SpaceX Has Finally Figured Out Why Starship Exploded, And The Reason Is Utterly Embarrassing

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cross-posted from: https://feddit.it/post/15755274

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4mo ago

SpaceX Has Finally Figured Out Why Starship Exploded, And The Reason Is Utterly Embarrassing

www.planetearthandbeyond.co /p/spacex-has-finally-figured-out-why

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4mo ago

SpaceX Has Finally Figured Out Why Starship Exploded, And The Reason Is Utterly Embarrassing

www.planetearthandbeyond.co /p/spacex-has-finally-figured-out-why

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Title: SpaceX Has Finally Figured Out Why Starship Exploded, And The Reason Is Utterly Embarrassing
SpaceX's Starship experienced a catastrophic explosion during its seventh launch attempt, resulting from a failure in the fuel line due to vibrations.
The explosion occurred over the Turks and Caicos islands, leading to debris scattering over the area.
The fuel leak ignited two minutes after the upper stage's engines were ignited, overwhelming the rocket's venting capacity and compromising the engines.
A loss of communication with ground control occurred as the engines shut down, leading to the rocket's self-destruction sequence.
The incident highlights significant operational failures, as engine shutdowns should not cause communication loss, indicating a lack of redundancy in systems.
SpaceX's pre-flight checks failed to identify potential leaks, suggesting inadequate safety measures or poor execution of checks.
In contrast, NASA's Saturn V rocket had a flawless launch record over its operational lifespan, showcasing superior reliability compared to Starship.
Starship's design has been criticized for overestimating engine thrust capabilities, limiting its payload capacity to 40-50 tons, which is less than the Saturn V.
The cost per kilogram to launch with Starship is comparable to that of the Saturn V, undermining its intended economic advantages.
The overall failure of Starship raises concerns about the efficiency and safety of SpaceX's approach to space exploration, contrasting sharply with historical successes in the field.
- Thank you for sparing us from the clickbait title
- -The incident highlights significant operational failures, as engine shutdowns should not cause communication loss, indicating a lack of redundancy in systems.
  SpaceX's pre-flight checks failed to identify potential leaks, suggesting inadequate safety measures or poor execution of checks.
  These points are really silly. Two engines exploded causing the ship to tumble. I'm not sure what they think additional communications redundancy would help with at that point.
  And how do you indefiy a fuel leak on the ground that hasn't happened yet? It was caused by vibrations at a resonant frequency that is only reached at a certain fuel level?
  Starship's design has been criticized for overestimating engine thrust capabilities, limiting its payload capacity to 40-50 tons, which is less than the Saturn V.
  Who said that? That's really silly. And isn't that payload with full reusability?
  Space is hard, it's literally rocket science. The embarrassing thing is it failed in the same way twice. But finding these resonance issues that only pop up in specific fuel states, makes sense it's hard to pin down. I think they'll need to characterize their vib spectrum as fuel burns down, then analyze the harmonics of the hardware and make sure they don't couple. It isn't easy, but they should be able to.
  Edit: thanks for the summary, I just disagree with the article.
  
  "A loss of communication with ground control occurred as the engines shut down, leading to the rocket's self-destruction sequence.
  The incident highlights significant operational failures, as engine shutdowns should not cause communication loss, indicating a lack of redundancy in systems."
  For the communication redundancy part: This is just my interpretation of what I'm reading and it could be 100% wrong.
  The communications need a redundant power supply/ connection not associated with the engine. Because they didn't have the communication connection and the engines were on fire the self destruct was initiated. Where if they had communications maybe they could have done something else? Turn off fuel, changed location of impact, changed location of self destruct to not be where it was.
  I could be wrong, Iam in fact not a rocket scientist
  
  Also starship hasn't started its operational lifespan. These are test articles still. They should absolutely be treating them with respect and due diligence since they are launching, but this is just highly public testing on a reusable rocket. Success not guaranteed and that's why they aren't flying real payloads (even of their own).
  Also, pretty sure Apollo 1 was a great example of Saturn rockets not being flawless.
- They say space is hard...
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayu0GsrvKQA
  
