Starship IFT-4 Analysis! SpaceX takes a huge leap forward on a long road ahead.
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- Опубликовано: 4 окт 2024
- Starship had a fantastic fourth flight yesterday and SpaceX took a massive leap forward.
But here's why we're not flying this thing to Mars any time soon...
#spacex #spacexstarship #nasa
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OK, boys and girls, I'm only going to say this one more time:
I am well aware that this is a testing process on a ship that isn't mature yet. I know that this is how SpaceX does things. I know that expecting Starship to perform like a mature ship like the Shuttle is unrealistic.
And that's why I'm angry!
I'm angry that NASA made the bone headed decision to try to put this immature system on the Moon by 20 f-ing 24!!! I'm angry that they bought Elon's absurdly low balled bid, thinking that this ship had the slightest chance of completing Artemis 3 on schedule.
Even the delayed date of 2026 is absolutely not going to happen, given where Starship is now, and to make matters worse, NASA gave BLUE f-ing ORIGIN the "backup" contract!
At this rate, when is "Moon to Mars" actually going to put us on Mars?
How about never?
Congress isn't going to keep throwing billions of dollars at this "we'll launch when we're ready" fiasco if it doesn't produce tangible results soon.
Starship is absolutely on schedule to become an amazing launch system by 2030 or so.
It is woefully behind schedule on Artemis. It never had a chance to be on schedule.
And that's why I'm angry.
Actually, I'm flat out pissed!
Are SpaceX charging NASA cost-plus? I doubt it. All the failures and test articles are no doubt at SpaceX's cost and they'll only get paid the full original price once they complete the work.
Would another choice have made it on time with their proposals? Would they have asked for more money? We only have to look at Starliner to see how traditional solutions work.
Meanwhile, are SpaceX sharing all their findings with NASA, and are NASA learning a lot and able to give good advice as a result? I don't know but I would guess so.
NASA took a gamble on a way-out-there concept which would advance many aspects of space travel capabilities (and reduce the cost thereof) several fold. It was always clear that to make this happen, SpaceX would need to make unprecedented numbers of test flights and landings. We're only now finally starting to hear that bodies such as FAA and US Fish and Wildlife Service might no longer get in the way of that.
You could argue that SpaceX should have known that this would delay things but they likely only consider the engineering challenge, not endless months of bureaucratic red tape.
I'm still not convinced spacex is the bottleneck here. Say spacex was ready to go this year? The rest of the mission isn't even close. What good is a human landing system if you can't get to the moon. Tbh it would probably be ready sooner if they gave spacex the whole mission. (I don't care that SLS just finally made their first crewed launch it still doesn't look good...) I don't think NASA put the 2024 launch date out there thinking it would actually go in 2024. I think they intentionally made it ambitious to motivate the contract winners and then push back the date when they can't meet it to something more reasonable like 2030.
A Falcon 9-Dragon simultaneous mission, allows Space X to taxi a command flight crew to Starship, avoiding most of Starship's critical flight phases.
Starship is initially planned to be unmanned during the launch/refueling/reentry phases. The Dragon crew can transition to Starship "after" a successful orbital launch or refueling and depart "before" a re-entry.
I would expect this mode to last until Musks stated 100 successful launch/refueling/re-entries.
This allows Starship to earlier execute actual in-orbit simulations of missions. Checking out Starship's critical systems and the crew's ability to work in a 0 g space environment.
Dragon would remain docked until the simulation was completed.
This accelerates Starship's program,
and emulates the Apollo 7 mission simulations that were done in earth orbit.
You bring up Starship as being an immature system, but the alternatives were nothing. Blue Origin and Dynetics were both way outside the budget NASA had for the lander contract; being twice and three times the cost and both of those companies were far behind SpaceX.
Congress didn't care to give NASA the budget they needed to go with someone else quicker and they had to go with a timeline where it won't just get cancelled.
Starship is cheap enough with the versatility to allow for low-cost expanded or new contracts. It also helps to have a great inspiring effect on people so they don't just immediately get disinterested.
Look at the snoozefest of the Starliner launch. CGI visual telemetry instead of live feed.
Alternatives would have likely had a similar fate to the Constellation Program.
@@Jogeta5 Immature spaceship built by an immature CEO.
Considering how little damage it took to completely destroy columbia, the starship still being functional after all of that damage is a testament to how well it has been engineered. I went from cautious skeptic to true believer yesterday. Every other obstacle in their way is nothing compared to the problems they've already solved.
Very good point.
Yep, they have a full end-to-end proof of concept now. Lots of good data to work with. It also wouldn’t surprise me if they start loading them up with Starlink satellites soon (probably from v2 Starships onwards) as getting to orbit seems pretty solid. That will help reduce costs of the development program while they dial in all the reentry and landing aspects, not too dissimilar from how Falcon was developed.
Steel vs Aluminum heat resistance.
Agreed...I'm sure that that there was other damage. Probably the other hinge points also burned through. And yet...the thing flew under control, did the flip, lit up it's engines above the ocean and mostly landed OK. Anything we've seen with similar damage (space shuttles)...just broke up and was fragments! Good job spaceX! The next launch will very likely be far superior to this one! I don't think we will see cargo on launch 5 or even a tower catch of both sections. Maybe we will see a booster catch and that on the second tower at starbase with no launch platform under it. I bet considering that it had a braking engine failure that this will wait until the next landing in the ocean happens with no engine failures. Starship will have to make a fully functional and undamaged landing in the ocean before a catch attempt is made. I'm very curious to see what the recovery of the booster and Starship reveal!!! As long as at least one tank each is still intact, they will float just fine.
