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SpaceX Successfully lands Starship SN10 for the first time... then blows up.
- Thread starter InfinityDOK
- Start date
Did you watch the clip in the tweet? The explosion was pretty spectacular.
This looks like a badly animated movie. Holy shit it's unbelievable.
Bummer on the blow up. But this is just absolute incredible stuff. Shot a fucking tower into space and landed it back. Imagine showing this to people 100 years ago.
Bummer on the blow up. But this is just absolute incredible stuff. Shot a fucking tower into space and landed it back. Imagine showing this to people 100 years ago.
Lol noooooope, didn't load on my phone but just watched it.
Ok yeah that was pure destruction.
Watching the SN tests with my scientist/engineer father has been a treat. He's already deduced that the fire was started during the shutdown of the second engine, a valve didn't close so methane continued pumping into the engine shaft and onto the lit engine. The craft landed hard, smashing the landing gears, making it impossible to get water to the engine compartment. The little flame we saw on the outside, was actually a raging inferno inside the engine compartment at some ungodly temperature. The massive force of the explosion was likely caused by a seal losing integrity, and a supply oxygen rushing into contact with the burning methane. Boom.
That's what he thinks, at least. He rewound the video enough times to show me stuff in slow mo while he excitedly pointed like a professor that I buy it.
That's what he thinks, at least. He rewound the video enough times to show me stuff in slow mo while he excitedly pointed like a professor that I buy it.
The force necessary to suddenly throw an object of that size hundreds of feet in the air like a kid's toy is unimaginable.
In absolute terms, sure. But on the scale of 160-foot fuel tank explosions? Pretty tepid. Could be worse.
The tank itself would have been mostly depleted. I suspect K.Jacks dad is onto something. A Valve or something did not shut properly and the fire we saw on the side as it landed was an indicator of something potentially worse. Enough time passed integrity failed and boom. Slowmo shows very clear where it starts to blow out from the internal tank and launches
Well it didn't exactly land properly, I doubt they would have recovered this one at all. Probably would've detonated remotely given the fire and methane leak.
Certainly possible. SN11 is all done. Just needs to be rolled out to the Launchstand. Sn15 is basically done too. Just needs to mount the engine ring I believe
My god everything's so complicated.
It all feels like "No, it's not supposed to be like that.", but that's because every movie or book or whatever was like "Gravity and fuel? Whatever!".
This one didn't go to space, it "only" went up to around 10km (airline altitude)
Falcon 9 first stages though regularly do go into space then come back to land (sometimes on land, sometimes on boats out in the ocean). It's about the same height as Starship, though skinnier
Here's streetview of a real one outside their HQ if you want a nice sense of scale
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The eventual plan for Starship is even more impressive though. It's a second stage, which means it will be coming back to earth from orbit or farther, which means going extremely fast. It will reenter the atmosphere as a belly-flopping fireball before doing the landing maneuver we saw today
I always thought it was silly seeing rocket ships land like this in science fiction, mostly cartoons. I guess, double dumbass to me.
The idea is to shed most of the velocity of reentry with air friction, like a skydiver. Saves fuel but it means there's a scary engine relight and flip maneuver at the end.
When it flipped it looked like something out of the expanse with that camera angle and everything.
People focus on them legs.. but i don't see them as the issue, something else is wrong and that is why they are not working as they should.
The real problem is that yellow flame coming out, something broke and is leaking fuel badly even before landing.. this is what triggers the explosion in the end as they are not able to turn it off and it just keeps burning after landing, until stuff gets hot enough to explode.
The real problem is that yellow flame coming out, something broke and is leaking fuel badly even before landing.. this is what triggers the explosion in the end as they are not able to turn it off and it just keeps burning after landing, until stuff gets hot enough to explode.
^^^ lol I guess I'm not alone.
Goddamn, 11:44 when it engages thrusters again before touching down looks like some bad CGI in a Star Trek episode. My brain cannot comprehend that crazy shit is real and that enormous rocket is just spinning around into a perfect landing position.
Also I think it's the lighting and the fucking lens flare in that one shot haha, looks straight out of a JJ Abrams movie.
Goddamn, 11:44 when it engages thrusters again before touching down looks like some bad CGI in a Star Trek episode. My brain cannot comprehend that crazy shit is real and that enormous rocket is just spinning around into a perfect landing position.
Also I think it's the lighting and the fucking lens flare in that one shot haha, looks straight out of a JJ Abrams movie.
Yeah the Early prototypes use Gravity assisted legs that are supposed to flip down and lock in place. Sn15 and beyond should have new legs
This one didn't go to space, it "only" went up to around 10km (airline altitude)
Falcon 9 first stages though regularly do go into space then come back to land (sometimes on land, sometimes on boats out in the ocean). It's about the same height as Starship, though skinnier
Here's streetview of a real one outside their HQ if you want a nice sense of scale
Google Maps
Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.
The eventual plan for Starship is even more impressive though. It's a second stage, which means it will be coming back to earth from orbit or farther, which means going extremely fast. It will reenter the atmosphere as a belly-flopping fireball before doing the landing maneuver we saw today
That's nuts. When can we expect Starship to go orbital and come back?
They're hoping to do an orbital test flight before the end of the year, but Starship isn't capable of reaching orbit from Earth by itself, so they'll need to verify the Super Heavy booster first. Prototype BN1 is about halfway built. It'll be sort of like the Falcon 9 booster, but much larger and same diameter as Starship. They'll probably do hop tests with those prototypes several times before stacking a Starship on it, though.
My wife and I had the same reaction.
I think part of it is seeing something that large moving like it did is so unnatural to the human eye.
*arrives to Mars*
Oh shit!
Note that it won't need to do a flip & burn maneuver on the moon, because there's no atmosphere to use. It'll just land straight down.
I wonder what the back up plan is when the elevator breaks
Note that it won't need to do a flip & burn maneuver on the moon, because there's no atmosphere to use. It'll just land straight down.
