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Another failure. Major explosion in the engine bay early in reentry, burn through on the flaps, and explosion on landing. Before anyone says it is suppose to explode; why do they have a boat at the landing “site” to tow it to shore?
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Great, beautiful, and highly successful flight for #10. The "Buoy-Cam" touchdown was, well, miraculous. Well done SpaceX!
- Ed |
Well, now. That was impressive.
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Originally Posted by Sam W
(Post 11944445)
Another failure. Major explosion in the engine bay early in reentry, burn through on the flaps, and explosion on landing. Before anyone says it is suppose to explode; why do they have a boat at the landing “site” to tow it to shore?
I think the 'major explosion' was a CO2 gas bottle. Caused a fair bit of damage but there is enough resilience in the structure for it to still work.. The aft flaps had burn through. The forward flaps looked pristine. It's 30ft wide, about 150ft long and just soft landed in the Indian Ocean right on target next to a bouy that was able to film it. It then fell over as there was nothing to support it. Still loaded with residual propellant. Of course it was going to blow up. |
Finally another bigger step forward, was about time. Quite impressive all test steps, I pull my hat. Despite the damages soft splash down right on target. Very tolerable structure but even more highly adaptable guidance and control systems. Got a huge amount of data for V3 fine tuning, I guess. And not to forget the booster, also all data home.
Whats up next? Return to Boca Chica, targeted splash down in the Gulf (of America, of Mexico, of Trump, of Elon, ...) - or Hawaii? Full orbit? Very well done, team and thanks for the unmatched in this business transparency! It was worth an interrupted night :D |
A most impressive flight, especially considering that the profiles flown were intended to place maximum stress on the structures. The first stage hover was superb. The after-landing explosions are intentional to ensure that everything sinks and poses no danger to shipping.
Whatever your views are on Musk's political affiliations, he is creating a world of engineering excellence. |
More information and photos about the huge new Starbase launch complex expansion plan released today.
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....2e850460a.jpeg |
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Looking forward to an explanation on the heat shield colouration. 3 separate active cooling experiments?
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Originally Posted by MostlyHarmless
(Post 11947081)
Looking forward to an explanation on the heat shield colouration. 3 separate active cooling experiments?
skadi |
Ta. Used to follow Musk on that but the ratio of interesting SpaceX stuff to Grok and Politics somewhat driven me away :)
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Super Heavy Booster 15-2 has rolled out of megabay 1 this evening for a move to the Starbase launch complex later tonight for static fire testing scheduled for Sunday September 7th between 7 am and 12 pm.
Booster 15-2 will be the booster for upcoming Starship test flight 11 and was first flown and caught on flight 8. https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....06e76c36a.jpeg |
VideoStarship Flight 11: Booster 15-2 rolling down Highway 4 at the opening of the road closure window (a very punctual Super Heavy).
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Originally Posted by Sam W
(Post 11944445)
Another failure. Major explosion in the engine bay early in reentry, burn through on the flaps, and explosion on landing. Before anyone says it is suppose to explode; why do they have a boat at the landing “site” to tow it to shore?
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Video
Super heavy booster 15-2 performed a static fire test today. It is now expected to roll back to megabay 1 for engine inspections and final pre-launch preparations for upcoming Starship test flight 11. This was the final static fire test of a Version 2 Booster. |
Adapter being fitted for Starship 38 static fire prior to Test Flight 11.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....8c1f752447.png |
Quite a nice summary and explanation of the orange stains from Ars Technica
https://share.google/urgjQqinq8mJXn65s |
A lot of other good stuff in the article as well relating to future flights and basic research. Worth reading in full.
