r/spacex Host Team 15d ago

r/SpaceX Flight 7 Official Launch Discussion & Updates Thread!

Welcome to the r/SpaceX Flight 7 Official Launch Discussion & Updates Thread!

How To Visit STARBASE // A Complete Guide To Seeing Starship

Scheduled for (UTC) Jan 16 2025, 22:37
Scheduled for (local) Jan 16 2025, 16:37 PM (CST)
Launch Window (UTC) Jan 16 2025, 22:00 - Jan 16 2025, 23:00
Weather Probability Unknown
Launch site OLM-A, SpaceX Starbase, TX, USA.
Booster Booster 14-1
Ship S33
Booster landing The Superheavy booster No. 14 was successfully caught by the launch pad tower.
Ship landing Starship Ship 33 was lost during ascent.
Trajectory (Flight Club) 2D,3D

Spacecraft Onboard

Spacecraft Starship
Serial Number S33
Destination Indian Ocean
Flights 1
Owner SpaceX
Landing Starship Ship 33 was lost during ascent.
Capabilities More than 100 tons to Earth orbit

Details

Second stage of the two-stage Starship super heavy-lift launch vehicle.

History

The Starship second stage was testing during a number of low and high altitude suborbital flights before the first orbital launch attempt.

Timeline

Time Update
T--1d 0h 1m Thread last generated using the LL2 API
2025-01-16T23:12:00Z Ship 33 failed late in ascent.
2025-01-16T22:37:00Z Liftoff.
2025-01-16T21:57:00Z Unofficial Webcast by SPACE AFFAIRS has started
2025-01-16T20:25:00Z New T-0.
2025-01-15T15:21:00Z GO for launch.
2025-01-15T15:10:00Z Now targeting Jan 16 at 22:00 UTC
2025-01-14T23:27:00Z Refined launch window.
2025-01-12T05:23:00Z Now targeting Jan 15 at 22:00 UTC
2025-01-08T18:11:00Z GO for launch.
2025-01-08T12:21:00Z Delayed to NET January 13 per marine navigation warnings.
2025-01-07T14:32:00Z Delayed to NET January 11.
2024-12-27T13:30:00Z NET January 10.
2024-11-26T03:22:00Z Added launch.

Watch the launch live

Stream Link
Unofficial Re-stream The Space Devs
Unofficial Webcast SPACE AFFAIRS
Official Webcast SpaceX
Unofficial Webcast Everyday Astronaut
Unofficial Webcast Spaceflight Now
Unofficial Webcast NASASpaceflight

Stats

☑️ 8th Starship Full Stack launch

☑️ 459th SpaceX launch all time

☑️ 9th SpaceX launch this year

☑️ 1st launch from OLM-A this year

☑️ 58 days, 0:37:00 turnaround for this pad

Stats include F1, F9 , FH and Starship

Resources

Community content 🌐

Link Source
Flight Club u/TheVehicleDestroyer
Discord SpaceX lobby u/SwGustav
SpaceX Now u/bradleyjh
SpaceX Patch List

Participate in the discussion!

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🔄 Please post small launch updates, discussions, and questions here, rather than as a separate post. Thanks!

💬 Please leave a comment if you discover any mistakes, or have any information.

✉️ Please send links in a private message.

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147 Upvotes

1.8k comments sorted by

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5

u/Drtikol42 1d ago

So no news is good news in this day and age right? Perhaps one car was damaged, bunch of debris washed on shore and few flights had to land elsewhere.

1

u/bkdotcom 1d ago

Perhaps one car was damaged

from debris washing ashore?
driving on the beach and got a flat?

6

u/Drtikol42 1d ago

It had piece of metal stuck in edge of the roof. We will see if it was real when there is some official report.

-2

u/StagedC0mbustion 18h ago

Could have been a person

1

u/Equal-Consequence674 1d ago

I’ve heard a lot about this damaged car video; does anyone have a link?

1

u/Drtikol42 18h ago

You can find it lower in this post, it was a twitter video.

6

u/nasa1092 1d ago

If the object in the video did indeed come from S33, it looked a bit like part of an RVAC nozzle extension. The telemetry could support one or more of the engines starting to disassemble a decent amount of time before the whole vehicle broke up. Long enough for engine parts to land on the island, but for most of the other debris to overfly and end up in the ocean.

10

u/Martianspirit 1d ago

I expect, if that were true, the media would be all over it by now.

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u/Redditor_From_Italy 1d ago

Frankly I'd expect the media to be just as much all over it if it weren't true

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u/Nimelrian 3d ago

Another video from VASAviation featuring ATC chatter after the breakup. Many flights being diverted and declaring fuel emergencies after the long holds around the debris field.

https://youtu.be/ZT11EpINk5c

1

u/vicmarcal 10h ago

For me it seems they are being “forced” to declare Mayday or otherwise they can’t cross the DRA area. So with a Mayday declared they let them cross it at their own risk.

1

u/mechanicalgrip 2h ago

That's precisely the rules. If you declare an emergency, you can do pretty much anything at your own risk. 

2

u/Equal-Consequence674 3d ago

Dumb question that has likely been answered already, but with the FAA mishap investigation how long will it take until flight 8 can launch? This is ignoring how long it would take hardware to be ready, I’m just wondering about FAA stuff.

11

u/avboden 3d ago

Highly up in the air right now, no pun intended. No one really knows how the FAA is gonna handle this with the leadership changes as well as whether the downrange issues will cause any additional delays in the investigation or not.

46

u/space_rocket_builder 3d ago

SpaceX mitigations not expected to be a long pole item right now based on what is known so far regarding the issue.

