This is the double standard I was getting at. If SpaceX (who has a vested interest in painting everything maximally positive) claims it was a spectacular success, there’s zero pushback. If someone else notes that the craft exploded well short of its forecast trajectory, then it’s “gosh, who can say what success or failure really means? We got a lot of data, and that’s something.”
If there’s no way to say it failed, then categorical claims of success are likewise invalid.
Those were private, off-record conversations with SpaceX employees. They have no reason to just parrot the party line. Berger has good sources. If the employees weren’t pleased about the results, we’d have heard about it.
I dispute your premise anyway. SpaceX is among the most transparent aerospace companies out there. Their entire development process has been out in the open, setbacks and all.
Hell, they put an “engine out” graphic in their on-screen telemetry feed! That’s not the actions of a company trying to put maximum positive spin on everything.
The hard line we got is they didn’t want to blow up the pad. That may seem like a low bar, but a lot has to go right to get that far. And they got a little farther than that.
Of course I agree that there are degrees of success and failure, and that this was by no means an unqualified success. But meeting mission goal checkboxes is not the purpose of the test. The purpose is to find out which systems work and which ones need more development.
Nevermind
I know the Starship part has much less thrust than the first stage, but I think we have just seen a preview of what it will be like for Starships taking off from the loose lunar regolith. Wonder how many smashed engines one of those can survive?
The current design for the lunar variant has a ring of engines far above ground level (about 2/3 of the way up), and angled outward. That, combined with the far lower thrust required (both due to gravity and being significantly depleted of propellant) should avoid any problems like this.
rapid unplanned disassembly.
Eh, it’s a test and many of those involved in the project were already managing expectations even before. I for one fully expected it to not complete the theretical mission profile.
“Succesful failure” is a turn of phrase I often see
Oh, and yeah, “RUD” is a usage that has been around for a good while now.
Tom Mueller (propulsion lead at SpaceX for most of its history) probably brought it to SpaceX, but it was around for much longer than that:
Some commentary from Musk (pasted inline for LSLGuy’s sake 
):
3 months ago, we started building a massive water-cooled, steel plate to go under the launch mount.
Wasn’t ready in time & we wrongly thought, based on static fire data, that Fondag would make it through 1 launch.
Looks like we can be ready to launch again in 1 to 2 months.
The flame diverter pieces have been seen floating around Boca Chica, but it’s been unclear what the plan was.
“Fondag”, BTW, is a high-strength, temperature-resistant concrete. After the static fire, which caused some damage to the plain concrete, they poured Fondag and clearly they thought it would get them through this test.
Berger also quotes an ex-SpaceX source:
“The lead mechanical guy responsible for the launch mount/flame diverter is one of the smartest people I know. I bet his team designed the launch mount that exists now for some sort of flame diverter to be installed in the future knowing that this was going to happen.”
We’ll see if “1-2 months” ends up being Elon-time or not, but in any case even other sources don’t seem too worried.
The steel parts of the OLM seem to have survived pretty well. They should do even better with some water cooling.
Wasn’t there already a water based sound suppression system for the launch?
Not exactly. They have their “FireX” system which indeed sprays water under the launch mount, but it’s mainly intended to prevent flammable gases from building up beneath and igniting. It’s not nearly enough to suppress the acoustics significantly or reduce the flame damage.
It blowed up real good!
Not any more.
I’m no rocket surgeon, but I know this. The Soviet N1 rocket had 30 engines on the first stage. They tried launching 4 and they all blew up. Starship1 had 30 engines and after 6 failed and it drifted off course it had to be destroyed. The Saturn V had 5 engines. Even on an unmanned flight when 2 engines failed it managed to reach orbit.
I think 30 engines is too many parts that can fail.
Falcon Heavy has flown perfectly five times now, and has 27 engines. I don’t think they’ve even had a single engine-out situation so far.
It had the benefit of being based on the Falcon 9–it uses the same engines and basic core architecture. So it inherited the high reliability the F9 developed over time.
Starship has brand-new engines (Raptors), and so doesn’t have the high reliability baseline that Falcon Heavy had. And it has a bunch of other brand-new technologies. So it’s in a more difficult starting point, but FH demonstrates that a large number of engines isn’t inherently a problem. They’ll surely increase Raptor reliability as they gain more flight experience. And it may well be that most of the problems are related to the debris issues, and nothing to do with the Raptor design at all.
It’s surely going to be a long, painful development effort. But even the N1 probably would have been fine if they stuck with it. SpaceX already has a series of improved test articles lined up for launch. The only real question for the moment is how quickly they can rebuild the pad into something more robust.
Eric Berger’s SpaceX contact thinks it’s repairable and puts it at 4-6 months. I think that’s much more plausible than either Elon’s 1-2 month timeframe or the “they’ll have to tear the whole thing down and start over” suggestions.
The different take on this is that engines were failing during ascent and did not take out the rocket, which would be an improvement over the N1.
It wouldn’t work to design a rocket that can make it to orbit if 40% of the engines failed like the unmanned Saturn V accomplished. If you could do that with your actual payload 40% of your engines would be dead weight that also takes more fuel to lift, which would be a huge design blunder.
That’s really the point.
30 unreliable engines that mostly fail by exploding is a recipe for near-guaranteed failure. 30 reliable engines that almost always fail by shutting down peacefully is a recipe for near-guaranteed success. The magic is not in the “30”, it’s in the rest of the equation.
The Soviets could not build them to be that reliable. The state of their art was just not there. Yet. The Americans did a wee bit better at that point in history, but that certainly wasn’t always the case.
Some pretty extensive damage to the launch pad. I don’t think we’ll be seeing another launch shortly. That seems remarkably poorly engineered to me. I’m not an expert but I don’t recall this kind of damage at any other launches. In other instances of launch pad damage (SLS, Saturn V) the damage did not seem this severe.
Super Heavy has 17 million pounds of thrust. SLS was 8.8 million, spread across the rocket and the side boosters. Starship is twice as much thrust, and directed straight down from a 9m circle. The intensity of that blast at the bottom of the OLM was insane.
Still, a lot of experts thought it was pretty obvious that a flame diverter/trench and water deluge would be necessry, but SpaceX wanted to try to engineer a system that didn’t need it under the philosophy that the best part is no part, and simpler is better.
They knew they’d need a flame diverter for the final config, and there are flame diverter bits already assembled, but they thought they could get away with one launch without them. Oops.
I’m wondering if they built the other infrastructure too close to the pad. It looked like the fireballl from the engines reached out almost to the tank farm, and some of those tanks took severe damage.
Well, they succeeded there beyond their wildest dream, because there’s no ground under the launch platform. None. The very best launch surface, from that perspective.
Maybe they shoud look at transferring the technology to Boring Company, because it looks like an amazing way to drill a big hole in the ground.
Now that’s just mean. Made me laugh for real, but it was mean. Well played Sir!!