e.g. "For Flight 11, Starship will fly on a suborbital trajectory similar to the flight profile the ship has flown on all of its missions to date. The next flight could happen in October and will prepare SpaceX for the debut of an upgraded Starship/Super Heavy rocket next year....... "Next year, we step up to another version of both ship and booster, called V3 (Version 3)," Gerstenmaier said in response to a question from Ars. "It also has a new Raptor engine underneath, with more performance than the previous ones. So we'll fly V3 (suborbital) first, and then if that's successful, then we'll probably go orbital after that with the next V3." That would mean an orbital flight no sooner than Flight 13. This matches a recent comment by Musk, who said SpaceX will likely attempt to catch and recover Starship back at Starbase somewhere around Flight 13 to 15, depending on the outcomes of the next couple of test flights. Gerstenmaier also briefly mentioned the results of experiments with Starship's Super Heavy booster on the most recent test flight. On this flight, the booster splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico just off the Texas coastline after propelling Starship toward space. SpaceX used the flight to put the booster through higher stresses as it came back to Earth, guiding the rocket to a water landing in the Gulf instead of returning it to the launch pad for a catch by the tower's mechanical arms. "What we were doing there is we're looking at the angle of attack and looking at how well the booster could fly itself to understand how much ability we had to get it back to the tower in the future," Gerstenmaier said. SpaceX engineers noticed the booster's performance on descent in flight doesn't match predictions from computer models or wind tunnel tests. In ground experiments, the booster encounters unstable buffeting as it slows below the speed of sound. Based on those results, "[we] should not be able to do what we do with our maneuver coming back with a booster, but we've been able to essentially show through flight that we have more stability than either CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) or the wind tunnels show that we have," Gerstenmaier said. "So, the big question to the research community is, why are we seeing these differences?" he asked. "We had an inkling that it would be there, but we weren't 100 percent sure, and we were able to do that extremely well." Gerstenmaier suggested that's a question best posed to universities and government labs. Companies like SpaceX innovate fast, but once they find a workable solution, they move on to something else. "I get what I call a minimum viable solution," Gerstenmaier said. "I don't really understand why it works, but somehow it works, so we're going to use it, we're going to monetize it, we're going to make it work. You have the chance to help me understand why it works... And you may find out, hey, there's another approach that actually lets it work even better." |
SpaceX simply continues to amaze me with what they are doing - while they are not approaching the reusability aspect the way I thought it would happen (I expected the booster to be more 'aircraft/air-breathing' based), they are showing the entire world how it can be done.
Too bad NASA no longer has this type of imagination and "can do" attitude towards things. |
SpaceX has requested FAA approval for new Starship launch and landing trajectories from Starbase, TX.
https://www.pprune.org/newreply.php?...e=1&p=11944445 https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....d7273a1802.png https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....9d811ffb96.png |
VideoSpaceX has just conducted the static fire test of Flight 11 Starship (S38). This marked the last static fire at Pad A.
The Orbital Launch Mount was designed to support only booster static fires, but ironically, a ship became the last vehicle to be static-fired on it. |
Starship Flight 11: Ship 38 has been destacked ahead of rolling back to the Production Site for final pre-launch work.
The current launch target is NET (No Earlier Than) October 6. |
Was super impressed how quickly they flipped to using the OLM when they lost Massey's. Makes me think that this was a contingency they had planned for.