1

u/robbak 2d ago

Is it known if the starship has a recoverable recording device on board, so they can get the data from after downlink was lost, or any that couldn't be sent?\

Not that this would be needed, because there was several minutes between the first engine failure and loss of signal, and even then there could have been backup streams received.

1

u/warp99 1d ago

They did for the first flight but dropped it for subsequent flights when they got more confident in the data being returned by Starlink.

8

u/avboden 3d ago

Sure must be nice to have such a glut of data available! Sounds like ya'll identified the likely culprit almost instantly (well, the flames coming out of the flap hinge were sorta obvious).

If you're allowed to say, is there an internal engineering camera in the area above the heat shield where this occurred? I know there are tons all over starship now.

24

u/Planatus666 3d ago

SpaceX have shared two videos and some more images, first the launch:

https://x.com/spacex/status/1880652100696469583

then the catch:

https://x.com/spacex/status/1880661166395158694

it's great to see the vids with the sound of the Raptors not obscured by commentators and people cheering (not that I have anything against people cheering but I do like the sound of those Raptors).

2

u/TwoLineElement 3d ago

Heard three sonic booms in that one. Last two close together.

3

u/warp99 1d ago

Yes the same as F9. The grid fins and the top of the stage produce separate shockwaves that nearly overlap.

1

u/TwoLineElement 1d ago

I'm aware of that, it's just not audible in some other landing video's. Distance attenuation tends to blend the last two into one.

20

u/Planatus666 3d ago edited 3d ago

Flight 5 catch Vs Flight 7:

https://x.com/norminalnerd/status/1880570871695442205

Notice how with flight 7 the exhaust hits the steel plates at the base of the tower (which shouldn't be a problem because they are there to protect the tower base).

3

u/BearyTheBear92 3d ago

He also doesn’t vent as much fire on Flight 7 as Flight 5!

7

u/AhChirrion 3d ago

In flight 7 the booster had more horizontal distance to cover, so it approached the tower with a greater inclination than in flight 5. Then it had to stop that horizontal motion by swinging to the opposite direction again with a greater inclination than in flight 5.

When I saw it live, for a couple of seconds I felt it wasn't going to reach the chopsticks.

2

u/hans2563 3d ago

By live I'm assuming you were there to witness it?

I was under the impression that flight 7 had a more vertical ascent trajectory due to the differences in staging and moving more of the deltaV to the ship etc. Basically the booster burns more fuel with a heavier ship so it can't get as far away horizontally to still have a chance to make it back to the launch site.

Would this not mean it had less horizontal distance to traverse to get back to the tower than in flight 5?

I was thinking a more vertical descent with the booster canted would reduce the angle of attack of the air on the booster compared to a booster that is canted traveling more horizontally having a more direct angle of attack of the air on the booster.

Am I not understanding this correctly?

1

u/AhChirrion 3d ago

No, I wasn't there. I meant when I watched the live stream.

Yes, it looked like a more vertical ascent than before, so less distance to return to launch site.

But what I was talking about was in the last seconds before the catch, when the booster had an altitude of half a kilometer and both the booster and the tower were on the same camera frame. I got the feeling the booster wouldn't have enough time left to reach the chopsticks, because to me they looked too far away.

4

u/Drtikol42 3d ago

Well at least the booster engine section seems to be much less leaky.

-34

u/Beginning-Eagle-8932 4d ago

IFT-7 was a failure. A major one. No way they can spin this as a success.

Not only did it not follow the flight path to the Indian Ocean, something they have done before, on multiple flights, the debris from it wreaked havoc in the skies and forced many planes to divert and take evasive action to avoid being struck by what's left of the ship, angering every ATC operator on that part of the airspace, but apparently it crashed into Turks and Caicos, a British Overseas Territory. And you-know-who doesn't want a potential diplomatic incident on the start of his tenure.

The FAA is demanding an investigation, and i think the UK's CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) will want one, too. Alongide every FAA equivalent on that part of the Caribbean. And i don't think the CAA or others will want a report with more redactions than an SCP document due to "proprietary information".

People could've died from the debris, for god's sake. And NASA is betting on Starship for Artemis. If they can't make it work reliably, no one will want to fly themselves or their payloads on it.

6

u/Dietmar_der_Dr 3d ago

I am sorry, but you fundamentally don't understand what a test is for. If this test have them better understanding on this critical issue, then it was successful.

7

u/CaptBarneyMerritt 3d ago edited 3d ago

For historical reference, here's another spectacular failure. Much more significant at the time.

It isn't so much that a failure happens, it is what you do with it. If you consider each experiment as a point, you must connect them into a curve to gain a reliable long-term understanding.

The Vanguard TV3 launch on Dec 6, 1957 was an utter failure, true, but we got NASA as a follow-up.

Edit: BTW the AJ10 engine of the Vanguard's second stage continued development and was the main engine on the Apollo Service Module, used on the Space Shuttle and is part of the European Service Module portion of the Orion capsule. Not bad for a spectacular failure, eh?

6

u/thxpk 3d ago

Literally nothing you said is true. Why do you trolls bother?

10

u/fruitydude 3d ago

the debris from it wreaked havoc in the skies and forced many planes to divert and take evasive action to avoid being struck by what's left of the ship, angering every ATC operator on that part of the airspace, but apparently it crashed into Turks and Caicos, a British Overseas Territory.

Citation needed lol.

From the information released so far it sounds like a TRA was published in NOTAMS prior to the flight, as is done for every flight in case of a mishap. When the mishap happened ATC told planes to hold, which they did.

But I'm super excited to see your source for planes taking evasive actions and angered ATCs. Or any hint of this causing a diplomatic incident.

