A prototype of SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft has exploded on landing following a test flight that was otherwise described as ‘successful’ by CEO Elon Musk.
The Starship system includes the Starship vehicle itself – designed to one day take humans to the Moon and Mars – alongside SpaceX’s Super Heavy rocket. According to the company, it will be the most powerful launch system ever developed, standing at 120m and capable of lifting more than 100 metric tonnes into Earth orbit.
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At 22.45 UK time on December 9th, the 50m SN8 prototype launched without the assistance of the 70m Super Heavy from SpaceX’s Boca Chica facility in Cameron County, South Texas. Powered by three of the company’s Raptor engines, the vehicle was due to hit a height of 12,500m before returning to Earth. While it is unclear whether the SN8 achieved this height, Musk claimed on Twitter that there had been a “successful ascent, switchover to header tanks & precise flap control to landing point!”
Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD, but we got all the data we needed! Congrats SpaceX team hell yeah!!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2020
Video footage showed the SN8’s six and half minute test flight ending abruptly, however, with the Starship prototype landing at speed before exploding in a large fireball. According to the SpaceX CEO, the hot landing was the result of low pressure in one of the fuel tanks.
“Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD, but we got all the data we needed!” Musk tweeted. “Congrats SpaceX team hell yeah!!”
In a subsequent tweet just moments later, Musk simply declared “Mars, here we come!!”
Mars, here we come!!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2020
The SN8 marked the first time more than a single Raptor engine had been flown on a Starship test flight. The methalox staged-combustion engine began flight testing on Starship prototypes in July 2019, becoming the first full-flow staged combustion rocket engine ever flown. On the completed Starship launch system, about 30 Raptor engines will power the Super Heavy rocket, with the Starship vehicle itself having an additional six.
That was a fantastic first test despite the RUD landing. All the Engineers on that team should be well happy and ready to fix it for SN9
Spacex learned everything they wanted from this test vehicle. The final, fast landing was due to an issue getting the small reserve tanks to feed the turbo-pumps in the engines. This was always a concern: guaranteeing an uninterrupted, pressurised flow to the pumps and they needed data on how the fuel would behave during the transition from horizontal to vertical. Now they have it and we can be sure that some of the cleverest people on the planet are putting that data to good use.
Maybe parachutes, as a back-up, could have been deployed to slow the rocket down on re-entry.
Not sure why the engineer feels the need to put quotes around successful.
The rocket started, successfully throttled from 3 to 2 to 1 engines.
Maintained the desired height.
Successfully transitioned from vertical to horizontal mode
Successfully controlled decent in horizontal mode
Navigated perfectly to the designated landing pad
Successfully transitioned from horizontal to vertical mode
Successfully restarted two engines.
It then had a fuel pressure problem causing one engine to fail.
The enriched oxygen to the other engine caused it to be damaged but the rocket still managed to slow down, just not quite enough and it hit the landing pad (perfectly) a little too hard and exploded.
The fact that they had a little problem with the fuel pressure as a result of the horizontal to vertical transition should not take away from the success of the many tests that were combined into this one flight.
If you want a proper explanation from someone who clearly understands what was attempted and achieved see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egHxiX40eJY
Successfully transitioned from
It is surprising how few people I talk to really appreciate what was achieved during this momentous rocket ‘flight’. I still need to find a list of how many ‘firsts’ and records were gained during this incredible human engineering feat. Well Done Space-X