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Super Heavy Booster 15-2 has been moved from megabay 1 to the rocket garden this morning ahead of upcoming Starship test flight 11.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....260bff091e.png |
STARSHIP FLIGHT 11: 1 Week Delay
The @USCG Local Notice to Mariners (NOTMAR) now starts No Earlier Than October 13, at 18:15 CDT (23:15 UTC) https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....ecf74242a8.png |
https://www.spacex.com/launches/starship-flight-11
The eleventh flight test of Starship is preparing to launch as soon as Monday, October 13. The launch window will open at 6:15 p.m. CT. A live webcast of the flight test will begin about 30 minutes before liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX. You can also watch the webcast on the X TV app. As is the case with all developmental testing, the schedule is dynamic and likely to change, so be sure to check in here and stay tuned to our X account for updates. The upcoming flight will build on the successful demonstrations from Starship’s tenth flight test with flight experiments gathering data for the next generation Super Heavy booster, stress-testing Starship’s heatshield, and demonstrating maneuvers that will mimic the upper stage’s final approach for a future return to launch site. The booster on this flight test previously flew on Flight 8 and will launch with 24 flight-proven Raptor engines. Its primary test objective will be demonstrating a unique landing burn engine configuration planned to be used on the next generation Super Heavy. It will attempt this while on a trajectory to an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America and will not return to the launch site for catch. Super Heavy will ignite 13 engines at the start of the landing burn and then transition to a new configuration with five engines running for the divert phase. Previously done with three engines, the planned baseline for V3 Super Heavy will use five engines during the section of the burn responsible for fine-tuning the booster’s path, adding additional redundancy for spontaneous engine shutdowns. The booster will then transition to its three center engines for the end of the landing burn, entering a full hover while still above the ocean surface, followed by shutdown and dropping into the Gulf of America. The primary goal on the flight test is to measure the real-world vehicle dynamics as engines shut down while transitioning between the different phases. The Starship upper stage will target multiple in-space objectives, including the deployment of eight Starlink simulators, similar in size to next-generation Starlink satellites. The Starlink simulators will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship and are expected to demise upon entry. A relight of a single Raptor engine while in space is also planned. The flight test includes several experiments and operational changes focused on enabling Starship’s upper stage to return to the launch site on future flights. For reentry, tiles have been removed from Starship to intentionally stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle. Several of the missing tiles are in areas where tiles are bonded to the vehicle and do not have a backup ablative layer. To mimic the path a ship will take on future flights returning to Starbase, the final phase of Starship’s trajectory on Flight 11 includes a dynamic banking maneuver and will test subsonic guidance algorithms prior to a landing burn and splashdown in the Indian Ocean. |
In depth look at the work in progress at Pad 2 - to be used for flight 12 and all other v3 launches thereafter, or at least until Pad 1 is replaced/upgraded to V3 standard.
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2025...ad-2-starbase/ SpaceX intensifies testing to ready Pad 2 at Starbase |
That revised engine config for RTLS burn is interesting. Was wondering if the Raptor 3 had a different throttle range than the earlier versions, but everything I can find says all models 40-100%. Bit surprised that's not changed - anyone found anything with more detail? |
I wonder how much NASA would have spent on a hi-tech semi-submersible with a gyro-stabilised camera platform.....
Elon: Video The Starship landing video in the Indian Ocean was taken from a camera, bolted to a Starlink terminal, sitting in a kiddie paddling pool.... https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....4742992c2c.png https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....fe7e6ac123.png |
Are they actual photos or a PR render?
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Are they actual photos or a PR render? |
Flight-proven Super Heavy booster moved to the pad at Starbase ahead of launch.
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....0d37cc0a0e.png |
Starship 38 has rolled out of megabay 2 today for final rollout to the Starbase launch complex for stacking onto Super heavy booster 15-2 ahead of Starship test flight 11. Now at T-minus 2 days and counting!
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....67cc0aebc.jpeg |
Originally Posted by ORAC
(Post 11967988)
Watch the video in the link….
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They have a ship which stands clear of the landing zone and deploys the raft and camera and is there to ensure the ship sinks without any interference and to recover or tow back any that are recoverable.
I presume they also carry and deploy drones to help locate parts and for assessment. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-...oast/104672850 |
SpaceX announces timeline and pricing for cargo Starship Moon and Mars missions.
Reported on the company’s website, SpaceX intends to begin Moon and Mars surface cargo missions in 2028 and 2030, respectively - each at $100 million per metric ton or $100,000 per kg. |
VideoThe Flight-11 Starship has been stacked.
The final @SpaceX flight test from this Launch Mount is slated for Monday, October 13th. Excitement guaranteed. |
Originally Posted by ORAC
(Post 11968718)
They have a ship which stands clear of the landing zone and deploys the raft and camera and is there to ensure the ship sinks without any interference and to recover or tow back any that are recoverable.
I presume they also carry and deploy drones to help locate parts and for assessment. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-...oast/104672850 |
Originally Posted by ORAC
(Post 11968794)
VideoThe Flight-11 Starship has been stacked.
The final @SpaceX flight test from this Launch Mount is slated for Monday, October 13th. Excitement guaranteed. - Ed |
I have an early start on Tues so will miss the live action. What are the mission objectives ? A full orbit and return to the Gulf of
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