  So you know that it’s ok...
- 🙏
  
  Rocket-hands awarded post.
This guy's writing is horrid. At least we got the facts from the investigation.
- It's AI slop
- At least we got the facts from the investigation
  Not really. The only relevant bit was "vibrations caused a failure of a fuel line in the aft section of the upper stage" which had been widely reported elsewhere.
That is an amazing piece of editorial bullshit.
- As someone who hadn't seen elsewhere what caused the failures it highlighted both the fires that took place, the communication failure and the self destruct. The title is shit but what else were you looking for?
- Absolutely. And he's missing a key point, that the fuel leaks were caused by vibrations in the fuel lines causing resonance. Overpressurization tests do not reveal those problems, they simply simulate pressure and not the stresses and vibrations of launch.
  This whole article is bullshit
God this title is so dumb.
Yes, fuck Elon Musk. That doesn't mean Starship isn't still the most exciting topic in rocketry/spaceflight, and 100x more ambitious than what any other rocket manufacturer is attempting.
The Starship development cycle is hardware-rich, they have a literal conveyor belt full of rockets in various stages of completion for testing.
Their immediate goal isn't to go to orbit, they could have done that a long time ago. They're simultaneously testing hundreds of little to big changes to the vehicles with every launch. Stuff will go wrong along the way.
- Yes, because Elon Musk is such an asshole people can't seem to help themselves from talking shit, even when it's misguided.
  They talk about the safety record of Saturn rockets without mentioning that using those isn't currently possible and then talk about cost per ton of falcon without acknowledging the same design process that created that rocket is being used to make this one. Falcon also had a fair number of explosions before the kinks were worked out and now it's launching so often that no other company or nation is even close to the same cadence.
  And it sucks! Because I'm interested in space, and SpaceX has done very impressive things, and it's owned by this fucking jerk.
  
  Well said.
  
  They talk about the safety record of Saturn rockets without mentioning that using those isn’t currently possible
  And that, at least from my memory, multiple people in the Saturn Program considered it to have been extremely good luck to not have had a failure which led to deaths.
- Then Musk needs to stop hailing Starship as the next great thing. He doesn’t get to talk about how awesome it is, then, when it goes boom, say “oopsie, still testing, and you’re dumb for expecting otherwise”.
  
  It is the largest, most capable rocket ever to be built - all while cracking the holy grail of full reusability.
  In terms of ambition, nothing really compares.
- They're simultaneously testing hundreds of little to big changes to the vehicles with every launch. Stuff will go wrong along the way.
  If that results in their rockets exploding, perhaps they should not be allowed to do this? That’s not how science is performed.
  Exploding rockets are not exactly friendly to nature or people.
  
  That’s not how science is performed
  Starship is not a science project. No scientific breakthroughs are made or expected. It is an engineering project. And this is exactly how that is performed.
  Also, how many people crashed how many planes before the Wright brothers managed to achieve powered flight ?
  
  That's quite literally how it's performed. You make a hypothesis, then you test it. If it fails, you alter the hypothesis and try again. A single rocket exploding once every couple months is absolutely nothing to the planet compared to all the other activities humans do.
  They aren't just randomly lobbing these into the sky over populated areas (like China likes to do). The paths they follow are very much planned to account for accidents. That's why they launch them over oceans. And they will deliberate blow them up using what's called a "flight termination system" if it looks like things will get hairy.
  
  It has nothing to do with science, it's Engineering.
  The upper stage exploding is of course not ideal, but it does so on a suborbital trajectory, meaning everything will fall back down to Earth, into the ocean. (these still being test-launches with certain risks is the whole reason they're choosing not to go fully orbital yet)
  In terms of materials, it's mostly just stainless steel, there is no pollution from it.
It's because Elon has a tiny red button for self destruction and he keeps pressing it every time, isn't it?
- There’s a simple solution. Put the button in the starship
Put some Musk as ballast

39 comments