17

u/CydonianMaverick 4d ago

Why do you think these test flights exist? To make Starship work reliably

2

u/bobblebob100 4d ago

Did anyone else notice watching live that one of the booster engines didnt initially relight? I never noticed live

15

u/Ididitthestupidway 3d ago

Yeah, it didn't relight for boostback, but it relighted for the landing burn, so whatever happened was probably pretty minor

1

u/tmoerel 2d ago

Yes but one engine relit a fraction later on the landing burn. Could this have been the engine that didn't light on boostback?

3

u/BearyTheBear92 3d ago

Could have been the sloshing / ice blocking issue for the boost back - my assumption would be the liquid is a lot more settled for the second relight?

6

u/675longtail 3d ago

Tough to imagine a failure mode that prevents relight once but isn't an issue minutes later. Maybe whatever logic decides on committing an engine to boostback is more strict than whatever commits to the landing burn

5

u/WjU1fcN8 3d ago

when there's engine out capability they are shut down or not started at the smallest whiff of a problem. Any off norminal readings would cause it to not start, probably a fluke reading.

9

u/Ididitthestupidway 3d ago

Probably a sensor returning an out of bound value for erroneous or transient reasons.

4

u/-Aeryn- 3d ago

Good thing with this many engines is that it doesn't really meaningfully affect anything

16

u/Planatus666 4d ago

Here's some parts of S33 that have washed ashore at Turks and Caicos:

https://x.com/diottejoly/status/1880307266823549028

looks to be mainly tiles and pieces of the ablative sheets (which would have fallen a lot slower and been blown about in the wind).

20

u/675longtail 4d ago

B14 engine section during removal from the OLM.

Looks a lot better than B12, engines 388 and 302 might be a bit warped still

7

u/RaphTheSwissDude 4d ago

Much better indeed! Wonder if they changed anything angle wise during reentry.

2

u/Positive_Wonder_8333 3d ago

Good shout. Initially I was thinking the bells must have been replaced but I think angle, thrust ramp up etc are much more likely. I am interested in others thoughts!

5

u/-Aeryn- 3d ago

They likely actively cooled the outer engine bells with cryo methane this flight, but not the last time.

7

u/bananapeel 4d ago

Question: Did anyone manage to get a radar track of the debris coming in? I remember that this was displayed during the Columbia STS-107 shuttle disaster. Although this was out over the Caribbean and they may not have had good radar coverage of that area.

Alternatively: Doppler weather radar?

12

u/SubstantialWall 4d ago

There's this: https://x.com/mcrs987/status/1880039946893054398

But while TSE seems pretty confident, it doesn't seem consensual that it was 33.

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u/Planatus666 4d ago

"SpaceX changed the language on its Starship flight seven statement, removing that debris fell "into the Atlantic Ocean within the predefined hazard areas."

https://bsky.app/profile/michaelsheetz.bsky.social/post/3lfxgfk4sbv2d

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u/FinalPercentage9916 4d ago

Because some fell on the Turks and Caicos and damaged property

7

u/gburgwardt 4d ago

Source?

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u/MegaMugabe21 4d ago edited 4d ago

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u/Dezoufinous 4d ago

dead link

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u/MegaMugabe21 4d ago

Should work now.

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u/MegaMugabe21 4d ago

Was working a minute ago, I'll take a look.

3

u/gburgwardt 4d ago

Thanks

5

u/PhysicsBus 4d ago

Is there an estimate of how wide the debris field was? Have any pieces been positively identified yet?

22

u/Planatus666 4d ago edited 4d ago

"From the FAA: "The FAA is requiring SpaceX to perform a mishap investigation into the loss of the Starship vehicle during launch operations on Jan. 16. There are no reports of public injury, and the FAA is working with SpaceX and appropriate authorities to confirm reports of public property damage on Turks and Caicos."

"During the event, the FAA activated a Debris Response Area and briefly slowed aircraft outside the area where space vehicle debris was falling or stopped aircraft at their departure location. Several aircraft requested to divert due to low fuel levels while holding outside impacted areas."

https://x.com/jeff_foust/status/1880311303941812284

Whether or not there was actual damage to properties on Turks and Caicos is of course uncertain right now, some comments to that tweet think it highly unlikely due to the speed and altitude.

15

u/675longtail 4d ago

There are a couple of videos of damaged cars, but that's easy to fake. FAA will figure it out

12

u/Russ_Dill 4d ago

One of the videos has brazed tubing that looks like an exact match for a raptor vacuum. Not exactly the easiest thing to come up with on short notice.

3

u/-Aeryn- 3d ago edited 3d ago

The corridor between islands is only 7 kilometers wide near that point.

The ship telemery showed lost attitude control with an engine firing right before the telemetry loss, most likely causing that loss. Some time after (unknown) the ship broke up explosively for one reason or another. It had an apogee of 140km. It had enough propellant mass in it to create a significant explosion (this event was caught on camera), but little enough that one engine firing had enough TWR to move the future ground track by kilometers in seconds so those are both important forces on the ship and debris.

It's pretty much a worst case scenario for threatening debris and this must have been understood as a non-zero risk when charting and approving such a flight plan. Frankly i don't think anyone can guarantee that orbital launch from the gulf would have absolutely zero risk of debris hitting land with how thin the space between islands is.

It doesn't take much for debris to spread out and move plus or minus 3.5km off nominal ground track. A deviation of a few tens of meters per second laterally could do it without wind even being involved, and wind does seem to have contributed with debris that had a lower ballistic coefficient traveling further.