@@MarcusA24 No they don't! Did you see a successful catch of the booster and Starship yet? Did Starship come down without damage? Did all the engines on the booster and Starship operate without failures? That's end to end proof of concept! We are at about 65% now. HUGE progress to be sure, but definitely NOT at "proof of concept" yet.
Starship landed absolutely vertical at 2km/h, then accelerated again as it toppled. A front flap fell off as it hit the ocean. I'd call that a controlled soft landing. Sure, it took one hell of a beating.
thought the same - was watching the speed as it did the burn. Still I wonder if they need an entirely new approach for the heat shield, no way we get rapid reusability if the tiles need to checked and fixed every flight. Amazing though confident they will get it working
@@TheWheelTurns i mean they just need to have other ships in que, take the landed ones aside for a few days inspection and go again, still quick enough
Yeah, Jordan missed it by a mile on this video. Didn't even bother to read the telemetry clearly showing the soft landing.
@@RockinRobbins13 I think that he just doesn't trust the readings.
I'd agree that it went much better than he gives credit.
The payload was the data and in that sense Starship performed better than expected. No one really expected it to survive reentry on its first real controlled attempt. The data probably helped spacex confirm what they already suspected and will help make their models a little more accurate.
Everybody is over reading the fin burn through. This was an area of concern and Spacex placed and camera focused on it in the plasma shadow because of that. What we saw therefore was likely the most damage there was. We can also see even through the cracks and debris on the lens from that view just how well the craft maintained its stability and how little rocking or jittering was occurring. That means that the rest of the craft had very little if any major damage, the aerodynamics pretty much exclude that. Also why do people persist in thinking of the flaps as mini wings.
Quite frankly the program leaped ahead.
While you are busy mocking people for thinking of Starship's flaps as wings...you called them fins...which is equally bad. But much worse for someone complaining about others misuse of words.
@@PowerScissor - so then, they are not flaps - but forward canards.... 😜
Yup! They will swing the flaps leeward a bit, and a huge maybe on any other redesigns regarding heat shield, hinge seals etc. and they should be good to catch after a couple proofs on that layout. Then…it’s off to the moon! lol
ok, so the fins were an area of concern. How does SpaceX better protect the fins? I think Elon said they would move them to a leeward location. I am not sure what that means.
@@Steve-Richter Leeward means away from the wind. In this case moving hinge point into the plasma shadow. You can thing of it closer to the back away from the belly. We probably will see some other alternatives still this year as they get even better data, First is because booster recovery is far and away the most important economically. If they can get that far they will match Falcon. But also because there are other alternatives and Starship will have a variety of configurations so the will probably want more than one option.
I think the camera was pointed at exactly the location where the expected things to fail.
Starship really couldn't have suffered more damage, as holes in de tanks would disintegrate it entirely. The fact that they were able to still control it so well and even relight the engines, means it must have been pretty much intact, apart from the flaps.
I wonder if booster and starship kept floating, in which case they can be recovered for examination.
And that recovery scares me. Who is doing that recovery, SpaceX or China.
Yes the tiles should do a good job protecting the body. Its the control surfaces that are going to be tricky and to be reusable have to survive in tact
They said they would detonate the FTS’s and let them sink after soft splash down
@@jamesp5301 It's the hinges. Plasma forces its way through at immense pressure. If there's some way of shadowing the hinges with sliding plates that could conceivably help.
@@ForwardSynthesis yeah that makes sense. Can’t expose those to the severe reentry heat
Engine outs don't trigger mishap reports unless they lead to the ship deviating from its planned trajectory. I think you're leaning into the "angry" character a bit much here.
Engine out doesn't .. engine exploding does
@hydewhyte4364 the word "explosion" is pretty meaningless when you are inside the active engine bay of an orbital heavy-lift rocket. It's just an engine out to the FAA
@@Shadare actually its a huge difference. If you are trying to land on the chopsticks. If it throws debris radially then I'm sure Angry is correct
@jamesp5301 anything that is ever at ANY time downrange of the raptor engines while firing must be able to handle any amount of force that the raptors could produce nondirectionally. They are currently channeling a constant explosion at everything below them. That force momentarily going sideways without being channeled through the throat of the engine is like a sneeze during a hurricane.
@@Shadare I didn't say thrust. I meant shrapnel. yes hot gases are intense but no you can't have an engine explode and risk a vehicle explosion or to throw metal shaprnal a long distance. Mixing up normal thrust vs abnormal explosion. come on
Starship is still a prototype. The space shuttle wasn't a prototype when it made its maiden flight/reentry. You're comparing apples to oranges there.
Agreed
The shuttle always was a prototype. No two shuttles were alike, every s/n needed custom parts, and it never got out of that prototype phase.
Sorry shuttle was a prototype Enterprise was a flying wooden test instrument.
And it is likely to remain a prototype forever. The space shuttle was a badly flawed design that killed 14 people. And NASA knew about those design problems, but flew it anyway. Nevertheless, both the space shuttle and the Saturn V had absolutely perfect flights THE VERY FIRST TIME. Elon is doing it WRONG. He should have gotten things right, or at least a lot closer to right than he did, before the first launch, which was an absolute disaster.
Negative
That Starship landed on the water,, with the degradation of the control surfaces, is amazing. The next flight will be even better.. Your analysis is great.
Adrian frequently has a bad take just to be controversial. All evidence suggest a soft landing despite the degrading of control services and that's because the control surfaces aren't the only tool for attitude control.
It was pretty obvious from the telemetry data that Starship performed a soft landing. The speed was 2 kph at impact and was vertical. You can even see it accelerate again as it tips over. Not sure what AA is seeing here...
