It’s an improvement over previous tests, where some engines didn’t start at all. They still have some reliability problems to nail down, but they’re making forward progress. And the new water system worked great. Lots of clean, white steam, and minimal damage to the mount (just some charred paint and a fence that blew down).
Some really incredible shots on the SpaxeX X account:
Neat to see the steam varying from saturated to unsaturated states (transparent vs. opaque).
I think you’re taking a few fanciful leaps of logic there. There’s no reason to assume that engine failures are evenly distributed throughout the duration of the test. I’d imagine that ignition and the few fractions of a second that immediately follow would see far more failures than the whole rest of the test in almost any scenario, regardless of duration (though I am no rocket scientist).
That depends on the nature of the failure modes. Which end of the bathtub curve where those two engines on? It could be that some engines just don’t work very well at all, and quickly fail, but that those that don’t fail quickly never fail. Or it could be that there’s some sort of cumulative damage over time to the engines, and they’ll all fail after a time, and that time is short enough that for the unlucky ones, time of failure can be less than six seconds (but for others, it’s only a little longer than that).
In addition to @Babale’s and @Chronos’ good points …
Start-up is the very most high-risk high-stress part of any rocket motor’s operating cycle. A whole lot of big transients need to come off smoothly and with millisecond timing or explody stuff happens. As such, the start-up controllers are very unforgiving of any off tolerance info coming in just before they fire the igniters.
Particularly on a vehicle with lotsa engine redundancy, far better to no-start a couple or even several than to have one hard-start or KABOOM-start.
This rather makes one wonder what kind of early tests could be done on an engine short of a full power fire-up? Computer modeling only goes so far…?
No way around doing some kind of real-world test. Every Raptor engine does get test fired before being installed on the full vehicle, so it’s unlikely the engines are outright defective. More likely is that there’s some systemic problem, whether related to the complicated plumbing, or the fact that there are 32 other engines in the vicinity, or the launch mount (which is actually an extended part of the engines), or something ellse. All things where computer modeling only gets you so far.
They have been doing some interesting testing on the Raptors. For instance, here’s where they have the engine pointed 15 degrees up:
Normally, if your engine is pointed that way, you will not go to space today. But it’s a legitimate configuration when the upper stage is doing its bellyflop maneuver (horizontal ship with full gimbal deflection on the engine).
Starship has been nearly ready to fly into orbit for a long time now. I really hope the launch mount damage and the separation failure are the only two major obstacles left to correct.
Starship 25 and Booster 9 are stacked. Just awaiting FAA clearance.
This would be an important test milestone for the whole “orbit in 2023” idea.
This bit seems fairly promising:
Asked for an update on the progress of this regulatory approval, an FAA spokesman said Wednesday morning that additional information may be provided soon. If so, this story will be updated.
It’s vague, but I doubt they’d have said that if there was anything major left to do. Probably a matter of crossing the Ts on the license. The updated flight termination system was likely the long pole, but SpaceX demonstrated their new version some weeks ago and FAA has probably had sufficient time to look at it closely.
Missed that. Did they just do the same thing a bigger charge, or some alternate method?
Just a bigger charge, I think. They did a ground test a few months ago:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/13ilh4p/spacex_just_performed_an_fts_test_on_the_b6_test/
Thanks!
(It looked like that mockup was filled with sand)
Water, but it was kinda dirty-looking.
So Elon says they are just waiting for FAA approval but the FAA has said they are waiting for SpaceX to fix the issues from the first flight test:
“The SpaceX Starship mishap investigation remains open,” the agency stated. “The FAA will not authorize another Starship launch until SpaceX implements the corrective actions identified during the mishap investigation and demonstrates compliance with all the regulatory requirements of the license modification process.”
I’m not sure there’s any real inconsistency there. There’s a difference between having completed all the corrective actions vs. convincing the FAA that you’ve completed all the corrective actions. SpaceX may be legitimately done, but that doesn’t mean the FAA has fully vetted everything yet.
Perhaps but I was expecting the next integrated flight test within the next two/three weeks. I suspect now we might be waiting at least a few weeks longer. Because it doesn’t sound like FAA approval is going to drop in the immediate future.
Yeah, several weeks rather than a few is in the realm of possibility. But this year still seems likely. Eric Berger (author of the article above) is spitballing a no-earlier-than of about two weeks:
Hard to be sure, except that it’s probably not a matter of days.
Well, that didn’t take long:
Of course, that’s just closing the investigation. The FAA has still yet to issue the license. But it’s a good step. It wasn’t previously clear if closing the investigation was imminent or weeks out.
SpaceX also released some info about their upgrades:
UPGRADES AHEAD OF STARSHIP’S SECOND FLIGHT TEST
The first flight test of a fully integrated Starship and Super Heavy was a critical step in advancing the capabilities of the most powerful launch system ever developed. Starship’s first flight test provided numerous lessons learned that are directly contributing to several upgrades being made to both the vehicle and ground infrastructure to improve the probability of success on future Starship flights. This rapid iterative development approach has been the basis for all of SpaceX’s major innovative advancements, including Falcon, Dragon, and Starlink. SpaceX has led the investigation efforts following the flight with oversight from the FAA and participation from NASA and the National Transportation and Safety Board.Starship and Super Heavy successfully lifted off for the first time on April 20, 2023 at 8:33 a.m. CT (13:33:09 UTC) from the orbital launch pad at Starbase in Texas. Starship climbed to a maximum altitude of ~39 km (24 mi) over the Gulf of Mexico. During ascent, the vehicle sustained fires from leaking propellant in the aft end of the Super Heavy booster, which eventually severed connection with the vehicle’s primary flight computer. This led to a loss of communications to the majority of booster engines and, ultimately, control of the vehicle. SpaceX has since implemented leak mitigations and improved testing on both engine and booster hardware. As an additional corrective action, SpaceX has significantly expanded Super Heavy’s pre-existing fire suppression system in order to mitigate against future engine bay fires.
The Autonomous Flight Safety System (AFSS) automatically issued a destruct command, which fired all detonators as expected, after the vehicle deviated from the expected trajectory, lost altitude and began to tumble. After an unexpected delay following AFSS activation, Starship ultimately broke up 237.474 seconds after engine ignition. SpaceX has enhanced and requalified the AFSS to improve system reliability.
SpaceX is also implementing a full suite of system performance upgrades unrelated to any issues observed during the first flight test. For example, SpaceX has built and tested a hot-stage separation system, in which Starship’s second stage engines will ignite to push the ship away from the booster. Additionally, SpaceX has engineered a new electronic Thrust Vector Control (TVC) system for Super Heavy Raptor engines. Using fully electric motors, the new system has fewer potential points of failure and is significantly more energy efficient than traditional hydraulic systems.
SpaceX also made significant upgrades to the orbital launch mount and pad system in order to prevent a recurrence of the pad foundation failure observed during the first flight test. These upgrades include significant reinforcements to the pad foundation and the addition of a flame deflector, which SpaceX has successfully tested multiple times.
Testing development flight hardware in a flight environment is what enables our teams to quickly learn and execute design changes and hardware upgrades to improve the probability of success in the future. We learned a tremendous amount about the vehicle and ground systems during Starship’s first flight test. Recursive improvement is essential as we work to build a fully reusable launch system capable of carrying satellites, payloads, crew, and cargo to a variety of orbits and Earth, lunar, or Martian landing sites.
Only 63 corrective actions. Coulda been worse.
And of course, depending on the obviousness of any particular finding, SpaceX may already have addressed some or most of them.