Parts for a second launch tower arriving on site. Speculation they may be for a barebones “catcher” tower for the first couple of landing attempts, avoiding the risk of damage/loss of the main OLM and further delays to th3 test programme.

Elon Musk:

We need to replace a grid fin actuator, so launch is postponed to Saturday

Now inside T-24 hours. Hot Staging Ring is reinstalled after workers replaced three grid fin actuators overnight.

Preparing to return to full stack for a launch attempt on Saturday morning.

[20 minute launch window opens at 0700 local, 1300 UTC]

Live video here:


which isn't official but I'm enjoying it; the commentators aren't idiots. The launch is about 40 minutes away if things go well and if they go really well the 2nd stage should land near me (well, about 300 miles away) but I have my umbrella ready in case they get things a little wrong.

There are other live streams right now, including a so-called SpaceX one that is trying to sell me bitcoins, but hope the launch goes well and those interested can watch it live. I think most people here are intelligent enough to find what they want to watch.

I'm trying to figure things out from various sources, but it looks as though the launch was successful, the 1st stage had to be blown up after separation, the second stage continued but had to be "terminated" when it was very close to to its planned shutdown. Right now it looks as though it did a lot better than its first flight and will probably be called successful.

The explosion of the first stage was quite spectacular. It looked like a supernova remnant.

From the video it looks like the booster developed a leak and had a RUD during the turn back. Could be from damage during the hot separation, in which case they’ll have to modify the sequence and/or strengthen the dome on the booster for the next launch.

Starship lost contact almost simultaneously with the planned SeCO and could be a problem with the engine shutdowns and possible course deviation triggering the inflight termination system autonomously. They’ll have to parse the data to identify that, but it doesn’t seem like a hardware problem.

Launch site and OLM seem undamaged, so the deluge system seems to have worked perfectly and no issues for future launches under the current licence.

Next launch( timing will probably be dictated by any hardware changes to the booster.

But it was a beautiful launch.

Captured from the live feed - 1st stage explosion well after separation:


https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....c50c85340c.png

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....d9243570e5.png

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....837323e329.png

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....c3666367a.jpeg


https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....687863b17.jpeg


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....cc65f9a62.jpeg

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....d4471d561.jpeg

Video of stage separation and booster turn back and explosion. Certainly seems to start at the hot end not the dome.

That was awesome!

Something that came to mind when it was sitting on the pad, emitting great clouds of boiling-off propellant: How do they avoid creating an explosion risk? Do they capture the boiling methane and just vent oxygen to the atmosphere?

Most of the clouds are just formed by condensation of the ambient air humidity

skadi

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....b2c2dc1aa.jpeg

RUD at 1/4 speed…

Fair point. It's still (necessarily) venting a lot of propellant though, and you wouldn't want them mixing in anything even vaguely approaching a stoichiometric ratio.

That's interesting; looks like it might have started in the region of the intertank.

Looks to me as if something triggered the self destruct mechanism.

Latest reports are that the Starship self destruct system automatically activated when it lost its telemetry link with Mission Control (rather than the other way round) - something to be fixed for the next mission either through adding a ground relay station or ensuring its Starlink system is always connected.

Or, mabe be just give it up and devote the resources to something useful.

About a week ago, Musk said something to the effect that if they had a successful flight through staging, it would be considered a successful test - anything after that would be icing on the cake. So yes, I think Space X will consider this to be a success.

Said no rocket scientist, EVER!
BTW, why don't you think the ability to extremely large payloads into orbit - at a reasonable cost - would be "something useful".

Starship Explosion
 

Is the unplanned and uncharted explosion of the starship section terrible for the space junk problem that apparently exists?

Yeah, just like the last " great success!".


Extremely large payloads (to do what,) - at a reasonable cost (assuming they don't blow up) - to do what, exactly?
oh, and a useful payload - a Tesla car, a plastic mannequin, or what?

What manmade stuff in earth orbit and space has been doing for decades, but on a larger, more economical scale.
Or, to put it differently - a hundred years ago, why would anyone possibly need big airplanes that can fly thousands of miles? That's what steamships and trains are for...

But, yet again, despite all the modern technology, it doesn't get into orbit!

Hmm, it wasn’t planned to make orbit, but it made space, which it was planned to.

But it would have made orbit even on this flight if the trajectory had been intended to do so before SECO.

Massive progress, all engines remained operating, staging worked, ship flew some while as intended. Well done!
Impressive view of the shock-cone in the colour pic above. I wonder what damage any resonance of that could do when engine(s) start to fail and disturb its symmetry.