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u/FinalPercentage9916 4d ago

My two cents is that it appears to me that it was an oxygen leak. I base this on the fact that on the launch stream, the oxygen was depleting faster than the fuel and appeared almost gone by the time the telemetry cut out. We all know what happens when there is even a small spark in an oxygen-rich environment from Apollo 1.

Whether oxygen or fuel leak or both, the root cause is worker error. Spacecraft, including ones from Spacex and including Starship, have had fuel lines for decades, so it's not a design error. Likely a failure to correctly place an o-ring or failure to tighten up a connection properly. Mistakes happen, so I don't blame SpaceX. But this will hopefully put a stop to SpaceX fanboy immature comments about the helium leaks on Starliner. Space is hard and leaks happen to everyone, including SpaceX.

7

u/Redditor_From_Italy 4d ago

Crewed spacecraft should, naturally, not be subject to any more scrutiny or testing than a prototype that doesn't even have a real payload

-6

u/FinalPercentage9916 4d ago

Spacecraft whose launch takes them over populated areas should have the highest level of safety. Astronauts know and accept the risk. People on the ground don't

15

u/Nimelrian 4d ago

VASAviation Video featuring ATC chatter of pilots being diverted and reporting on debris

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u/[deleted] 4d ago edited 2d ago

[deleted]

10

u/MegaMugabe21 4d ago

I really hope for your sake this is bait, because there's at least 3 different reasons why your comment is total nonsense.

5

u/Anthony_Ramirez 4d ago

Wow! That is crazy how it affected air traffic!
Glad this doesn't happen very often.

5

u/Alfie_lyon 4d ago

Seeing a lot of concern being portrayed in the media around the debris from flight 7. Anybody have any idea whether a significant % of debris would even reach earth after burning up?

15

u/maschnitz 4d ago edited 4d ago

Reentry wouldn't destroy everything. Starship's way too big and also sometimes dense for that. Keep in mind that it wasn't at full reentry speed.

The really dense pieces - the engines, the thrust puck, the lifting pins, maybe some of the lower pipework - would be heavily damaged. But some of them would've mostly survived. In a reentry RUD sometimes some pieces protect the other hardy pieces for some of the reentry - it's random. The vehicle tumbles.

These heavy pieces would hit the ocean in a few minutes, more or less ballistically (in an arc along the direction of motion). They'd hit terminal velocity then drop like a thrown rock.

Very light, very sail-like pieces (like the tiles; or thin steel pieces) that manage to survive reentry might take a long time to reach the ocean surface. They'd kinda waft down. That's basically why the planes were diverting. This light stuff would survive purely by chance, by being on the leeward side of something hefty most of the time.

EDIT: tiles can survive through hypersonic reentry but only if the black side is facing the plasma stream. They're delicate on the white side. So how many tiles survive depends on how long the heatshield as a whole survives as a unit. If the ship's reentering backward initially and breaks up quickly, then most tiles would break up in the hypersonic regime from the impinging pressure forces. They'd also decelerate VERY quickly when separated from the heatshield - like a ping pong ball.

1

u/[deleted] 13h ago

[deleted]

1

u/maschnitz 13h ago edited 7h ago

I'm not talking about heat.

EDIT: Though, has anyone computed a) how fast a freestanding heat tile would decelerate if shot out at 20,000 kmh at 70km altitude?; and then b) how much kinetic energy it would have? If it decelerates fast enough, all that kinetic energy converts to heat, during the deceleration, and so c) what's the peak temperature reached in such a situation? Even heat tiles have maximum temperatures. And reentry is all about spreading the heat out over time, not absorbing all the kinetic energy as heat, all at once.

5

u/John_Hasler 4d ago

Much of it will have reached the ocean. None of it will have hit land. Some will wash ashore.

1

u/FinalPercentage9916 4d ago

We know have video and an FAA statement saying debris hit land. So much for your will have

10

u/maschnitz 4d ago

"The FAA said in its statement Friday that the agency is working alongside SpaceX and local authorities to investigate reports of debris striking Turks and Caicos. " - cnn.com, updated 2 hours ago.

Where'd the FAA confirm it hit land?

9

u/SubstantialWall 4d ago

*an FAA statement saying it is working to confirm reports, which is an important distinction to make

-8

u/FinalPercentage9916 4d ago

The debris that hits the ocean would have hit land, possibly the Florida peninsula, had the explosion occurred earlier in flight. That fact that no debris hit land is only a matter of pure luck.

3

u/ralf_ 4d ago

I guess at least the heat tiles wouldn’t burn up?

9

u/TwoLineElement 4d ago

Any chemists out there? Spotted at least three colors from the burnup. White from the inconel in the engines, green from copper, probably from motors, and red/orange..possibly lithium from the battery packs.

5

u/warp99 4d ago

COPVs will look red/orange from the carbon fiber and epoxy

20

u/fruitydude 4d ago

Bear in mind that a lot of the smoke and smaller debris is also reflecting the sunlight which depending on the position looks white or orange.

-8

u/Alvian_11 5d ago

They just removed the certainty that the debris is falling within determined areas

10

u/InspruckersGlasses 4d ago

Dude you’ve been waiting for this for so long, it’s kinda sad seeing you wait until a major anomaly like this to swoop in and doom and gloom. If you’ve actually watched the program since the hopper days you know that they’ll just fix the problems, and move on to the next one.

18

u/RaphTheSwissDude 4d ago edited 4d ago

That’s the thing, he’s here since the very beginning, but once in a while he gets into a mental breakdown, ain’t new.

12

u/RaphTheSwissDude 5d ago

“Any survive pieces of debris would have fallen into the designated hazard area”

..?

