• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.

SpaceX prototype rocket explodes during engine test

Noodle

Noodle

Banned
Aug 22, 2018
3,427
starship-sn4-explodes.gif


www.youtube.com

Full Replay: Starship SN4 suffers major anomaly after static fire in Boca Chica

SpaceX suffered a major anomaly with the Starship SN4 prototype at their Boca Chica, Texas launch site. Prior to the anomaly, they were hoping to hop the veh...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

During a static-fire engine test a prototype model exploded. Too early to say what went wrong. Livestream still going. Scroll back 2:33.33 from time of post to see the incident.

SpaceX's latest Starship prototype exploded just after an engine test Friday (May 30), erupting in a dramatic fireball at the spaceflight company's South Texas proving grounds.

The Starship SN4 prototype exploded at about 1:49 p.m. CDT (2:49 p.m. EDT/1849 GMT) at SpaceX's test facility near Boca Chica, Texas according to a video provided by the South Padre Island tourism site SPadre.com. The explosion occurred about a minute after a short test of its Raptor rocket engine, but it was unclear what caused the conflagration.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

www.space.com

SpaceX's Starship SN4 prototype explodes after rocket engine test

SpaceX's latest Starship prototype exploded just after a rocket engine test Friday (May 30), erupting in a dramatic fireball at the spaceflight company's Texas proving grounds.
www.space.com www.space.com
 
androvsky

androvsky

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,503
It's worth pointing out this rocket is completely unrelated to the one astronauts are supposed to be launching on tomorrow. Different materials, construction, engines, everything is new and being tested hard.
 
bsigg

bsigg

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,542
I wish that gif started like 3 seconds earlier because you can see the explosion start from the right near the burn off flare.
 
bsigg

bsigg

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,542
renegade_sylens

renegade_sylens

Member
Nov 5, 2017
3,478
It's a prototype, so you are expecting things to explode as they are trying things that have never been done before. It's depressing to see it blow up, but I am sure SpaceX is going to learn a lot about Raptor engines from this catastrophic incident.
 
GYODX

GYODX

Member
Oct 27, 2017
7,234
Prototypes fail. This isn't new, surprising, or damning of anyone.

Anybody who's an engineer knows this first-hand.
 

Deleted member 3038

Oct 25, 2017
3,569
DieH@rd said:
Prototypes are made to be pushed to extremes and to discover faults.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yeah between some of the replies I saw on Twitter and some I see on ERA people really don't know how Prototypes work.

All of the SN prototypes are iteratively designed, with multiple being constructed at the same time with minor differences (SN4&5 is back to back, SN5 almost being done). For reference SN2&3 were both destroyed due to Pressure explosions (with SN3 passing it's pressure test, but being pushed to test the limit this exploding). SN4 & 5 are all for seeing if the welding Techniques they've been improving on have reached the point where they can run a full static fire test, and obviously as we can tell there's still work to be done.

Regarding the explosion, it looks like a pipe rupture that resulted in the gas flowing over to the open flame causing an explosion, hopefully SpaceX gets some decent data out of this.
 
Mivey

Mivey

Member
Oct 25, 2017
17,818
GYODX said:
Prototypes fail. This isn't new, surprising, or damning of anyone.

Anybody who's an engineer knows this first-hand.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Just wonder if there's going to be enough data from this exploded rocket to understand what actually went wrong. But since this isn't actually SpaceX's first rodeo with rocket prototypes, I'm assuming they had enough sensors attached to this thing, sending their data every fraction of a millisecond, to be able to perfectly reconstruct everything that happened.
 
JonnyDBrit

JonnyDBrit

God and Anime
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,016


The commentary at the time basically jinxed it

"I mean, if it was methane, it would be igniting in the flare, correct?"
>ONE SECOND LATER
 
hitme

hitme

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,909
I work with a bunch Ex-Telsa folks and they tell me their Telsa horror stories everyday.

Elon is known to take a bunch of shortcuts. Not surprised this blew up.
 
Tagg

Tagg

Attempted to circumvent ban with an alt-account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,717
Space Force viral marketing.
 
kyle mechlachlan

kyle mechlachlan

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,288
Really fucking lame that all space stuff is gonna be marred by this fucking dipshit.

Rockets explode and are dangerous. Lots of very smart people work very hard and this stuff can just happen.
 
Midramble

Midramble

Force of Habit
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
10,454
San Francisco
I'm not a fan of Elon as much as the next guy but the hot takes here are pretty transparent. Prototypes have catastrophic failures. Thats the point of tests.
 
Tempy

Tempy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,333
Tuned in to watch a Static Fire test. Got more than I bargained for.

At least the Static Fire Test worked I guess. The explosion took place a few minutes after.
 

Deleted member 6056

Oct 25, 2017
7,240
GYODX said:
Prototypes fail. This isn't new, surprising, or damning of anyone.

Anybody who's an engineer knows this first-hand.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
This. Everything is theoretical till tested in the field. Then it's a matter of whether its maintenance at fault, material handling, operation error or engineering issues .

Not every kaboom means total dunderheaded incompetent design.
It's a prototype. This is why it's called a prototype.
 

Huggie

Member
Oct 22, 2018
166
Fury451 said:
Kinda makes the launch a little nerve-racking.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Falcon 9 is one the most tested and reliable rockets atm. This is a prototype with a whole new structure design and brand new designed engine, They have been pushing this thing to the limits for weeks now to gather data and stress everything. This was SN4, SN5 is basically finished and ready to get tested once they clear everything up. SN6 is half ready as well!
 
Tempy

Tempy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,333
Previous "anomalies":

www.youtube.com

Unbelievable!!! SpaceX Starship MK1 Explodes! At Boca Chica, Texas

11.20.2019: At 3:27 local time The only up close public video on the planet of the full explosion of MK1 Starship's top popping off during a pressure test. ...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

www.youtube.com

SpaceX Boca Chica - Starship SN1 cryo proof test failure - Feb 28, 2020

Starship SN1 was filled with LN2 for a cryo proof test on Friday evening at Boca Chica, before failing. Videos and Photos from Mary (@bocachicagal) for NSF. ...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

www.youtube.com

SpaceX's Starship SN3 prototype fails cryogenic proof test

Starship SN3 collapsed during a cryogenic proof test designed to validate the vehicle ahead of a planned static fire and 150-meter hop. SpaceX will now have ...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
 
Typhon

Typhon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,106
hitme said:
I work with a bunch Ex-Telsa folks and they tell me their Telsa horror stories everyday.

Elon is known to take a bunch of shortcuts. Not surprised this blew up.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

You know Tesla doesn't make rockets right? Falcon has a 97 percent success rate so I think SpaceX probably knows what it's doing
 
bsigg

bsigg

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,542
hitme said:
I work with a bunch Ex-Telsa folks and they tell me their Telsa horror stories everyday.

Elon is known to take a bunch of shortcuts. Not surprised this blew up.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Elon doesn't really do much at Space X, it's almost all handled entirely by Gwynne Shotwell. Honestly, Tesla needs a Gwynne Shotwell equivalent to be honest, someone who understands what they're trying to achieve and can successfully lead the business while Elon is off being Elon.
 
808s & Villainy

808s & Villainy

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
42,700
bsigg said:
Elon doesn't really do much say at Space X, it's almost all handled entirely by Gwynne Shotwell. Honestly, Tesla needs a Gwynne Shotwell equivalent to be honest, someone who understands what they're trying to achieve and can successfully lead the business while Elon is off being Elon.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Seems like he's leading it just fine, even accounting for his twitter gaffes
 
You must log in or register to reply here.