SpaceX's Starship Megarocket Hits Key Milestones in 'Lucky 13' Test Flight (cnn.com) 61
SpaceX's Friday launch of its massive Starship rocket "went quite smoothly," reports CNN, with a SpaceX spokesperson calling this mission "Lucky Number 13" (as the 13th integrated flight test for a Starship spacecraft with a Super Heavy rocket booster):
During Starship V3's inaugural test, there were numerous engine issues as several on the booster failed to relight and the Starship spacecraft experienced a nail-biting engine outage. SpaceX also was forced to replace six engines on this vehicle ahead of today's flight because of a likely issue with moisture that prevented at least four from starting up correctly during an initial launch attempt last week... [Friday's Super Heavy rocket booster] fired all 33 of its engines in a pristine performance off the launchpad. The rocket booster also managed to relight 13 engines, as planned, to steer itself back toward a controlled landing. Only when Super Heavy attempted to relight its engines for a controlled landing burn over the Gulf waters did problems arise. The landing was still controlled, though Huot said the vehicle was traveling a bit faster than the company had hoped when it made touchdown. (SpaceX always intended to discard this Super Heavy booster in the ocean.)
The Starship spacecraft had no obvious performance issues, making it all the way through its engine burn and managing to reignite one engine mid-flight as part of a test. It also made a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean — executing its "softest splashdown" to date in a "dream scenario," according to SpaceX's Dan Huot. The touchdown came about an hour after takeoff, as planned. During its coasting phase, Starship also deployed 20 Starlink test satellites, paving the way for operational missions later down the line in which SpaceX plans to deploy large batches of these satellites in a single launch. In another big win, SpaceX said it was able to make contact with each of those satellites.
CNN adds that SpaceX "is facing intense pressure to get Starship ready for a crucial NASA test flight next year that could pave the way for the next moon landing. This flight was also the first for SpaceX as a publicly traded company. Last week's aborted launch attempt sparked a selloff, and shares are still trading below their IPO price.
"To cap off the roaring success of today's flight test, SpaceX shared some stunning visuals of the upper Starship spacecraft sailing through space."
The Starship spacecraft had no obvious performance issues, making it all the way through its engine burn and managing to reignite one engine mid-flight as part of a test. It also made a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean — executing its "softest splashdown" to date in a "dream scenario," according to SpaceX's Dan Huot. The touchdown came about an hour after takeoff, as planned. During its coasting phase, Starship also deployed 20 Starlink test satellites, paving the way for operational missions later down the line in which SpaceX plans to deploy large batches of these satellites in a single launch. In another big win, SpaceX said it was able to make contact with each of those satellites.
CNN adds that SpaceX "is facing intense pressure to get Starship ready for a crucial NASA test flight next year that could pave the way for the next moon landing. This flight was also the first for SpaceX as a publicly traded company. Last week's aborted launch attempt sparked a selloff, and shares are still trading below their IPO price.
"To cap off the roaring success of today's flight test, SpaceX shared some stunning visuals of the upper Starship spacecraft sailing through space."
Booster issues remain (Score:5, Informative)
The rocket booster also managed to relight 13 engines, as planned, to steer itself back toward a controlled landing. Only when Super Heavy attempted to relight its engines for a controlled landing burn over the Gulf waters did problems arise. The landing was still controlled, though Huot said the vehicle was traveling a bit faster than the company had hoped when it made touchdown.
This isn't quite right. The 13-engine boost-back burn ended early, contributing to a splashdown about 20km short of the target. So there were problems before the landing burn's partial relight. The booster splashdown was close enough that there was no danger to the public, but it was pretty far from the goal of landing as if to be caught by an imaginary tower at a precise, predetermined ocean location, as some previous boosters have done.
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Yes, the Raptor 3 is turning out to be a challenge. They're making progress on it, and it's important that they do, because those engines are key to the performance and economics of everything SpaceX. But they now have a long record of solving such problems.
Re: Booster issues remain (Score:2)
Re: Booster issues remain (Score:2)
Re: Booster issues remain (Score:3)
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Re:Go to Mars, Elmo, I dare you (Score:5, Insightful)
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With a little luck Starlink will satisfy the broadband access mandates the rest of the ISP business has taken money for and not delivered for *decades*.
Of course people hate Elon. He's successful. They don't envy him, they resent his success, while they languish in sub-mediocrity and blame all else for their malaise.
Pus.
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Yeah it's absolutely is (Score:2)
That's just spacex. The only reason Tesla exists is because hundreds of billions in government subsidies for electric cars, not to mention that literally a
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We used to just do space travel ourselves. The government built rockets and the government launched rockets and everyone benefited from that. The only thing muskrat did was at a middleman to that process. Somebody to soak up my taxpayer money.