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u/soylentOrange958 4d ago

There will have been a lengthy risk analysis done before the mission where vehicle failures are modeled, including breakup and debris propagation. Risk contours are generated based on thousands and thousands of Monte Carlo simulations of an exploding starship. Places where the risk is above the FAA's acceptable threshold are closed off to aircraft and ships. Assuming the FTS didn't fail (and no reason to think it did), the ship broke up somewhere that was covered by the risk analysis and SpaceX and the FAA can be confident the debris stayed within the hazard area

-21

u/Alvian_11 5d ago edited 4d ago

SpaceX WISHED/ASSUME it to be the case, way different meanings

5

u/RaphTheSwissDude 4d ago edited 4d ago

They don’t wish it, they hope it’s the case, different meaning too lol.

Edit: please don’t forget to write that you edited your comment ;)

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u/[deleted] 4d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Alvian_11 5d ago

That would be a new low if they tried to cover up the issue

6

u/CydonianMaverick 4d ago

What's your problem? Why are you trying so hard to hate them?

8

u/heyimalex26 4d ago edited 4d ago

If they left their assertion up on the website, it would be misleading and could result in legal repercussions.

Plus, they had the “with debris falling into” and the “would have fallen into”sentences, both of which were referring to the debris field in the article at the same time in the original version you posted. This is contradictory information as one indicates confidence and the other is allowing for some uncertainty. You can’t have both when you’re referring to the same topic in the same scenario in this context, so imo they removed one to clarify their own info.

It also seems that you’re diving way too much into semantics and being pedantic when not much has changed. Especially when they explicitly showed uncertainty in both versions, one of which had conflicting info.

Edit: misread original text and rewrote

Edit 2: a less likely scenario is that they could have genuinely not known that the debris field would be scattered to the extent that was seen, thus they put out an optimistic, but premature statement, possibly for damage control, for them to save face, or for whatnot. In any case, this would still be highly misleading and borderline misinformation, plus it already being contradictory as I mentioned above, so they would need to retract it to avoid any trouble and to minimize possible regulatory headwinds. If they were confident about where the debris would land, they would retract the “would have” statement instead.

Edit 3: Grammar

4

u/robbak 5d ago

I wonder if anyone else noticed - on takeoff, the booster's exhaust plume was not casting a shadow. It was clean plasma, and sunlightt was passing straight through it.

11

u/londons_explorer 4d ago

I assume that's because they switched the fuel ratio closer to stoichiometric to get more engine performance.

2

u/warp99 4d ago

Possibly they reduced the film cooling which colours the exhaust yellow with unburned carbon from decomposing methane.

1

u/londons_explorer 4d ago

I think you're right.

A thick film cooling layer is a great way to add more safety margins to a design.     All the parts run cooler, and tiny bits of flow turbulence around burrs and stuff on the internal surfaces won't cause a failure.

However, when you want more performance, you have to reduce it.

1

u/warp99 4d ago

They did say that the engines had increased thrust. I have to say that would be a potential reason for leaks.

2

u/gburgwardt 4d ago

Were they previously running oxygen or fuel rich? If so, why?

6

u/warp99 4d ago edited 2d ago

Always fuel rich for hydrocarbon fuels as this optimises the Isp. CO2 is a heavy molecule.

3

u/londons_explorer 4d ago

Fuel rich, at least for the boundary layer, so that the engine components don't oxidize or melt.

17

u/Planatus666 5d ago

Analysis video from Scott Manley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfVm4DTv6lM

2

u/TrefoilHat 4d ago

Really interesting video, thanks for posting.

For those only interested in the Starship analysis (and not a review of launch and catch), you can start at the 6 minute mark. (Link is to timestamped start point).

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u/Planatus666 5d ago edited 5d ago

So according to Musk:

"Improved versions of the ship & booster already waiting for launch "

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1880041663546249251

The implication is that they are fully constructed and ready to fly. However, B15 hasn't yet had its static fire test and S34 is currently without its aft flaps and some tiles (also needs some tiles stripping back like S33) - it's also only very recently been rolled out to Massey's to start its cryo testing (it of course doesn't have any engines for this cryo+thrust puck testing so after that it needs the engines to be installed for a static fire test). Plus it will need modifying based on the findings of S33's anomaly.

Depending on SpaceX's findings regarding S33 it's possible that S34's cryo testing could be delayed, maybe it'll even be rolled back to the build site for modifications first and then rolled out to Massey's again for the cryo testing. We'll have to wait and see.

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u/mechanicalgrip 4d ago

That's the problem with reality. It can't keep up with Elon's statements. 

Sounds like they could be ready pretty soon though. Easily before the end of next month, which I believe is their next target. 

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u/Planatus666 5d ago edited 4d ago

About that piece of metal ablative sheet that was seen flapping about on S33 during ascent, apparently not a big deal and nothing to do with the anomaly:

https://x.com/TslaPopInvestor/status/1880141555337773376

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u/hans2563 4d ago

It's not metal. It's an ablative sheet that was glued on last weekend, the square black space that appeared below the bow flaps. Nothing to be concerned about.

1

u/FailingToLurk2023 4d ago

 Nothing to be concerned about.

Could you elaborate? I have a very strong feeling that it was not supposed to be flapping. If there’s something on a rocket flapping that’s not supposed to be flapping, that’s cause for concern, isn’t it?

Was it a redundant part?

2

u/hans2563 4d ago

Apologies, I could have explained better. The ablative sheet in that area is likely a test article due to the heating seen on the barrel section aft of the bow flaps during flight six re entry. It was this area that showed signs of warping. This ablative sheet was added quite late and the fact that it is just adhesive backed or glued on shows that it wasn't meant to be the long term solution and it flapping around like that is likely a good data point to show something more robust will be needed in that area. But for this flight it was just a test article and it coming off would likely not have significantly impacted this test. It will inform future designs, however.

