SpaceX (general discussion)

Direct from SpaceX : https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-2

STARSHIP'S SECOND FLIGHT TEST

Starship returned to integrated flight testing with its second launch from Starbase in Texas. While it didn’t happen in a lab or on a test stand, it was absolutely a test. What we did with this second flight will provide invaluable data to continue rapidly developing Starship.
On November 18, 2023, Starship successfully lifted off at 7:02 a.m. CT from Starbase in Texas and achieved a number of major milestones:

  • All 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy Booster started up successfully and, for the first time, completed a full-duration burn during ascent.
  • Starship executed a successful hot-stage separation, powering down all but three of Super Heavy’s Raptor engines and successfully igniting the six second stage Raptor engines before separating the vehicles. This was the first time this technique has been done successfully with a vehicle of this size.
  • Following separation, the Super Heavy booster successfully completed its flip maneuver and initiated the boostback burn before it experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly. The vehicle breakup occurred more than three and a half minutes into the flight at an altitude of ~90 km over the Gulf of Mexico.
  • Starship's six second stage Raptor engines all started successfully and powered the vehicle to an altitude of ~150 km and a velocity of ~24,000 km/h, becoming the first Starship to reach outer space and nearly completing its full-duration burn.


  • The flight test’s conclusion came when telemetry was lost near the end of second stage burn prior to engine cutoff after more than eight minutes of flight. The team verified a safe command destruct was appropriately triggered based on available vehicle performance data.
  • The water-cooled flame deflector and other pad upgrades performed as expected, requiring minimal post-launch work to be ready for upcoming vehicle tests and the next integrated flight test.

With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and this flight test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multiplanetary. Data review is ongoing as we look for improvements to make for the next flight. The team at Starbase is already working final preparations on the vehicles slated for use in Starship’s third flight test, with Ship and Booster static fires coming up next.
Thank you to our customers, Cameron County, spaceflight fans, and the wider community for the continued support and encouragement. And congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an exciting second flight test of Starship
 
An honest-to-God summary of IFT-2. They have essentially validated an ascent to orbit - albeit in expendable mode. Onto IFT-3, probably early 2024.
(P.S they need to change the acronym away from IFT, because I can't help thinking about Skyler White, from Breaking Bad and the eponymous episode - except IFT has a different, eeeerhm, meaning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I.F.T._(Breaking_Bad) )
 
Archibald said:
An honest-to-God summary of IFT-2. ..........
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An "honest summary" from the company that is responsible for the launch? Just the usual spin after a failure.
A summary of some simple things that did not fail, but no mention of the main objectives that were by far not reached.

"All engines started successfully". "Successful hot-stage separation". " ..... to an altitude of ~150 km".
Maybe things to cheer about in 1963 but not in 2023.

I was impressed by SpaceX with respect to Falcon 9, but what has happened after that with Starship and Heavy Booster looks rather amateuristic and the launch results sofar seem to confirm that.

SpaceX can spin it any way they want but what really matters now is whether the FAA considers this launch a "success" and whether they will allow further experimental launches from Boca Chica.

Boca Chica is not really a suitable location for this kind of launch trials because there is only a narrow flight corridor between Florida and the Bahamas on the north, and Cuba on the south. A rocket going slightly off course would have to be destroyed in time before risking a possible failure above land.
 
Dagger said:
1. "All engines started successfully". "Successful hot-stage separation". " ..... to an altitude of ~150 km".
Maybe things to cheer about in 1963 but not in 2023.

2. I was impressed by SpaceX with respect to Falcon 9, but what has happened after that with Starship and Heavy Booster looks rather amateuristic and the launch results sofar seem to confirm that.

3. SpaceX can spin it any way they want but what really matters now is whether the FAA considers this launch a "success" and whether they will allow further experimental launches from Boca Chica.

4. Boca Chica is not really a suitable location for this kind of launch trials because there is only a narrow flight corridor between Florida and the Bahamas on the north, and Cuba on the south. A rocket going slightly off course would have to be destroyed in time before risking a possible failure above land.
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Amateurish uninformed statements, certainly not from an engineer, much less not in the spaceflight business.

1. You can't even read what they posted. "This was the first time this technique has been done successfully with a vehicle of this size."
Now you are putting your biased spin on it.

2. Not at all. Falcon 1 and 9 had similar issues.
My post explains their philosphy. Flight tests instead of ground tests. Let's see if you will be eating crow after flights 5 through 7.
3. The FAA has already said "The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) deemed this outcome a mishap and will supervise an investigation into its cause." This isn't a vcause for preventing them from launching again. Only a delay until the investigation is complete.