He's seeing bait
in an interview with tim dodd on the 5th elon called out that the plasma might under cut the flaps and that the placement had changed in the next design so this was somewhat expected. if any other areas suffered burn throughs except the skirt that would have compromised the tanks and it would have rudded instantly so i dont think its as bad as you say. sure they have to make the tiles more reliable but this was a big step forward. and starship DID splash down like the animated version because we saw it slowly tip over and hit the water
They intentionally left some tiles off the ship for this test, which says alot about the confidence they have in their design.
Yup. Regarding the tiles becoming more reliable, I didn’t even notice any issues with them falling off during launch. Did you..?
@@revmsj i think single digits -> a dozen might have drifted off during coasting but no i didnt see any fly off during the first 1km of ascent. are there good views during stage sep? hard to see tiles that far away
And we’ve already seen how they’re going to improve other bits of the heat shield. Some of the most recent barrel sections coming out of Starfactory have pins all the way up to the welds so more of the tiles can be attached using the more reliable pin method with fewer having to be held on entirely by adhesive.
There’s always scope for improvement but I suspect that most of the heat shield is pretty solid, especially with more pinning and less glue-only in future, and it will come down to a few specific particularly troublesome areas where the engineers will need to focus their attention.
It was also a great advertisement to the successful use of Starlink. What a feed!
Considering we can now get video through re-entry is amazing. Getting rid of the blackout zone allows so much more data to be collected.
true - Starlink connectivity was phenomenal
Seriously! I can’t imagine that all other space launch providers won’t become customers at this point. That data is way to valuable to rely on short feeds or feeble, non-real time recordings of it to sort through later…
Considering that the camera was still working and the flap was still attached, maybe the ship was in better shape than some people think
Yes it certainly gives some hope and the innate strength of the structure and hopefully design, but taking a more cynical view ( that at this point equally meets the known somewhat limited public facts) a B-17 returning in tatters from a successful bombing raid was also in many cases a total right off so when you are looking for re use as a fundamental there has to be a measured and nuanced response to the level of success and potential road to achieving that goal.
What's more incredible is that if humans were on board this, they would have survived despite the damage
In my opinion, the ship was probably fine because although the flap was damaged there was previous discussions about the actuator seal and if the ship was as badly damaged as the flap, it probably wouldn’t have made it past 50 to 60 km altitude
@@AverageMan-on9zkagreed, the flaps didn't start burning up until the ship was past it's peak point of heating too which is a good sign. I'm interested to see how the part of the ship held up where they deliberately left the tiles off.
@@nzoomed it’s possible it did poorly because spacex now wants to put ablative behind the heat tiles.
I love the iterative approach that SpaceX takes! Every launch takes us a little further.
In this case a LOT further than anticipated. This shows that the iterative approach results in faster progress.
yes - and we don't have to wait 20+ years for a single launch
Imagine what assets they could have deployed with that launch alone. Even with the current iteration of their bay door for Starlink, they could have deployed almost everything they’ve deployed so far this year. Of course they’d all be in the same location so not a great idea, but they definitely could have…🤣
Elon mentioned that the gap within the flaps was a weak point because hypersonic air also carrying heat was breaching through the creak which cause structural failure and melting
See, he knew it was a problem, he knew what would happen, yet he went ahead and launched it anyway, KNOWING it would fail. Design problems like this must be solved BEFORE launching. Elon is a complete nutcase.
In a way it's gratifying to see a failure point in a place where they were worried about because I'm sure they already have some ideas to fix it. Firstly it's on record that v2 of the ship will have the forward flaps more leeward that will I hope help a bit. Second, I haven't heard mention of the other front flap getting trashed which makes me think it's marginal issue not a catastrophic "this bit of the design is doomed to failure" issue and finally it's quite a small area needing better protection.
At one point way back in the early days of Starship conceptual design the idea was floated of having no heat shield at all and instead using transpirational cooling perhaps using some of the onboard LOX. Obviously they didn't go that route, very possibly because it would have needed too much extra LOX capacity, but maybe localised transpirational cooling just for those gaps where the air gets in might be one possible option for SpaceX engineers to consider since that would need way less LOX than cooling the whole windward side but like I said, I bet the SpaceX engineers already know exactly what design changes they're going to implement next to try and maintain forward flap integrity through re-entry.
That’s interesting those points have always looked to me to be problematical when you have to cater for movement and a pre use seal or other solution an exacting task. I am interested too to see if DreamChaser has a problem with its moving wings during decent even if less exacting than the Starship design. If this known problem means the damage was limited to this area then while solving it is no easy job perhaps, a solution is far more a specific design and engineering task that one can see potential answers to. Moving the flaps as planned, if that has not already been introduced in this ship, could certainly help.
Congratulations to the entire Space X team. Flight #4 was an important first step and thus Moon and Mars is one step closer
6:58 No, the failed engine has absolutely nothing to do with the colour of the plume. Each engine regulates exactly how much fuel and oxidizer it takes in. They each have two turbopumps and the RPM setting on each turbopump determines the fuel/oxidizer mixture.
But it is nominal that the engines burn a little fuel rich. This is to keep the combustion chamber from melting. With an ideal mix of fuel and oxidizer, it burns hotter, and you also have more uncombusted free oxygen that can do bad things to metal alloys.
You are right. On top, methane is a lighter molecule then oxygen, so unburned methane has a higher exhaust velocity. And since carbon is the lighter atom compared to oxygen, so even when the chemistry is wrong, every species that comes from methane has a higher exhaust velocity then anything coming from oxygen. For the same reason they diluted the V2 rocket fuel (which was ethanol) with water.
