[HN Gopher] SpaceX SN9 Explodes on Landing
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SpaceX SN9 Explodes on Landing
Author : beervirus
Score : 170 points
Date : 2021-02-02 20:35 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| 6nf wrote:
| Another amazing test flight! Can't wait for SN10. I understand
| they have already started the last step of construction which is
| fitting the Raptor engines to SN10. Should be ready to fly very
| soon.
| GizmoSwan wrote:
| You loved the quality of the explosion. Did you?
|
| Bigger the explosion, the more promising is the venture! NOT
| batterylow wrote:
| Explosion happens just after 12:45... I'm sure they've collected
| useful data.
| joshxyz wrote:
| Woops unscheduled disassembly <3
|
| SN10, we're waiting!
| Leparamour wrote:
| >Woops unscheduled disassembly <3
|
| The one where the front fell off?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
| hikerclimber wrote:
| nice! hopefully we have more spaceships which explode and china
| and russia beat us to space.
| hyperion2010 wrote:
| For both SN8 and SN9 my brain is screaming at me "surely they
| need more than 3 engines?!" Is the ultimate expectation that the
| engines will never fail, because it sure seems like they can't
| deal with losing even a single engine. I'm sure this is
| completely incorrect given that the issue for SN8 was tank
| pressure.
| walrus01 wrote:
| It's my understanding currently that a 'production' starship
| will have three central engines optimized for sea level, and
| additionally three vacuum-optimized engines installed around
| its inside base perimeter.
| d_silin wrote:
| Illustration how "move fast and break things" in aerospace domain
| works.
| ericd wrote:
| Honestly, my main takeaway from this testing and Falcon 9 dev
| has been that we should be doing a whole lot more of that than
| we have been, at least until there are human passengers. The
| contrast in rate of progress with eg SLS is stunning.
| Already__Taken wrote:
| We knew this since watching how much the Russians got done in
| the time they had for the resources. Put the engineers
| together with the manufactures, build often, test more.
| codefreakxff wrote:
| Well. Yes. It appears to be a fully functioning launch
| vehicle and just as reusable as its predecessors, don't see
| much downside in making the landings more "interesting". When
| they work out the dynamics of it then they really have
| something that will revolutionize launches
| api wrote:
| Also keep in mind that it's already doing what pre-F9 rockets
| did: go up. The RUDs so far are on landing attempts. Landing
| is a whole lot harder.
| walrus01 wrote:
| They landed a lot of falcon 9 first stages without legs on the
| water, vertically, to test the control system. And a number of
| attempted barge landings with legs failed, before the first
| successful landing. Now it's almost a routine thing.
| MR4D wrote:
| 'We may crash, but at least we do it with style!"
|
| Somehow that should be an Elon tweet.
| jerf wrote:
| If you happen not to have seen it, "How Not To Land an
| Orbital Rocket Booster":
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvim4rsNHkQ from SpaceX.
| tectonic wrote:
| This is why we test. (In this case, header tank helium
| pressurization and more thermal tiles.)
|
| At least they didn't hit SN10!
|
| Summary tomorrow in this week's Orbital Index
| (https://orbitalindex.com).
| Florin_Andrei wrote:
| Well, they popped a bunch of Falcon 9s until they got those
| right.
| mongol wrote:
| I am impressed by the camera angles. How do you think they filmed
| the last parts? With a drone?
| rglover wrote:
| Love seeing these tests for two reasons:
|
| 1.) Experiencing history in the making, especially knowing that
| the SpaceX team will eventually get it right. 2.) Realizing that
| even the best of the best have repeated failures and need to rely
| on iteration to get "there."
| cmoscoe wrote:
| On the 'repeated failures' piece, that's somewhat new for
| aerospace. Traditionally, things would be over-engineered, and
| losing a test vessel would be considered a bad thing. SpaceX
| seems very content to blow up a bunch of rockets on their way
| towards not blowing up rockets.
|
| This seems to have caused at least part of their recent issues
| with the FAA, who seem to be less ok with explosions. It will
| be very interesting to see if this iterative approach leads to
| more reliable rockets down the line!
| trasz wrote:
| I wonder what's that tiny thing that seems to have broken off
| some two seconds before it hit the ground?
| bdamm wrote:
| Indeed, there were two. Two objects broke off from the ship
| before impact, one just before the first swing of the pendulum
| and one just after.