4. Wrong. there is plenty of room. Both the AFTS and guidance system (Falcon 9 based) are proven and there is no worries about going off course.

BTW, did anybody see the interstage collapse? Looked ok to me but I heard there wasn't enough Xs in it.
 
Byeman said:
BTW, did anybody see the interstage collapse? Looked ok to me but I heard there wasn't enough Xs in it.
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Except, their modifications may have been too extensive, causing an extreme weight penalty. If there was an egregious excess of X's, they should be expeditiously excised by experts.
 
Before they master the refuelling in orbit with many flights in a couple of weeks and put a man on the moon it will be 2030+
2025 or 2026 is absurd
 
I personally think Elon himself is quite the tech bro asshole. But the SpaceX development cycle speaks for itself: lots of tests in quick succession that yield progress that no superpower can keep up with. My major criticism with X would be that the IFL-1 launch pad should clearly have been mitigated for epic disasters if your working model is “maybe it doesn’t clear the tower “. The lack of mitigation for that launch borderlines on criminal negligence, given the acceptable failure rate of SpaceX and the energy involved.

But outside that, their development model involves building things and destroying them about as quickly, and it has already yielded the cheapest to orbit prices on a rocket second only to Saturn V and whatever the Russian Burran platform was. It is hard to argue that even their dramatic failures in terms of RUD are not progress.
 
abheiden said:
Before they master the refuelling in orbit with many flights in a couple of weeks and put a man on the moon it will be 2030+
2025 or 2026 is absurd
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Characterizing Starship as the long pole in the tent provides cover for the slow development of other necessary elements for successful moon missions. EVA spacesuits, for instance.
 
abheiden said:
Before they master the refuelling in orbit with many flights in a couple of weeks and put a man on the moon it will be 2030+
2025 or 2026 is absurd
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One wonders if they'll be launching out of both BC and the Cape to meet the requirement. That would be awesome.
 
Archibald said:
Onto IFT-3, probably early 2024.
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In regards to when IFT-3 will fly TheSpaceBucket has just put out a video concerning that issue:


Between the first full Starship flight back in April, and the second test just days ago, it took SpaceX around 7 months of time to prepare. This included a host of testing, pad repairs, infrastructure updates, and of course FAA approval. In reality, this was a decent bit longer than the company had hoped as hardware was ready to launch long before the second flight was approved.
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With the completion of IFT-2, the question now becomes how long before SpaceX can be back on the pad and ready for a third flight. Recent comments from the company suggest that hardware could be ready to launch in around 1 month. However, that doesn't include very important factors like approval and any possible roadblocks. Here I will go more in-depth into Starship's next launch, what the company needs to complete, possible complications, and more.
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Byeman said:
Boeing hasn't collected on the largest milestone.
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Sure, there's still never been a crewed flight, but look at all the triangles!

960px-CST-100_pressure_vessel.jpg
 
sferrin said:
One wonders if they'll be launching out of both BC and the Cape to meet the requirement. That would be awesome.
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nah its time to tell the FAA (and those pesky voters in Florida) to kick rocks and launch from texas and land in KSC

if i were the richest man in the world, i'd simply use my money to tell the FAA to kiss my ass,
instead of running a social media website into the ground by posting shit memes and stupid antisemitic crap,
 
Byeman said:
BTW, did anybody see the interstage collapse? Looked ok to me but I heard there wasn't enough Xs in it.
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Was Starship launched with its maximum mass of 1450 mt? We don't know but probably not.

Was the vented interstage undamaged after stage separation? We don't know because it was not recovered.

Can the same vented interstage withstand 10 or more launches? We won't know for several years.

Conclusion: we still know nothing.
 
zevets said:
nah its time to tell the FAA (and those pesky voters in Florida) to kick rocks and launch from texas and land in KSC

if i were the richest man in the world, i'd simply use my money to tell the FAA to kiss my ass,
instead of running a social media website into the ground by posting shit memes and stupid antisemitic crap,
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tears-sadness.gif
 
Dagger said:
1. Was Starship launched with its maximum mass of 1450 mt? We don't know but probably not.

2. Was the vented interstage undamaged after stage separation? We don't know because it was not recovered.

3. Can the same vented interstage withstand 10 or more launches? We won't know for several years.
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1. Yes, it was fully fueled. Payload mass is a small fraction
2. Not relevant, it didn't collapse during ascent
3. Again, not relevant. You are backpedalling and changing the goalposts. Reuse was never part of the discussion. You were worried about this flight and not reuse.

