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Spacex Starship IFT-2 launch today

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DavidAlfa:
3...2...1.. Boom? Weird, didn't!
Damn, let's give it 10 seconds... still...
Wait separation, for sure will instantly blow apart... Nope!
However patience and perseverance always pays off, we all know Musk spends 50% of his time talking nosense in X, probably busy in some stupid woke thread so was unable to push the button earlier!
Damn it, almost forgot! *click*

SiliconWizard:

--- Quote from: wraper on November 19, 2023, 01:37:33 pm ---
--- Quote from: AndyBeez on November 19, 2023, 01:17:08 pm ---On a side note, I recently heard the Nasa versus SpaceX dynamic being described as, "it's rocket scientists versus space cowboys." Yee har...

--- End quote ---
This year "space cowboys" put 4x more mass to the orbit (1000 tons) than the rest of the world combined. Also they are the only US launch provider that can currently deliver astronauts to ISS (for NASA you just mentioned).

--- End quote ---

Indeed.

coppice:

--- Quote from: Stray Electron on November 19, 2023, 05:56:45 pm ---
--- Quote from: Psi on November 19, 2023, 10:19:14 am ---Speculation is that the relight of the booster engines happened without stable acceleration to keep the fuel from floating/sloshing around in the tanks and many engines inhaled air and exploded. Resulting in an inability to continue the booster return and water landing mission, which triggered FTS.

--- End quote ---

     That shouldn't have been a problem.  Ullage engines have been used for MANY years to provide a slight amount of acceleration so that the fuel and oxidizer are pushed to the bottom of the tanks so that they will be properly picked up for engine re-ignitions.

--- End quote ---
The booster was twisting around at the time, which makes it pretty hard to get the fuel in the right part of the tanks. Most rockets which start twisting around quickly trigger their self destruct. This is not uncharted territory for Space X, though. This is an issue they also face with the Falcon, where they seem to have it sorted out very well. You might have expected them to have carried over what has proven reliable there, and nailed this on the first try.

coppice:

--- Quote from: tom66 on November 19, 2023, 07:25:58 pm ---
--- Quote from: Psi on November 19, 2023, 10:19:14 am ---Speculation is that the relight of the booster engines happened without stable acceleration to keep the fuel from floating/sloshing around in the tanks and many engines inhaled air and exploded. Resulting in an inability to continue the booster return and water landing mission, which triggered FTS.

--- End quote ---

I think this could be a factor.  If you look at the stream on Twitter, you can see that the engine 'diagram' shows many engines failing before the RUD.  Also, you can see debris coming off the top of the rocket. It's possible that a few engines failing next to each other damaged critical hydraulics or avionics and loss of control occurred leading to FTS.  Not sure if FTS is done by Range Officer or is fully automated on SpaceX rockets.

--- End quote ---
It seems more likely the engines didn't fail, but were starved of fuel. Once things get a little unstable tons of fuel hammering around in the tanks can soon break them up. You could see just before separation that they didn't just shut most of the 33 engines down in one go. They cut them in small groups, so the fuel flow didn't come to a shuddering halt, and act like a hammer to smash up the ship

wraper:

--- Quote from: coppice on November 20, 2023, 12:11:31 am ---
--- Quote from: Stray Electron on November 19, 2023, 05:56:45 pm ---
--- Quote from: Psi on November 19, 2023, 10:19:14 am ---Speculation is that the relight of the booster engines happened without stable acceleration to keep the fuel from floating/sloshing around in the tanks and many engines inhaled air and exploded. Resulting in an inability to continue the booster return and water landing mission, which triggered FTS.

--- End quote ---

     That shouldn't have been a problem.  Ullage engines have been used for MANY years to provide a slight amount of acceleration so that the fuel and oxidizer are pushed to the bottom of the tanks so that they will be properly picked up for engine re-ignitions.

--- End quote ---
The booster was twisting around at the time, which makes it pretty hard to get the fuel in the right part of the tanks. Most rockets which start twisting around quickly trigger their self destruct. This is not uncharted territory for Space X, though. This is an issue they also face with the Falcon, where they seem to have it sorted out very well. You might have expected them to have carried over what has proven reliable there, and nailed this on the first try.

--- End quote ---
It's very different from Falcon though. Different fuel, very different engines with different ignition mechanism, autogenous pressurization instead of helium, pretty much uncharted territory in every corner.

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