The government, the US government, has never built a single rocket. Not one. From the very beginning at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency through to NASA and other USG agencies, the USG has relied on private aerospace companies to build them and in most cases fully design them as well. In the early days, under the ABMA, the USG was more involved in the detailed design, but later they really just set the specifications and standards. But they never built anything.
The primary difference between SpaceX and a
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What really does it for SpaceX is the vertical integration. Same with Tesla (if you've ever wondered why the legacy automakers can't figure out how to profitably create EVs, this is a HUGE reason.) Old space is primarily used to cost-plus contracts -- it doesn't matter how much a part costs, the government pays the complete cost, even if you buy the most expensive one and ignore any lower cost alternatives.
People who claim the $500 toilet seat is a myth have simply never heard of a cost-plus contract. rsilv
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What subsidies are they receiving? The government buying launches isn't a subsidy.
Oh yes, it is, when the government pays way over market prices. Which it does.
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What subsidies are they receiving? The government buying launches isn't a subsidy.
Oh yes, it is, when the government pays way over market prices. Which it does.
SpaceX has caused the price to launch to drop dramatically, so much so that they are now doing the majority of all launches. They have way undercut ULA.
Re: Go to Mars, Elmo, I dare you (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: Go to Mars, Elmo, I dare you (Score:2)
Re: Go to Mars, Elmo, I dare you (Score:2)
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There's a ring of truth for the free speech bit. I've been watching the Ukraine war like a hawk (and trolling the shit out of internet Russians, who now outrank internet Germans on my shitlist.) By far the best source for uncensored news on the war is, in fact, Twitter. Even people who now hate Twitter and/or hate Elon, and are outspoken about both, still post their material there because it's literally the only place they CAN post it in...oh so many cases... Especially when it comes to raw FPV drone footag
âoefail fastâ development (Score:1, Troll)
IMO Starship is demonstrating that âoefail fastâ development doesnâ(TM)t scale up well. I donâ(TM)t think even SpaceX though test-flights would number in the mid-teens before missions could be flown.
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IMO Starship is demonstrating that âoefail fastâ development doesnâ(TM)t scale up well. I donâ(TM)t think even SpaceX though test-flights would number in the mid-teens before missions could be flown.
LOL, what? You do realise that the whole development process of Starship so far, *including building of Starbase*, and all the test flights, still has cost about as much as a single *launch* of SLS, nevermind SLS development, which cost an order of magnitude more still, *despite* the fact that Starship was designed from grounds up, while SLS is basically old Shuttle hardware restacked together in a new configuration?
Re: âoefail fastâ development (Score:2)
Of course, "more cost-effective than SLS" is a pretty low bar. The actual goal would be "more cost effective than Falcon 9".
Re: âoefail fastâ development (Score:5, Insightful)
True. Apollo suffered huge costs because of the deadline, forcing development costs more. The NASA equation - good, fast, cheap. Any 2 of the three.
SpaceX is doing very well indeed, and so far as I can tell making no excuses. Don't need to. They are kicking it, and NASA is trying to stay relevant in the launch business.
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The NASA equation - good, fast, cheap. Any 2 of the three.
A lot of people misunderstand the meaning of this -- it actually refers to one particular manufacturing run. Over time, with process improvements, you can have all three. Many experts at the time said SpaceX would never bring down the cost of phased array antennas to something economical/affordable. Not only did they do that, but they're cranking them out faster than ever, and they work even better than ever.
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"Over time, with process improvements,"
And like that, you've spent all three.
A lot of people don't understand that. take the time to work it out, you lose fast.
If fast isn't most important, you can spend cheap. Then you can get good, maybe.
If good wasn't the goal, well, then you choose the desired, and the rest sorts itself out.
See? The equation is proved by your example.
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Not at all. You're effectively arguing that the current run is time lost; therefore, you didn't produce as fast. Except it isn't; you still got a product out the door, so it wasn't truly time wasted. While you're manufacturing, there's no rule that says you can't iterate on your design to change a future run. SpaceX counts on it, which is one reason (among many) why SpaceX keeps costs low, builds highly reliable components, and cranks them out quickly.
Like I said, you're applying this rule to ALL runs inste
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Of course, "more cost-effective than SLS" is a pretty low bar. The actual goal would be "more cost effective than Falcon 9".
Given that Space-X no longer accepts reservations for future Falcon 9 flights, they kind of met that latter goal... the same way how many companies meet the goal of "their current product being their best product" by discontinuing previous products.
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I believe it's more that when you fly twice a week there's no need to make reservations years in advance. But yes, if Starship is cheaper and as reliable by that point then Falcon 9 may only be used for things that require it (e.g. for NASA "man rating").
Re:âoefail fastâ development (Score:5, Interesting)
Look I understand that slashdot is the "hate musk" channel, but "failing to scale up" is a funny summary for a company that
- has lowered launch costs by multiples and remains lower than all competitors
- alone launched more than half the entire world's space payloads, and north of 75% of the mass, something like 30x its nearest competitor
- no other competition is really aiming at a vehicle the size, scope, and ambitiousness of starship. Long 9 is close but years and years behind.