I've watched this channel since the beginning but there were multiple similar misstatements during the launch. I think he was expecting failure and was leaping to conclusions to quickly w/o facts. Couple of examples: He was noting that he though the angle of attack and orientation was a bit wonky during the initial re-entry of starship. (2:23:05 in the live feed). Around 2:35:00 he talked about the landing burn and the speed of starship. Not sure where idea of a landing burn and excess speed came from. No doubt trying to do a live feed is not easy, but it really felt like were on a hunt to find issues and leaping to conclusions a bit fast.
Came here to comment the same. And AA should logically know better if he thought about it so it's a bit frustrating that he stated this as if a fact he had 100% certainty on vs speculation
Yes! I totally forgot he had said that and that I took issue with it as well. I’m telling you, he dropped a lot of misinformation on this one didn’t he…
@@michaelwade1915I suggested earlier that perhaps he’s scared of coming off as a SpaceX fanboy. Now it just crossed my mind that he very well could be being influenced by the vehement “Elon hate” that’s rampant today. It’s so trendy now that I would t be surprised
Engine failures don't cause a mishap investigation. and under the new updated launch license neither do failure to reenter due to high heating, failure of the booster or ship to land due to engine failure, and another that I forgot. But in general it's basically if the FTS wasn't involved it doesn't trigger an investigation!
How are you able to comment on the condition of the vehicle when it landed? Have you got access to anything the rest of us don't? The relentless focus on the negative is just tedious.
He and Ellie were in a small dingy and watched it land near where MH370 got swallowed by Ashton Forbes tri-parade of white orbs.
Being critical is key. Identifying issues not ignoring them. We have a timeline with Artemis that is not being met. 2026. Engines shutting down and exploding won't get human rated
@@AP-qs2zf It's his schtick. Other creators manage to give an objective critique of programmes without this persistent negativity. He does it for clicks. Everything he does is about the views.
@@tech5298 it all makes sense now. 🙂
I think it was the best flight to date. Certainly the most entertaining of all time.
SuperHeavy and Starship surely are the most Kerbal rockets in exstance.
I'm thinking, at this point, that SpaceX should go into the indestructible camera business. They'd kill the camera market.
Haha, I'd like to see a SpaceX cam to take on GoPro lol
@HendrikEbber Lets see a GoPro do that shit on the Starship I'll wait.
Only the uplink side was done by SpaceX - those are Nokia 3310's strapped to the side with duct tape. 😉
There is someone out there that knows the manufacturer and model number......
@@hervigdewilde3599 Duct tape that survives re-entry at Mach 20...I'd buy it at any price. Hell, SpaceX should be wrapping the whole Starship in that duct tape.
Never before so excited at seeing a little graphic representation of a Starship flip.
Everybody: Man starship ain’t going to make it
Starship: NOT YET not giving up that’s my ninja way 😂❤️🔥
believe it!
Absolutely! All the haters will still hate, but I’ll admit even as a SpaceX and starship fanboy, I fully did not expect it to succeed. Particularly when I first began to see the path of that plasma encroaching so heavily on its “armpit”. I could tell it was only a matter of time before the whole flat (as well as the other 3 and god knows what else) are plasma cut clean off the superstructure and she goes boom! But god damnit if she didn’t show my ass…
I couldn’t be more proud of her and those that had a hand in R, D, building, and launching her!👍🏾
Wouldn't quite call it a soft landing? More like a crash landing? Are you joking? It was going to 29000 km per hour and didn't smash into the ocean. How is that not soft?
SpaceX today has made a huge step toward full reusability of a space craft.. Go Starship!
As an astronaut you should know what life in "low gravity" means! In the former Soviet Union I saw cosmonauts landing after they won the record for the longest space flight. They couldn't walk, had to be hoisted out of the device. Today we have more experience, with everyday training we can slow done the muscle loses, but we can't do anything against blood pressure, vascular diseases, bone structure, osteoporosis and weakening of the imune system we can't do nothing. And the Radiation is a hazard too. For this to be a success for humanity, we must make great progress in medicine, otherwise Mars will be just as much a dream in 20 years as it is today.
@@Ezekiel903 Starship will be able to travel to Mars in around 4 months. That's less time in zero g than an astronaut experiences during a standard ISS mission. And the radiation isn't that bad. You get a slightly increased risk of cancer down the line, but that's managable.
@@SpaceAdvocate This is only possible with in certain planetary constellation. 20330/33/39. To do this, we need to know what kind of propulsion system we will use. For chemical propulsion, "starship" we need around 700-1100 tons of fuel! Since a lot depends on the mass that needs to be transported, 5-6 months is realistic! In addition,Mars has only 30% of earth's gravity! Mars has no magnetic field, so radiation diseases are likely! So, 30% is a real issue, the radiation too, then the transport of all this Material, the landing on Mars..................it seems unlikely that this will happen before 2040, Musk knows it do! And you will have to sign a paper, a sort of one way ticket!
@@Ezekiel903
Starship is being mass-produced as a platform with variants of cargo, crew, and tanker. depot etc. It will operationally launch as a fleet during an Earth-Mars launch window.
The launch and catch towers are to allow for a very high launch cadence to minimise long-term delays for missions. Even during this testing phase, the cadence will continue to increase.
@@Jogeta5 yes, but have you ever seen the numbers you need to carry only to reach space? 240metric tons alone for the merlin"Raptor" thrusters, another thing Elon doesn't say and why he has trouble with the FAA are environmental effects, and 600 previously unreported work accidents, alone since 2014! this says a lot about how much he cares about teaching his workers and the workers he employs!
Huh.... what's Angry talking about. It was a soft landing. Then it toppled over.
The space shuttle heat shield that took billions of hours before its Maiden flight and then took hundreds of thousands of men hours to fly again and again
Seeing that stabilizer melt then it manage to land anyway was some of the most exciting live video I've ever seen! Can't wait to watch flight 5!
imagine being in the indian ocean minding your own business at night, trying to get some fish for the kids and suddenly you hear this huge silo falling from the sky, compressing air at supersonic speeds, with a flap burning and desintegrating and suddenly you see it doing the suicide dive and soft landing.... he probably be like "damn aliens!"