But how I wish they'd can the infantile-level "commentary" which is no more than a non-stop hammy commercial for SpaceX - lets's have a bit more of the gravitas, information and Professionalism of a NASA commemtary instead of making it sound like gormless teenagers reviewing a video game. It is seriously trivialising the whole thing.
And FFS put an end to the God-awful expression RUD. It is so, so silly, undignified and pointless. (and not the least bit clever, which I sense they think it is)

So they need to keep more engines burning and not throttle back so far?
​​​​​​​So, if we can trust the telemetry from Starship’s flight, there was a significant negative g observed on the booster during staging. More force was transmitted to the booster than anticipated during hot staging, this would have generated a lot of propellent slosh that may have been enough to damage the booster and ultimately cause it to fail.

​​​​​​​I LOVE this view of the Raptors shutting down in segments!!

Starship OLM comparison post IFT-1 vs IFT-2…

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....80b6ac70eb.png


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....55e376ac3b.png

In this case no as none of the hardware reached orbital velocity. The super heavy booster ended up in the Gulf of Mexico, the Starship second stage in the Atlantic.

The initial analysis from Scott Manley:


The BIG problem I see in his report is the massive failure of the heat protection system. The Starship was shedding large sections before staging. That magnitude of damage points to a fundamental problem which will require a completely new approach to attaching the tiles before they try again. In Elon time that will take two months which translates into an Earth time of at least a year.

Clearly you haven't followed the history of SpaceX. The Falcon 1 prototypes blew up regularly before they got one to orbit, they quickly moved on to the Falcon 9 and after a handful of failures now routinely land the boosters either back at launch or on a drone ship mid Atlantic. Some boosters have flown 18 times with minimal refurbishment. SpaceX launches more payload to orbit than all of the rest of the world put together. The Tesla Roadster was a test launch of the Falcon Heavy. They could have just put a block of concrete in the payload section but decided to add a bit of fun and humour to what was an historical achievement. Three boosters, two successfully returned and landed at the launch site, the 3rd almost landed on a drone ship. The recent Psyche mission launched on a Falcon Heavy is one to watch. A large payload that needed an extremely large delta v to achieve it's mission.

Why do you feel it necessary to belittle such achievements with your snidy remarks?

The next launch is slated for December 3rd. We shall see, but yes you're right, losing the tiles isn't exactly ideal.

Dec 3!!!!! That is a good one, even for Elon. They will need to fix the booster restart problem (probably a major redesign of the tanking), the thermal protection system launch survivability, and whatever they find went wrong that caused the loss of the orbiter. A hell of a lot to do in two weeks.

Lots of TPS tiles missing on S25 today. It’s important to note that SpaceX likely fully expected this to happen.

​​​​​​​On S28 every tile was tested using a suction cup to verify adhesion. This was not performed on S25 and, as a result, a large number of tiles along the ring weld lines fell off during flight.

In other words, it’s not as bad as it looks.

As I think at least one other has posted, the flight was never going to be truly in orbit and the destruction of both stages one and two might put debris in a very low earth orbit but it will quickly de-orbit and burn up. I think it's worth remembering that the point of these tests is to get reusable heavy-lift rockets into space that are reusable, so not only do they reduce contributing to orbital debris, they become more affordable.

I've not been able to find a source for that, but it won't happen. Perhaps this is another SpaceX launch? There is too much testing to go through after yesterday's launch but it will have to go through various authorities, so no, another test like this in a couple of weeks isn't going to happen.

I think there's a serious purpose to that: Even this thread shows that there are people out there who don't understand iterative development and view flights like yesterday's as failures (SLS didn't blow up on its first launch, so it must be better, right?) So SpaceX have to keep reminding viewers that these events are expected and part of the process, and the term RUD helps them control that narrative.

Anyway, what else are you going to call it? You don't really want to use the word "failure" because it takes the narrative the wrong way. The term "explosion" is misleading; a lot of rocket failures aren't caused by explosions at all (Challenger being a good example) and even when there is an explosion it's often caused by the FTS responding to a different failure (eg the first Starship launch).

I think it is super impressive how fast they make progress and how far they have come. Reusable rockets, cheapo satellites and private space flight.
However I am not sure about the Mars euphoria it must be about money, mining and bringing back heavy stuff to earth not so much about science, discovery and mankind.

I completely disagree (with respect, of course!) and think the complete opposite is true. Landing humans on Mars is our next big step and it follows up on the explorers from centuries ago that explored the world. It's human nature to want to discover new things although we can do it with robots these days, there is nothing like having a person visit a new unexplored place and explain what it is really like. Don't forget that there is still a possibility that some form of life exists on Mars albeit microorganisms at best, but the possibility exists. If the human race gave up on exploration in the Middle Ages think what it would mean to us now if we even survived to this point. I doubt this forum would exist for a start.