Here are your words:

"SpaceX should use the delay to remove the vented interstage from Booster 9 and prepare booster and Starship for a launch without hot staging. First priority should be to get Starship into orbit and back. In the months until then they can make a new and better design for a vented interstage with sufficient diagonal bracing"

I don't expect many parts to be the same on the "final" reusable version of the Starship. That is what the test flights are for. Falcon 9 went through iterations before the design for reuse (the design for expendable was good early on) settled down. Hot staging for Starship could even go away. As far as the interstage, nobody was stating that was sufficient for reuse, only that it could handle launch.

You just have a problem with SpaceX and it is not based on engineering practices.
 
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Byeman said:
3. Again, not relevant. You are backpedalling and changing the goalposts. Reuse was never part of the discussion. You were worried about this flight and not reuse.
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I was always commenting on the design of the vented interstage, not just on this particular flight.
The present design is an amateuristic monstrosity consisting of some 300 pieces of metal held together by some 9000 spot welds (that's excluding the heat shield). Would be unsafe to put humans on top of that. I expect that soon they will come with a better interstage design similar to what Russia and China are using. Finally common sense will prevail.

The Heavy Booster, Starship and vented interstage are supposed to be reusable, according to SpaceX.
You are the one that is backpedalling by suggesting now that they are presently only designed strong enough for a single trial and the real designs are still to be made.
 
It's in a state of flux... Starship will iterate faster than Darwin's Finches.

Parallel staging would not need flips or a vented ring---the aerodynamics takes a hit though.

Worth it to prevent slosh?
 
publiusr said:
It's in a state of flux... Starship will iterate faster than Darwin's Finches.

Parallel staging would not need flips or a vented ring---the aerodynamics takes a hit though.

Worth it to prevent slosh?
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Not remotely. Far easier to solve any slosh problem than to do a complete redesign.
 
publiusr said:
It's in a state of flux... Starship will iterate faster than Darwin's Finches.

Parallel staging would not need flips or a vented ring---the aerodynamics takes a hit though.

Worth it to prevent slosh?
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Parallel design would still require flips. And it doesn't get rid of slosh.
Nobody designs parallel staging from scratch (except shuttles)
Others were existing cores or a stab at the common core concept. Both are basically out dated.
Same with side mount.
 
Dagger said:
I was always commenting on the design of the vented interstage, not just on this particular flight.
The present design is an amateuristic monstrosity consisting of some 300 pieces of metal held together by some 9000 spot welds (that's excluding the heat shield). Would be unsafe to put humans on top of that.
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You have no credentials to make such claims. It was load tested and passed. And it passed the flight test.
Dagger said:
The Heavy Booster, Starship and vented interstage are supposed to be reusable, according to SpaceX.
You are the one that is backpedalling by suggesting now that they are presently only designed strong enough for a single trial and the real designs are still to be made.
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I am not doing any back pedaling and made no such claims. . These are test flights of the Starship concept. None of the pieces were going to be recovered. This was a flight was test of the hot staging concept. The first flight used a different method. The interstage was actually going to be jettisioned. The Falcon 9 was not recovered until the 20th flight. It is a given that the design is going to change after every test flight and once they complete the whole flight and then start landing tests, the design will iterate until they have successful recoveries. Once they have successful recoveries, they will work on reuse.
Objective priority is first get through ascent, then recovery and followed by reuse.

And you are backpedaling again. You claimed that the "design" on this particular interstage was so bad that somebody should contact Elon and SpaceX.

Just don't bother posting about this subject, since you don't have the insight or knowledge (and including experience in this field) to back up your claims.
 
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Four Starships for testing Michel Van? That is quick going so soon after the last test. I am surprised that they are planning to do a test or tests for the holiday season, I would have thought that there would be no tests during that period.
 
They won’t retest until they have established what went wrong and mitigated it. But they have a lot of hardware already on hand for testing. I suspect the pace picks up a lot next year.
 
FighterJock said:
Four Starships for testing Michel Van? That is quick going so soon after the last test. I am surprised that they are planning to do a test or tests for the holiday season, I would have thought that there would be no tests during that period.
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Perhaps four Starships are bc they are working on production techniques in parallel with design validation. Remember the mass they believe is required to send to Mars.

Do we know what version of engines were used on this last flight?
 
NeilChapman said:
Perhaps four Starships are bc they are working on production techniques in parallel with design validation. Remember the mass they believe is required to send to Mars.

Do we know what version of engines were used on this last flight?
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Version 2, 3 is in development. Not all the Starships will fly, 26 seems to be out to pasture and 28 may be the next to be stacked.
 

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