"Everything went well. Here's why that's a bad thing." - Angry Astronaut, definitely not a SpaceX hater
@Angry, read the licence agreement. It appears that as long as the flights did not waver outside of trajectories even if explosion, It wouldn't need a mishap report to FAA.
It's because the flaps are too far forward-something SpaceX literally tweeted about three years ago. They've long planned to move them backwards. Why haven't they done it already? Maybe doing that will complicate the balance of the full stack and they wanted to make 100% certain it was necessary.
It's planned for v2.
May as well burn up what they already built out to test all other aspects of it.
But since that problem did not mortally kill starship, they are absolutely on the correct path and will absolutely succeed in full and rapid reusability
no you got it backwards its to far back they plan to move it forward and up more check out the tweets
@@revmsj My thoughts exactly. Maybe SpaceX would get some bad publicity from some of the less informed media - “Starship heat shield fails again” - but I doubt they care because even if the next few flights end up with the Ship having very similar heat issues on re-entry because they don’t try to fix those issues until v2 there are still so many milestones that IFT-5 and beyond could aim for. On-orbit Raptor relight, payload bay door (IFT-3 test didn’t look 100% successful to me), even a test payload deployment, perfect booster at-sea landing without any Raptor issues, maybe even some on-orbit manoeuvring in preparation for a ship-to-ship refuelling test much further down the line. And just putting more instrumentation (sensors etc) on the problem areas would on its own be valuable output from an IFT-5 using the same ship design with no retrofitted heat shield upgrades.
Since day one when I saw the first flap based design I thought "stopping plasma entering the joints is going to be a very difficult problem to solve".
I hope they manage to do this
The moving flaps to leeward side been told years ago
@@MarsOzzie possibly or changing the shape and/or default reentry angle to maximise the heat shield enclosure. They had a very steep angle during reentry opening up a huge gap in the shield.
I'm sure they'll work on both the software and hardware to fix it. But I'll be watching the flaps closely on new ships and future reentries.
Honestly don't think there is any show-stopper here. A changeup to serious high temperature alloys in the hinge area with perhaps a wrap-around aerodynamic design and even internal cooling are all potential design changes which should rectify the problem. I doubt SX engineers are even slightly worried about this. Elon admits they lost a lot of tiles though and for me the whole TPS concept is more of a worry - and always has been.
@@andrewsarchus6036 the problem is they have to use heat tiles to accommodate the changing shape of the starship. I was wondering if they could manufacture larger ones, especially in areas that don't change much during flight, such as the flaps.
They've some very clever folks to even get this far, so I'm sure they'll solve the problems in due course. I think they know this is a long term solution, hence why they've not even really suggested landing back at launch site in any near future, just the booster.
@@Codysdab Elon has said they intend to move the flaps more to leewards and that perhaps entirely solves the problem. But there are many other additional mitigating design changes such as you suggest so I'm confident they will fix this in short order.
I've watched space launches since I was child during the 1960s. Yesterday was incredible, thanks to the superb footage that highlighted the sheer brutality of re-entry.
Same here. That was so exciting to see that the flap was still there when it did the final maneuver. 😂😂😎
To me, this was a huge success. The data gained will be priceless. That the Ship was able to still operate and perform something akin to a splashdown is unbelievable! It was a landing that a crew could conceivably walk, or be stretchered, away from. The launch was the best yet, and didn't have me wanting to mentally push the rocket upwards. The booster was, if not flawless, then close to it.
A few more like this and I think SpaceX will have a functional craft.
Yes. Generally in agreement with Jordan. Amazing progress, but by the time the ship was "hovering" over the Indian Ocean, it was critically damaged and I doubt that the damage was restricted to what we could see through the broken and burned cameras.
Actually that camera did pretty good compared to the flipper. Whatever material they are using to build the camera they should use for the flipper.
It's incredible that the forward flap, the camera is directed at, remained attached despite the damage suffered. I suspect that the other forward flap, and both rear flaps suffered plasmas damage as well. Yet the orbiter still retained some attitude control.
The fact that it completed the landing burn suggests that the vehicle was overall in pretty good shape. The tanks would be intact, or the vehicle would have lost structural integrity and pressurization, preventing the engines from being lit. There might have been significant damage to the other flaps, but it seems unlikely it was as bad as on the flap on video. If any of the other flaps had been in an equally bad state, it's unlikely that control would have been possible. The other three flaps would have been working furiously to compensate for the damaged flap.
There may have been damage to the payload bay, and possibly the skirt and vacuum Raptors, but it wouldn't have been very extensive, or the vehicle just wouldn't have survived.
Over 400km per hour at 1 kilometer to the surface...probably NOT a pretty (much less soft) water landing.
but most people seem to forget what the biggest obstacle to getting to other planets is: people and "low gravity"! In the former Soviet Union, I saw cosmonauts landing after winning the record for the longest space flight. They couldn't walk, they had to be lifted out of the vehicle. Today we have more experience, with daily training we can slow down muscle loss, but we can't do anything about high/low blood pressure, vascular diseases, bone structure, osteoporosis and weakening of the immune system. And radiation is also a danger. In order for this to be a success for humanity, we need to make great progress in medicine, otherwise Mars will be as much a dream in 20 years as it is today.
For any other company it would be a long road, for SpaceX, it's just another day.
I had wondered about heat protection for the flaps.
For a prototype still in first generation, this was an amazing test flight.
SpaceX got more data on this flight, than years of computer simulations...
