; they'd learn a lot from actual hardware in their hands that telemetry alone simply cannot tell.
As for the plumbing leaks, I don't think they have tried to fix the evident pressure oscillations in the Raptor power heads. They already found some plumbing somewhere that is resonant at that frequency, and have beefed up the things that failed to take the wild oscillation pressure loads. But that is exactly like replacing radiator hoses only one at a time. Fix one, and the next weakest one breaks. After a while, you replace them all. And that's the same pattern as what we have been seeing.
GW
Last edited by GW Johnson (Today 10:40:57)
GW Johnson
McGregor, Texas
"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew, especially one dead from a bad management decision"
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GW,
I agree with the part about SpaceX's engineers needing "hardware they can hold in their hands". At this point, an actual recovered Starship would be worth more than all the telemetry data in the world. The younger generations think a computer can tell them everything, if only there's enough data. At the point that you're able to fully simulate physical reality, that might be true, but at that point you're no longer modeling anything and then using real world testing to confirm what the model tells you. They're probably swimming in data, but none of that is telling them what they need to know.
We cannot accurately predict the weather more than a few days out for the same reason. By the time the full suite of variables is incorporated into the "model", it's no longer a model, rather a "high-fidelity simulation of physical reality". The computing power to accurately simulate physical reality is many orders of magnitude beyond even complex modeling. Models become incredibly useful when they can tell you how to bound a problem and accurately predict a range of plausible real world outcomes. Unfortunately, models will never be an acceptable substitute for the complexity of physical reality, until they simulate reality, and then they're far less useful as models. Even if you had the computing power, if the model can give you most of the answer in a fraction of the time, there's little benefit to simulating reality.
I would tell people to model to with 10% of what reality ought to be, and then use experimental verification to confirm that the model accurately predicts physical reality. In supply chain management forecasting, we use models in this way, run a handful of simulations to "what-if" analytical engine results when the results look questionable (the "experimental verification" that what the larger / more complex model spit out is actually usable data), and then adjust forecasts accordingly. After the actual results are in, re-adjust the inputs fed into the analytical engine, rinse-and-repeat. We frequently have to use human knowledge and experience to accurately predict what input data alone could never convey to a computer program. Forecasting the materials consumed drilling for oil is a good example. Sometimes the computer program does a better job of forecasting than the human forecasters do, and sometimes the computer's results are so far off the mark that we'd be doomed as a company if we had to rely on computer output alone. Human experience and judgement complements machine speed and precision. You must have both. Solely relying upon one or the other doesn't work very well in the real world. There's simply too much complexity to try to simulate every aspect of business or complex engineering exercises.
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