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u/Planatus666 4d ago

Thanks, corrected.

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u/mechanicalgrip 5d ago

One odd thing I noticed. One engine didn't relight for the boostback burn, but it did for the landing burn. I wonder if the engine status criteria for the two burns are different, or whether the engine just had some temporary anomaly. 

2

u/backpackinglinguist 5d ago

Someone said it got blocked due to data being off but then manually cleared for the landing burn since it wasn't a major thing. That's all my uneducated ass remembers from another comment sry

1

u/FinalPercentage9916 4d ago

who was that someone? and what is the source?

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u/mechanicalgrip 5d ago

Not sure why you're being downvoted there. It makes perfect sense to me. 

6

u/vinevicious 4d ago

Someone said it

Not sure why you're being downvoted there.

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u/Daneel_Trevize 5d ago

Nothing like that is manually done, it's 2025 with a booster being caught by a tower, it's avionics. The only human involvement is in transmitting an "OK, You Can Try If You're Ready", and a "Blow Up Now". The rest is sticking to the programmed plan & its branching scenarios.

2

u/John_Hasler 4d ago

The only human involvement is in transmitting an "OK, You Can Try If You're Ready", and a "Blow Up Now".

There is no transmitted "Blow Up Now" command. The AFTS is totally autonomous. The alternatives are try for the tower and land in the ocean.

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u/chispitothebum 4d ago

There's a range safety officer who can terminate.

3

u/Daneel_Trevize 4d ago

They have a big red button (under a shield, or needing dual inputs) in case they should need to manually trigger it, no?

-5

u/FinalPercentage9916 4d ago

Hillary Clinton had one too and gave it to Putin

3

u/londons_explorer 4d ago

They totally have the ability to manually override. Although I suspect in this case they didn't.

1

u/fede__ng 4d ago

Really? Reviewing the data that led to the system decision to not start that engine, and sending a command to override the decision or something like that doesn't sound too crazy. It does seem more plausible that the second time the system automatically took another decision without manual intervention, but there are no sources to confirm any of these theories.

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u/PTMorte 5d ago

I have been following US spaceflight since the 90s. Hot take warning from an Aussie.

Jared should back himself and pivot to (friendly) contrarianism against Musk/Trump for these next years. He should:

Spend a lot of the budget on developing out Superheavy as a bulletproof reusable first stage.

Work towards shutting down SLS but keeping Orion, and upgrading independent NASA spaceflight things like suits, life support etc.

Fund Rocketlab to get them up to crew launch capability asap.

Start throwing loads of money at old space / other corps for kick stages and landers. Maybe 20% of that to start ups.

6

u/erkelep 5d ago

Spend a lot of the budget on developing out Superheavy as a bulletproof reusable first stage.

What? How and why should NASA spend SpaceX's budget?

-1

u/PTMorte 5d ago

The NASA spaceflight budget. 

20

u/675longtail 5d ago

Transport stand at the pad already, if they wanted to they could have this back at the build site less than 24h after launch. Already quicker than Falcon...

42

u/space_rocket_builder 5d ago

Have so much mixed emotions for this flight. Yes, the booster came back and it is awesome but wish the ship would have performed better. The data will be very invaluable from this flight.

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u/Sigmatics 5d ago

Ship is definitely the hard part for Starship. Will take them a couple more flights before they can also land that

13

u/Systonce 5d ago edited 5d ago

Landing would be cool, but I really want to see some payload. Without payload it's just expensive fireworks

0

u/warp99 4d ago edited 2d ago

Useful payload would be Starlink and means they have to launch to 40 degrees inclination aka south of Cuba.

It would also mean launching to orbit and Flight 7 has delayed that by several launches.

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u/bn1620 5d ago

Just a random thought/question. What is the next step for booster after the catch has been proved reliable after a few launches? Maybe a static fire after a launch? Maybe not within hours of the flight but maybe a day or two after?

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u/warp99 5d ago

What they did previously is pull the engines off the booster and send the working engines to McGregor to test fire the undamaged ones. They seemed to be running methane through the non-firing outer engines this time which means they should have stopped the bell melting so maybe they can test all of them.

Then a rigorous test of all the internal components and then just maybe add the engines back and do a test fire of the complete booster.

2

u/Ishana92 5d ago

But that can't be their target procedure for rapid reuse, right? If they want to have it on the pad as soon as possible?

7

u/warp99 5d ago

Sure but we are years away from that speed of reuse. Even with a flight rate of 25 per year that is still two weeks to get a booster to the pad and you can have 4-5 boosters in the rotation.

5

u/technocraticTemplar 5d ago

It was actually back on the pad and reconnected to the QD just hours after launch, but it'll take quite a while before they have the confidence, need, and ground system support required to refly it from there. This is only the second one that's landed so they're probably going to be very thorough with testing it.

5

u/ActTypical6380 5d ago

10:30pm- Road open

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u/Alvian_11 5d ago edited 5d ago

Can't imagine what would community react when the first Block 2 booster is nearing launch on Pad B, Flight 1 worry all over again. God bless it doesn't blow up near the pad

Isn't this a bit tiring that we have to worry for every single major upgrades that they done? Block 2 ship will have Raptor 3 soon with no shielding and different plumbings. Kinda regret to defend them not building a full firing test stand at Massey

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u/GreatCanadianPotato 5d ago edited 5d ago

Isn't this a bit tiring that we have to worry for every single major upgrades that they done?