I doubt aircraft like reusability, can ever be reached, that being said, SpaceX is playing 3d chess, while the others are playing tiddily winks...
Now that was a tough ship
That flap is a hero !
Also no one at SpaceX expected that this design of starship would be used long-term, they already are building the Block 2 version of starship, and have plans for block 3.
Most do not realize just how much damage Shuttle heat tiles took, they were constantly replacing them on every mission...
It looks like the tiles on the hinge section a moving part the shuttle never had to contend with is where the problem is.
Put a stopwatch on the amount of time starship velocity is below 40/km/hr. It's over 8 seconds from 40 km/hr to zero. Now go get in your car and have someone time how long it takes for a normal stop from 40 km/hr. I believe it was a soft landing.
You’re absolutely wrong on your assessment of its landing. It absolutely was a good vertical landing…
Sure the winglets were half burned off but it still managed its flip, and propulsive soft landing…🤷🏾♂️
Um nope. You don't want humans on this if engines are exploding and wings being melted
What an amazing flight, that camera that kept coming back, the flap that could and that stainless steel belly that wouldn't burst, this was simply astonishing. And yeah, LOTS of work left on shielding. But at least SpaceX is not ready for VERY EXPENSIVE Starlink V3 launches, with the ship expended. Booster looks okay.
Just wanna add that 95% of us never expect Staship to pierce through the atmosphere @Mach 20 and tell the story, let alone maintain attitude for 100% of the mission, do the belly flop, reignite engines and land propulsivly - and we were 95% sure during the flight it's bye-bye. Albeit it was a rough type of soft landing, the ship followed mission schedule almost to the second so it was 99% success as getting all the sensory and camera data thru the full flight was the point not landing unscratched.
It was incredible how many times camera feed kept coming back and simply ridiculous that the flaps still actuated. Really fun time!
I agree, everything appeared 100% correct and the heat shield just failed. Stunning it actually made it down and hovered above water for a second.
If the heat shield had truly failed we wouldn't have had a camera connected to the AV system and transmitting through starlink antennas. The gap with the flap is a know weak spot that has been addressed in V2 designs. Half a starship couldn't have attempted to flip and soft land. Therefore main body and laps were in fact intact till the end.
@@Dystopian_Prophet Failing at any point means the heat shield failed. We also know that the flip of starship is not done with the flaps but the thrust vectoring controls of the engine. It is entirely possible the other flaps could have even been in worse shape and as long as the fuel can get to the engines and they are still in working order, the flip should still be achievable.
@mikeburkart8028 but starship was in a slightly nose down stable horizontal position, therefore a controlled fall. My point on the heat shield is, the plasma encroached thru a gap in hinge, bypassing the heat shield. 😁
@@Dystopian_Prophet eh, alright I can see that.
Just a few notes.
1. The day before, Elon said that that point of the flaps were trouble. They had the solution already for Starship v2. Smaller and higher flaps.
2. It landed 6km off
3. If they were humans aboard, they had survived.
I couldn't help but think that the Columbia disaster on reentry probably looked very similar to the starship flap melting video.
Except it happened a lot faster with Colombia because it structure was made out of aluminum which has zero ability to hold up to those types of temps.
2-3 km/h doesn't count as a soft landing?
Apparently not
guy is a bit of a clown sometimes
Being overly optimistic me thinks@@Wayoutthere
I intuitively predicted the hinge joint heat shield sealing of the flapperons would be problematic in the beginning. A moving gap in the plasma stream covered with heat tiles.
Ya it needs a redesign - including materials selection.
I really believe that SX rounded a corner yesterday. The heat shield finally seems to be effective and this was a major accomplishment and breakthrough for the entire SX team. Theat flap burnthrough will be solved in short order. This test couldn't have been much better.
Agreed. Pretty confident I could design out the hinge issues myself.
I found it interesting that they dropped the camera view early on in the re-entry of the rear facing camera, would have been interesting to see what else was going on.
This is the 4th launch of an ALL NEW prototype! How many failures has NASA had with their space program? Well AFTER the space shuttle had seen many flights you had challenger and columbia disasters! This is the 4th prototype of Starship! Give it time! Every launch gets better and better!!!
The Space Shuttle was a defective design, even before it left the napkin it was first sketched on in a Denny's restaurant. It would have saved a lot of lives had that napkin just been tossed in the trash. The Shuttle killed more astronauts than the rest of the American space program throughout its entire history PLUS the entire USSR/Russian space program to date. It violated many ironclad requirements for manned spaceflight and was guaranteed to kill. It was not quite as efficient as the guillotine, but it did produce more jobs.
SpaceX can temporarily fix the problem with Starship reentry by not letting the Starship come back down to Earth for now. Just have it go to the ISS or an equivalent and use the Dragon to get these test pilots down to Earth until they get the Reentry solved. They can do 2 things at once to progress the program further at a faster pace.
Agreed - will need docking ring at nose which may interfere with header tank but if no return to earth then no flipping required?
It flipped and landed softly
It couldn't have damaged the tank structure that much because if it had lost ullage pressure the engines would have failed
Wow. Negative, Negative. So sad.
Yes it is not ready. This is testing with great progress and hope for the future.
According to the telemetry data the booster achieved zero-ish velocity and then cut engines. The booster hit the water at around 100 kph. My guess is that they tried to emulate a booster capture by hovering at ~40-50 meter elevation, and then cut engines. Still the accuracy needed for a booster grapple is highly optimistic.