| jansan wrote:
| Also, there was an unusually large flame at the end of the
| liftoff. Maybe that already sealed SN9's fate.
| d1str0 wrote:
| At apogee? Pretty sure that final flame is expected.
| kazinator wrote:
| I was thinking, someone's ego that was accidentally left
| attached. But, oh, you said tiny thing. :)
| kazinator wrote:
| I was thinking, someone's ego that was accidentally left
| attached to the fuselage. But, oh, you said tiny thing.
| Gh0stRAT wrote:
| Watching it in slow motion, it looks almost like pieces of
| insulating foil.
| Diederich wrote:
| Failure with one of the engines on re-light:
| https://twitter.com/MurkyWanders/status/1356703469986586626
|
| "I bet they needed that."
|
| As others have noted, SN10 is standing by. Somewhat uncomfortably
| close by: https://i.imgur.com/F9rsBbD.png
|
| It's so exciting to be a spectator of these events.
| _Microft wrote:
| _SN10, wenplop?_
|
| The debris does not seem to come from next to the failing
| rocket engine but from the outer wall next to the engine that
| was not used in the landing attempt. It appears first shortly
| before the clock shows 6:21.
| Florin_Andrei wrote:
| > _SN10 is standing by. Somewhat uncomfortably close by_
|
| That was my immediate comment at the end. Pretty confident they
| are.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| This was my thought even before launch. SN9 could explode on
| the pad.
| caminocorner wrote:
| They're definitely going to need to inspect it for damage, but
| it does seem odd not to be THAT close
| breatheoften wrote:
| Was it camera angle that made it appear to be so perfectly flat
| (top and bottom of rocket at same altitude) when it was in free
| fall or was that actually the target free fall orientation?
|
| I thought the top of the rocket was supposed to be slightly
| elevated compared to the tail ... I suppose it couldve just been
| a lack of thrust due to some engine issue -- but the motion
| looked very unnatural when the rockets relit -- almost as though
| too much energy was being expended to get the top of the rocket
| lift ed ... It seems to me like the top should be slightly
| elevated relative to the tail in free fall so that the thrust on
| refiring will produce the desired tail swing with minimal energy
| ...
| NortySpock wrote:
| I presume it was the target orientation since they held it for
| so long, had they wanted to actively leave that orientation
| earlier I assume they would have done so.
|
| Especially subsonic I assume their orientation does not matter
| a whole lot when just trying to fall with max drag.
|
| Not sure how much energy they'll save doing the flip maneuver
| earlier though, seems like they want max drag as low as they
| can go, then flip to powered flight at the last moment possible
| -- and their problem seems to be keeping the engines lit.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| I'm not sure if I'd call that a landing.
| mempko wrote:
| When you look at the history of the space race between Soviets vs
| USA, one thing that is clear is the approach used by both
| countries to engineer their craft were very different. The
| Soviets would do design by testing and blow up many rockets and
| gather data vs the USA which would be more up-front about it's
| design and design testing before gong live.
|
| SpaceX clearly took the Soviet's approach to rocket design.
|
| EDIT: This is not a negative thing. Soyuz is pretty darn safe
| because of the approach they took.
| bobo_legos wrote:
| Does anyone know some good books that explore the space race?
| I've read Carrying the Fire(which was excellent), but it
| doesn't touch much on what the Soviets were doing.
| Cyphusx wrote:
| I found "This New Ocean" by William E. Burrows to be a rather
| good account of the first space race, as it covers both sides
| in an equal amount of detail.
| e-_pusher wrote:
| This biography of the chief rocket designer of the Soviets,
| Sergei Korolev, is also a good introduction to the Soviet
| space program.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Korolev-Masterminded-Soviet-Drive-
| Ame...
| the-dude wrote:
| Comrade! This is 2021, nothing positive about Mother Russia may
| be mentioned on this capitalist cesspool.
| mempko wrote:
| It's funny because the Soviets did it right, in that they
| funded smart people and gave them control. The Nasa's
| approach was to have people create proposals and get approval
| for funds.
|
| We have forgotten that the "fund smart people and let them do
| what they want" is the best approach. Look at Xerox Parc,
| Bell Labs, etc. Nasa's modern approach with SpaceX and other
| companies seems to reflect these hard learned lessons.