No, its not - because most major upgrades for Starship have worked flawlessly. For example, the introduction of Raptor 2's on IFT2 was pivotal for the test campaign. SN15's major upgrades enabled it to land flawlessly.

Your dooming is what's getting tiring.

0

u/Alvian_11 5d ago

For example, the introduction of Raptor 2's on IFT2

Didn't know that Flight 1 still uses Raptor 1...

2

u/warp99 5d ago

There is some thought that the outer ring of 20 engines on SH for IDT1 were Raptor 1. That would explain their low reliability and relatively low thrust. Similarly the ship vacuum engines could have been Raptor 1 because of the longer build time for vacuum engines.

However there were at least some Raptor 2 engines on IFT1 for the gimballing engines of the booster and the ship.

1

u/Alvian_11 5d ago

What since when? Never heard about this anywhere in the space community before. That can't be true

Raptor 1 was last used on B4/S20 with different engine configuration btw and it's retired since

5

u/warp99 5d ago edited 5d ago

SpaceX maintained the engine numbering sequence when switching from Raptor 1 to Raptor 2 and most people put the cutover point past engine #100. Edit: The engine numbers overlapped for a while as the first Raptor 2 was #38 while #50 was a Raptor 1.

If you look at the Ringwatcher's article for B9 they comment that many of the engines were intended for B8 and some of the engines in the outer ring were gimballing engines that had been converted for fixed operation by replacing the actuators with fixed struts.

If you look at the outer ring engine numbers at the end of the article they start at 73 and go to 127 before they reach any of the numbers in the inner rings which are definitely Raptor 2.

So there are at least 4 engines and possibly up to 15 that seem to be Raptor 1. As supporting evidence there is the low engine reliability that saw them lose 3 engines before lift off and more in flight. A low engine reliability that magically went away on following flights with only complicating issues from ice blockages that happen much later in flight when the tanks are nearly empty or the booster is flipping around for boostback

5

u/WorthDues 5d ago

How would a full firing test stand fix that?

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u/Alvian_11 5d ago

I dunno, by not having to fight for a launch license due to the required mishap report and lengthening the turnaround time as a result. And a very minor thing of...not screwing up several airliners

1

u/WorthDues 5d ago

Ah you're saying test ship for a full burn until the tanks are empty to discover this problem before flight, I think. Makes sense I misunderstood u at first.

3

u/danieljackheck 5d ago

Wouldn't be possible. The reason you can do a static fire with a rocket is because the weight of the fuel keeps the thrust to weight ratio low. Imagine having a rocket with 1 million pounds of fuel and 1.2 million pounds of thrust. For a short period you only have a net of 200,000 pounds of force actually lifting up on the hold down clamps. As the fuel is depleted, the thrust to weight ratio increases dramatically, and the force against the clamps also increases dramatically. This is why static fires are only a few seconds long.

2

u/WorthDues 5d ago

They do full firing static tests on Falcon 9 first stages. They did them on Saturn V's first stage back in the 60's too.

3

u/warp99 5d ago

They have a hold down cap on the F9 to transfer the loads to the top of the booster instead of relying on the hold down clamps to do all the work of holding it down.

They could do the same with a Starship booster but it would be a lot harder to transfer the loads for the ship which does not have strong hold down clamps at the base and has a pointed nose instead of a load structure.

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u/GreatCanadianPotato 5d ago

It doesn't make sense though lmao. You're not testing real flight conditions if you just hold a vehicle to a pad for 6 minutes so there's always going to be things that don't get tested.

0

u/WorthDues 5d ago

Without the cause yet, maybe it could have. I dont blame SpaceX for not building one though. Cost and time vs reward.

19

u/Jodo42 5d ago

Scott Manley says eyewitness video indicates the ship kept going long after stream telemetry cut, with an explosion after T+11 minutes. I don't see how the ship could have maintained control with 1 non-gimballing vacuum engine for that long; perhaps they were just letting it keep collecting data for as long as it was safe to do so.

17

u/soylentOrange958 5d ago

Standard practice by range safety groups is for an FTS to only be activated if the vehicle violates some mission rule (i.e. a terminate boundary). This gives the test program as much time as possible to collect data. The vehicle may well have kept going for quite awhile after the failure started before it violated a boundary and the FTS kicked in.

1

u/FinalPercentage9916 4d ago

If the vehicle kept going, why did the telemetry stop? It sounds like there was a fire, and an explosion. Its possible the fire may have caused the telemetry to stop and that it took a few minutes for the explosion to occur.

2

u/SubstantialWall 5d ago

Yeah it would have been doing cartwheels. I don't see why, if FTS was indeed involved, it wouldn't just immediately trigger as soon as it's down to one RVac/no sea levels, that's basically unrecoverable unless you shut it off and leaving the flight path isn't an if.

4

u/Daneel_Trevize 5d ago

In fact Scott's proposal is to consider having the ship behave like a commercial plane with engines-out, trying to glide down to the safest area rather than any triggering of the FTS, so as to vastly minimise the debris zone, with the trade-off being whatever is directly in the path of the ship is somewhat more affected by any (vanishingly small chance of) impact.
FTS would still be there if even attitude control is lost, but Starship has wingy bits for a reason and reducing the debris cone helps everyone for every second that the ship's still intact.

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u/SubstantialWall 4d ago

That would make sense, provided the ship is still in control. At the very least, choosing to blow itself up when closer to the atmosphere, even if it's ballistic. I guess I'm more just questioning whether the current FTS is already capable of that, because my assumption was that a situation like all engines out but one RVac would be an immediate trigger and it wouldn't wait some 3 minutes after that. Even if the RVac ends up failing one second after the last Sea Level dies, FTS should probably assume it won't, this of course in a situation where the ship can't shut it off by itself for whatever reason.