- yes, there have been a lot of test flights but if the alternative is something like sls (5 years late and what, $25b high), I find it hard to criticize starships approach.
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But won't somebody please think of the poor ULA executives?
Re: âoefail fastâ development (Score:2)
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Was NASA not capable of launching payloads into space?
Nope. That's why they use contractors like SpaceX, Boeing, etc.
Why don't we just work on fixing the planet we have rather than go to Mars?
They are working on it, and that's one of the reasons they need a cheap way to lift payloads into orbit. Spending less on transportation means more money for science.
Do we really want Musk to get to the moon first?
Humans visited the Moon about 2 years before Elon Musk was born. It's very possible our return will be made possible thanks to SpaceX's hardware, but it will not be a SpaceX mission.
Re: âoefail fastâ development (Score:2)
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I just don't see what we have to gain from it all.
That's because you're a wildling, and rockets aren't small enough to fit in your igloo.
Why don't we just work on fixing the planet we have rather than go to Mars?
There will always be things here to fix. Always. This is literally an argument that nobody should ever go to Mars. Or do anything in space for that matter. Ever.
If you want this that bad, then go waddle over to your parliament and tell them to petition the king to convert you to a command economy. Let me know when everything here is fixed. I'll wait.
Re: âoefail fastâ development (Score:2)
Re: âoefail fastâ development (Score:5, Insightful)
I love and respect NASA; their missions are astonishing examples of what people can accomplish, and I don't think most appreciate the unbelievable finesse it takes to execute space missions. NASA has successfully made it look routine. They truly are "rocket scientists".
But the fact is that government contracts are vastly inefficient; they are victims of the vicissitudes of political winds that potentially change every 2 years, despite almost never being "the issue of discussion" and widely being respected by both sides of the political aisle. It is worth noting too that NASA has become nearly paralyzed by risk avoidance. That's easy to SAY, but I'm curious how the public is going to react when inevitably, eventually, a SpaceX or Blue Origin astronaut dies; I rather suspect the public is going to continue to demand risk-avoidance as primary where humans in space are concerned, at least until it's as common as air travel.
Further, we have clearly reached the point where we DON'T need government to execute basic space lift systems. The 1980s space shuttle was around $50k/kg to orbit (and this was intended to be the 'cheap' system after the one-off previous lunch programs); SLS by NASA right now is in the $20-$40k range.
Compare that to Falcon 9 $3k/kg, Falcon Heavy $1500/kg, or the estimate for Starship will be $100-$300/kg.
No, with limited budgets, I'd far rather NASA use its precious political gleanings for the science packages and programs, and let the commercial contractors do the simple/cheap stuff.
Re: âoefail fastâ development (Score:2)
Re: âoefail fastâ development (Score:2)
Re: âoefail fastâ development (Score:2)
I don't think the number of test flights is too high considering it is a mission profile that has never been done before, using engines that are still in development.
A 'traditional' rocket is lucky to get 5% of the launch mass into orbit, spacex are trying to reach orbit whilst having enough extra fuel to land the booster stage, enough heat shielding to re-enter the upper stage and enough control surface area to guide the upper stage to a precise landing point and have enough fuel left for a propulsive land
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a mission profile that has never been done before, using engines that are still in development.
That's significant, and it's not just the engines. The heat shield tiles, tanks and plumbing, the ship itself, all are receiving changes that are more than small incremental improvements: new insights from test flights are rolled into the design of the next ship. That introduces additional risk on each flight as well. And the risk that the cycle continues like this... letting perfect be the enemy of good enough.
Glomar Explorer (Score:2)
> SpaceX always intended to discard this Super Heavy booster in the ocean.
How long will it be before a Chinese science vessel recovers the craft?
Speaking of which, can anybody day where the sections of the K-129 they recovered in 1974 is housed? The tower bell was returned to the Russians as a gesture of good will so they have it somewhere.
It would be an interesting museum piece. They say government can't keep any secrets but darned if I can find where this Indiana Jones warehouse is located.
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Speaking of which, can anybody day where the sections of the K-129 they recovered in 1974 is housed?
Buried somewhere in a US Navy dumpsite in the San Francisco area. Along with recovered (and radioactive) missile and torpedo parts. There are several candidate EPA superfund sites if you want to grab a shovel and go exploring.
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I highly doubt a Chinese mission in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico would go unnoticed!
Excitement guaranteed (Score:3)
Watching was a thrill ride from beginning to end. Still issues with Booster landing but they will sort it out. The re-entry tiles did great. The satellites did great. Ship did so well they will try for a catch next time, if there's nothing counter in the flight data.
Hardware rich development proves itself again. The next one is built and being fitted out for a launch just a couple months away. Behind it, the factory has begun several more.
It's hard to believe they started building this on a beach in tents, with a flying water tower.