You’re such a pessimist aren’t you? It looked like a soft landing for both booster and ship to me
I agree I'm a bit tired of his anti SpaceX rants
Musk said it was a soft landng
his words feel realist rather than pessimist or optimist
LOL! Angry has been doing this a long... LONG time... His skin must be thick enough by now, that should he find himself 100km up, travelling at 25,000kph, he would easily be able to demonstrate a perfect re-entry all of his own! 😁
So bash him all you want, because it won't make a damn bit of difference! And I have to ask why come here in the first place, if you DON'T like his analysis? But then I remember... Some people's lives are so sad and irrelevant, that the only contribution that they have left, is being an online troll, randomly lashing out at others!
Anyway, that's not all of us of course! And I actually find his rants and musings useful, entertaining and measured! Grounded in realism... And unaffected by the "Elon fanboy effect" so I for one am grateful, that we can find all sorts of opinions online, to get the FULL, unbiased picture! 👍
I think we’ve seen very clear steps of improvement on every flight, imo flight 4 was the biggest step between flights and that’s all we could really hope for. Hopefully on flight 5 we will see an even softer landing and potentially even a catch, which I’m very nervous for. I think if they mess up enough it will destroy a lot of infrastructure and set them back a bit. As you can see by the sparks and different colors from the flight basically all over the ship, most certainly multiple locations took damage. Good on you for staying critical of the operation. The FAA already determined a mishap was not needed for the last flight when the booster exploded just over the ocean so I seriously doubt a mishap is needed here.
The key for the lunar lander is the booster. Can the booster put the lunar lander into orbit. Can the booster put fuel tankers into orbit.
This test flight looked promising.
By 2026, starship will be HLS ready
How much was the HLS vs Starship program? Also, HLS isn't making the different stages come back down to Earth safely except for the third stage which will hold the cargo and people. You trying to compare Oranges to an Apple. Two completely different problems, and complexity. Starship program is lot more complicated than the HLS, AND CHEAPER....
@@1flash3571 i meant it'll be able to land people on the moon by then
Not even close
@khanisbrown6424 not even close
@@AP-qs2zf trust me bro
I have to agree. The atmosphere is turned into plasma during reentry. It’s amazing that the hull & control surfaces held up during reentry, but that’s a significant problem to overcome before any type of readability it’s feasible. If the orbiter were recovered it would take weeks to months of reconstruction before it’d be ready for another launch.
A quick question I have, did you not know they left some heat shields off intentionally?
Jordan didn't do his research for this flight. He posted a video anyway. It's not a good sign for the future.
@@RockinRobbins13i agree this video feels like a very lazy attempt.
@@RockinRobbins13 I switched to the Everyday Astronaut's stream. Between people in chat dogging on SpaceX, some boomer typing in all caps, and Jordan being low energy af it just got annoying.
They were trying to get a feel for how much damage the structure could take on reentry without shielding. Supposedly it was a non critical portion of the ship that was being used for this test.
In my opinion, the other flaps and the area with the intentionally missing tiles very likely took some damage, perhaps the flap on the other side took similar damage. However, there seems to be no evidence that the body of the craft took any damage, and it certainly would not be able to make anywhere near that kind of landing if there was sufficient damage to the body of the craft. The inner engines seem to have lost telemetry, but again I don't think what we saw would be possible if they were damaged.
They already knew the gap in flaps was gonna be a problem. Hence why they had a camera pointing right at it. Also people think starship itself must have been badly damaged. I think it was just the flap and maybe some minor damage alone the body from it coming apart. If the main body had been punched, it would have ruptured the main tanks, which are built into it, and the residual fuel would have cause an explosion. If the nose was damaged, it would have ruptured the header tank and the engines wouldn't have relit. I'd be very curious to see what it looks like. But my bet is 99% of the damage is just to that one flap.
The camera on the rear flap also showed sparks and signs of melt thru - before they stopped sharing that feed.
This was the 4th flight. To have come This far is fantastic, but there is still some way to go. At this flight cadence, I could see an operational orbit capability in a year or maybe 2. Great job, SpaceX. You should be proud of what you've done.
I think they will do it in time. As much progress as they make each launch makes me optimistic that they can. This orbiter is still first generation. They can do it. Great show!
The heat shield has always been Starship’s achilles heel; I agree that must be Space X priority focus going forward.
Can you imagine the beautiful view that the crew is going to see out those huge planned windows in starship ! It's going to be like a fireworks display ! Don't let the SpaceX haters tell you that this wouldn't have been a survival landing !
Talk about bringing us back down to Earth! A truly extraordinary analysis "Angry". Where most "SpaceX" channels concentrated on what we "all" saw, your extrapolation of what we didn't see is an eye opener. It needed to be said. It has a long way to go if the shielding failed. IFT-5's Flight profile may offer a clue. If IFT-5 has the same mission parameters to be performed and the same flight profile without any changes in the mission milestones, then you may be right. The Starship heat shield may not have done the job at all.
I suspect that is why the camera's inside the Starship tanks were not broadcast to the public. If SpaceX does make those views public, we can conclude the heat shield did pretty well.
If they do not release those camera angles, I will have to wait until your next vid for your thoughts on that.
Thanks!
Just amazing engineering! Congrats to SpaceX. Realize that this is the first and worst Starship soft landing we see. Things will only improve from here on out. SpaceX learns so fast from the iteration method (fly, fail, fix, repeat). They will solve these issues in one way or another. I'm super-excited to know these flights will be happening more and more often.
5:50. The reason a landing corridor is made is just in case the ship blows up in the atmosphere. Now you have thousands of tiny pieces moving at supersonic speeds.
You cannot realistically expect people to get anywhere near something like that. However, I do expect future flights to have precise landing positions we'll see though
I don't see any evidence of heat shield damage except at the pivot joint with the flap. Once that failed the plasma got under the flap's heat shield and eroded that. They should be able to fix that weakness and test it in the next couple of launches. Assuming the FAA doesn't consider the problem a public safety issue and allows them to launch every couple months, that allows about a dozen launches before the Artemis program is scheduled. Having Starship sorted out in that time frame is not out of the realm of possibility given the progress on launch 4 under those conditions.
