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Merged SpaceX’s Starship Rocket Explodes After Launch/Starship hop

Dr.Sid said:
Starship LEO capacity is mentioned 100-150 tons. They plan to release 60 v3 Starlink satellites as one of its first missions, and one is about 2 tons, as 120 tons total.
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For comparison, the Saturn V LEO capacity was 95 tons.

As for the flight itself, I can't disagree with Scott Manley. Minor glitches and some unexpected damage notwithstanding, this was a successful flight and SpaceX should take a victory lap.
 
JayUtah said:
For comparison, the Saturn V LEO capacity was 95 tons.
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The not so subtle difference being that NASA only got 3% of its launch dry mass back, and that 3% could not be reused.
SpaceX plans to get 100% of its launch dry mass back and intends to reuse all of it.
It remains to be seen if this will work. They have done pretty well so far with Falcon 9.
 
arthwollipot said:
Starship is considerably larger than Falcon 9, though, and exponentially more challenging.
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Well, I wouldn't use the term "exponentially', at least not in its mathematical sense, but yes, reusing the orbital stage is much, much harder than reusing the booster stage.
Keep in mind though, that plenty of very lnowlegeable, very experienced people in the spaceflight industry, ridiculed SpaceX for even trying this. The idea was called impossible, and sheer fantasy. What SpaceX is doing right now, with some boosters completing more that 25 launches, and one coming up for it's 30th, is apparently unachievable..... Who knew?
 
This guy gives a very good analysis of the things they tried, the way they stress tested Ship in flight, what worked and what didn't, and engages in some reasonable speculation about the damage and the explosion in the engine bay during re-entry.

NOTE: 42 minute video... only real space nerds will be interested. :cool:

 
arthwollipot said:
Can you do a quick tl;dw for the explosion in the engine bay?
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His analysis concludes it was a rupture of the LOX chill vent, possibly due to the vent getting partly blocked. The explosion happened after engine chill began, a procedure which involves running cryogenic propellants through the rocket engine plumbing to carefully cool down the engine's internal components in order to avoid thermal shock.

If the venting LOX was being blocked by LOX ice, and suddenly cleared, it would dump a large amount of gaseous oxygen into the engine bay, which was at the time also hot and surrounded by plasma.

If you would like to see just the part of the video about the aft skirt explosion, its about 10 minutes, running from 26:55 to about 37:33.
 
Makes lot of sense. He also (unlike lot of people) correctly noticed the right flap was already damaged before the explosion, and it might have been the same cause.
 
Dr.Sid said:
Makes lot of sense. He also (unlike lot of people) correctly noticed the right flap was already damaged before the explosion, and it might have been the same cause.
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I am subscribed to CSI Starbase, and a Patreon member. Zack Golden is a very smart guy, understands a lot of the details and intricacies of how this space launch system works, and is very good at explaining complex concepts in simple terms. IMO "CSI Starbase" is among the best spaceflight channels on YouTube, especially on Starship. Tim Dodd (Everyday Astronaut) is still the best IMO... his deep dives into the inner workings of rocket engines are awesome, with outstanding production values.
 
Tim is great of course, I'm watching him since his early days. But he's focusing on these big educational videos, and he tries to cover the launches. He doesn't do news. Scott Manley does that, but usually like 1 video per week for news and 1 video for big launches. There is still room for more.
 
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