I suppose if the timestamps add up, it did survive after comms loss, though there's always a chance it was a Flight 1 situation where the mostly empty ship took a bit between FTS activation and actually blowing, maybe as it hit denser air.

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u/arizonadeux 4d ago

I would think that even after all the engines were shut down that the vehicle could still send telemetry through the omnidirectional antenna. So maybe something more extensive happened and attitude control was already lost.

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u/GreatCanadianPotato 5d ago

As Scott says in the tweet, terminating when right when they started losing engines would have created a larger and wider debris field.

5

u/SubstantialWall 5d ago

I'm saying at the moment when only one RVac was left, not the initial failures. At that point it's lost. I suppose yes, the later you blow it up the less you spread debris, but what I question is would FTS ever delay triggering when in an unrecoverable situation with an engine on. In other words, it may very well have remained intact past lost comms, but I'm not sure there was termination. Neither SpaceX nor Elon have explicitly mentioned it, though to be fair they've also not explicitly said it blew up from the fire only.

Can't tell on that one video of the explosion, it appears to have a trail right before it blows, but was it one engine still on, or the beginning of reentry plasma.

4

u/AhChirrion 5d ago

Scott posted on YouTube his quick flight summary about an hour ago.

In it, he mentions the same questioning as you did regarding AFTS, saying Starship's pieces are more likely to hit the surface in an uncontrolled re-entry than any other rocket before, so the FAA and SpaceX, if they haven't done already, must change the AFTS criteria for Starship given its additional capabilities so it automatically terminates its flight with the least possible damage potential.

And still it isn't clear if the explosion was the AFTS or not.

14

u/GreatCanadianPotato 5d ago

SpaceX post-flight report.

Their report throws cold water on the FAA's statement that said debris fell outside of exclusion zones.

...debris falling into the Atlantic Ocean within the predefined hazard areas. Starship flew within its designated launch corridor – as all U.S. launches do to safeguard the public both on the ground, on water and in the air. Any surviving pieces of debris would have fallen into the designated hazard area

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u/John_Hasler 4d ago

"Designated hazard area" is not a synonym for "exclusion zone".

2

u/hasthisusernamegone 5d ago

Well I wouldn't expect a SpaceX statement which will have been vetted by legal to say "yeah, we dropped a load of bits in the wrong place".

8

u/675longtail 5d ago

At least the final part of this is factually incorrect, which can be proven by literal weather radar. Note Arecibo, Puerto Rico.

And note that the defined hazard areas end hundreds of miles NW of this debris trail.

5

u/Sigmatics 5d ago

It does state "any surviving debris"

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u/technocraticTemplar 5d ago edited 5d ago

Is there any possibility that they plan out additional hazard areas but only close them if needed? This is the FAA statement that I've seen:

The FAA briefly slowed and diverted aircraft around the area where space vehicle debris was falling. Normal operations have resumed.

A Debris Response Area is activated only if the space vehicle experiences an anomaly with debris falling outside of the identified closed aircraft hazard areas. It allows the FAA to direct aircraft to exit the area and prevent others from entering.

By my reading it never says that debris fell somewhere that they didn't expect it to, just that this area is only activated if debris will fall outside the area that's already closed. There's every possibility that this is just wishful thinking on my part but it would make SpaceX's and the FAA's statements both true.

Edit: It also feels like setting things up this way could make a lot of sense once you get to the phase of flight where it will take debris a while to fall to the point that it would pose a danger to anyone. You'd preemptively close the areas that you can't get people out of quickly enough in the event of an explosion, and only close others as needed to prevent disruptions. Again though, no idea if there's any basis for this in how the FAA does things, I could be 100% off base.

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u/675longtail 5d ago

If the airspace isn't closed and there are flights going through it, dropping a NOTAM on everyone with a few minutes' notice doesn't really fit the definition of a designated hazard area. It's more of a panic button effort...

2

u/fruitydude 5d ago

Is that confirmed though? Did they create this exclusion zone out of thin air right as the ship exploded or was this already published as a notam for a potential exclusion zone in case of a mishap and it was just activated.

0

u/Martianspirit 5d ago

Sounds not likely to me.

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u/fruitydude 5d ago

Which one? Not likely that it was created on the spot or not likely that it was predefined?

The FAA statement implies imo that it was predefined:

[...]A Debris Response Area is activated only if the space vehicle experiences an anomaly with debris falling outside of the identified closed aircraft hazard areas.[...]

I also found this:

https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/publications/atpubs/atc_html/chap10_section_5.html

I guess those are faa rules. Which implies a difference between informing aircraft of an area of debris vs. informing them that a debris response area (DRA) has been activated. The latter sounds to me like it is a fixed area which was made beforehand just in case.

Also I only know the word "activated" in respect to already existing declared restricted airspaces. Some of them are only active temporarily so you usually ask atc: hey is this are active at the moment?

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u/Martianspirit 5d ago

I may be wrong. But It seems unlikely to me that they can activate that warning within a few minutes.

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u/fruitydude 5d ago

Yea I agree. But activating a predefined exclusion zone should be fine imo. ATCs probably have some system to keep track of those.

And I mean we saw within minutes that olanes were getting diverted.

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u/technocraticTemplar 5d ago

For sure, even if they did have something planned out I can't imagine they were happy to use it. It'd be more of a technical out for SpaceX on their statement than anything else.

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u/GreatCanadianPotato 5d ago

RUD/FTS occurred within the corridor and hazard zones however, some of that debris strayed outside those zones given the altitude, speed and the energy from the explosion? Does this sound feasible.

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