| PeterisP wrote:
| "fund smart people and let them do what they want" - well,
| that's not exactly how it worked - for example, while
| Korolov was mostly able to get the resources he needed in
| the 1950s, in the early 1940s he did his engineering work
| on bomber design from a prison labor camp (which is a bit
| far from "let them do what they want" or "give them
| control") after losing most of his teeth from malnutrition
| during forced labor in a gold mine. This probably provided
| a perspective for him of what the limits of "do what you
| want" are in reality.
| the-dude wrote:
| IIRC Zhe Germans were pretty hands-off with von Braun as
| well.
| waiseristy wrote:
| These smart people did not have any semblance of control in
| the USSR. The Soviet space program was 95% political,
| heavily influence by the politburo and Soviet interests.
| Smart people would not have developed the Buran if all
| options were on the table
| rurban wrote:
| It's more funny that both primarily used thousands of
| Germans as their rocket technicians, and both german
| parties used their german style, based on engineers as
| heads.
|
| This all changed with Lyndon Johnson taking over, getting
| rid of the Germans, introducing the well known inefficient
| NASA/gov-style management style known from the Shuttle era,
| and moved the technicians out of Alabama to Houston. This
| was the anti-modern democratic approach.
|
| SpaceX simply went back to the old modern style, which
| worked well for the US and Russia.
|
| The trick was not using smart people, but experienced
| engineers in control, and not fresh anti-engineer PM's out
| of college. Everybody can control a budget, esp. engineers,
| but only engineers can control engineering problems.
| Layke1123 wrote:
| I have watched PMs actively contribute nothing to a
| project by entering false metrics. It really is either
| you can build something, or you can't and contribute
| nothing to the project.
| hinkley wrote:
| The Russians also were fond of "give it more gas", which SpaceX
| has also embraced and Elon has called out before. The fuel is a
| real big piece of the launch cost but it's far from the
| largest. If your rocket equation calls for a little extra fuel
| but in exchange you can use more reliable or at least less
| exotic parts, just do it.
| [deleted]
| evgen wrote:
| While the US had better tech and improved design they all
| tested the shit out of things before going live and then ran
| live tests on unmanned rockets, many of which exploded quick
| spectacularly. Soyuz might be safe now, but that safety was
| paid for by many near-misses and in several cases in cosmonaut
| blood. Your statement regarding US vs Soviet approach to the
| space race is simply wrong.
| Layke1123 wrote:
| Challenger? What's your point? That Russia didn't beat the US
| into space? I thought the west at least accepted that fact.
| Or do you just have to believe the US is ALWAYS "superior"?
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| > As of 2020, there have been 15 astronaut and 4 cosmonaut
| fatalities during spaceflight. Astronauts have also died
| while training for space missions, such as the Apollo 1
| launch pad fire which killed an entire crew of three
|
| The numbers don't really seem to support your assertion that
| NASA is generally much safer than Soviet/Russia
| evgen wrote:
| Both had two vehicles lost in space/reentry, the shuttles
| just held more astronauts. In terms of percentage of fatal
| missions the two were roughly equivalent, with Soviet
| failures front-loaded into less sophisticated and less safe
| early vehicles while the US failures were later on an
| overly-complicated system design.
| valuearb wrote:
| At least 126 technicians and cosmonauts were killed by
| accidents during the Soviet space program. It's rumored
| that additional cosmonauts died on missions that the
| Soviets covered up.
| hinkley wrote:
| We also lost all three astronauts in a test of the Apollo
| capsule which doesn't count as flight but I think we
| would agree still counts in the buckets of blood both
| programs have spent.
|
| If you do more tests which kill more people before
| declaring the system good, you don't get to not count
| those people like it's a different color of money in some
| bureaucratic dystopia.
| fpgaminer wrote:
| But the U.S. has sent 3x as many citizens into space: https
| ://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_travelers_by_nat...
|
| So combining with your statistic the U.S. has a fatality
| rate of 4.4% versus Russia's 3.3%. Given the low N it's
| probably within margin of error.
| Diederich wrote:
| And that's why you have an assembly line for Starships:
| https://i.redd.it/dmr9bjhpcee61.jpg (SN9 lacking the RUD symbol
| in that image of course.)
| 6nf wrote:
| Also note that BN1 (which is the booster stage) is getting
| close to completion! I wonder when we'll see one of those fly?
| walrus01 wrote:
| I saw photos a few days ago that the base piece of the BN1,
| which will need to hold the weight of the entire thing and
| thrust mounts for the engines has been spotted at boca chica.
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