Must confess, I believe this to be a little bit too critical of the achievements here. It's a non-crewed test flight of a prototype vehicle, and as such a level of built in failure is to be expected and accepted. Even commenting on the live video being a miracle doesn't give credit where due, as the ship is designed and orientated to allow for starlink Comms through the weakest part of the plasma flow.
To say the heat shield requires further work feels a bit disingenuous, especially comparing it to the damage sustained on the Orion capsule which will be human carrying. SpaceX has already said they're modifying the placement and attachment mechanism of the flaps to avoid exactly this eventually on later ships, and even in your Artemis return example, starship HLS won't have to re-enter where as Orion will.
All in all, this video feels a little bit too negative, but I respect that it's your opinion, and look forward to seeing starship fly again later this year.
I see your point, but do you therefore believe that Starship will be ready to land humans on the Moon two years from now? Indeed, Elon told NASA that Lunar Starship would be ready for human passengers by 2024 when the contract was first signed!
Obviously, it was NASA'S fault for being stupid enough to believe this nonsense, but I still think taxpayers have a right to demand an answer from contractors.
This attempt was nothing short of spectacular! Given the state that Starship was in, when it splashed down into the Indian Ocean. Indeed... Some would say that this was actually miraculous!
But miraculous isn't going to cut it, in the rocket business! Not when human beings are involved! And since Elon has wedded himself to NASA, along with an ambitious... Some would say, unrealistic timetable... It's obvious that, despite this IMMENSE Triumph... Elon and his Truly Amazing SpaceX team, still have their work cut out for them!
So yeah... I think it's good to enjoy and celebrate this Historic moment! But let's not go full "Elon Fanboy Mode" just yet... Because we still have a long... LONG way to go! And as far as Artemis is concerned... The clock IS ticking!!!
A HUGE leap forward no doubt! But we're going to need even BIGGER leaps for the foreseeable future! And once SpaceX accomplishes those... Then we bust open that bottle of champagne! 😁
@@TheAngryAstronaut This entirely depends on pace of progress in the next 6 months, and any major setbacks occuring. SpaceX, Elon specifically, has always given 'Golden Path' timeline estimates, however the golden path is always either missing something or delayed somehow during delivery. The difference, in my opinion, is that SpaceX is driving forward at a rapid pace, and meeting those challanges in a hardware rich environement where as other providers are trying to model and plan their way through delivery, instead of just delivering (see - crew dragon vs Starliner, starlink vs kuiper).
If, next flight, they land a booster even close to the tower, and achieve a full re-entry without melting anything on the ship, I honestly believe that a HLS Demo that's uncrewed is feesiable in two years from now, and starlink launches occuring from flight 6 onwards. Even if the ship melts, I'd say we're no more than 3-4 years away from a return to the moon on starship.
Do i think that taxpayers deserve options and accountability, in the same way that Starliner and SLS require scrutiany for their delayed and bloated deliveries? Yes. But do I think that it's feesiable for the company that has ownership of 96% of the worlds mass to orbit is capable of meeting the challange in a reasonable timeframe, yes. I'm hopeful for the future of spaceflight and for the first time since the shuttle stopped flying, there's a renewed drive to become explorers again.
I await this generations apollo moment with baited breath!
Thank you for changing the music that doesn't interfere with your voice. Much better to listen to you ! Great! And as always, a great commentary that raise indeed a lot of well throughout questions! Cheers! Marcia
I kind of disagree with how much time you think it's going to be before Starship is fully reusable. The progress between each flight is nothing short of remarkable. I'd say two more flights at most before she comes back in reusable shape. The rate of launches alone shows how fast it's progressing. I'd say a year or two MOST before the HLS is ready for testing.
I think the tile and fin damage was at least in part due to the deliberate missing tiles near that fin. I'll bet the others would have been OK.
Let's be very clear Starship version 1 is all about proving the concept. What they proved yesterday was a bare bones test article can maintain enough integrity to be stable in a ballistic suborbit. I'd like to see them prove it wasn't a fluke with flight 5 before Version 2 where they will have to start to make in roads into reuse where I think some utility such as Starlink launches maybe found. But I don't expect a commercially viable Starship until at least the 3 or 4th versions but beyond Artemis it may take that long for a market to develop anyway.
The main thing I see is no reason for the FFA or whoever to delay the next " Test " flight . I hope Space X can perfect Starship soon .
I think the flight overall went very well, I think the booster landing was great but maybe just a tad harder than anticipated as the feed did show lots of fire on the surface of the ocean after the engines were shut down just before they cut the footage. So that needs perfecting, in addition SpaceX did say that future boosters will have a much lighter hot stage ring that will not need to be jettisioned.
Ship got a brutal treatment, kudos to that flap for hanging in there and still working afterwards. Extremely hard to tell, but the ship landing was likely harder than they would like, but it certainly wasnt massively over speed. Remember just because the telemetry said 0KM for the altitude, that just means it was below 1KM of altitude as it seems SpaceX's telemetry seems to round down.
While the current heat shield is nowhere near rapidly reusable, and there is a clear weak point in the flaps area of the shield, the flaps are already going to change shape and mount location on the ship, so we really cant read much into that flap damage as the new Gen2 ships will have different shape and mounted in different places (further towards the side where there is less heating).
So we will need to wait and see on the shield quality, I am sure Tim Dodd will be asking Elon these questions in his followup interview after his 3rd base tour airs (filmed the day before IFT-4 launched). If he gets answers... That will be a different story.
Either way the ship probably has to get heavier, either a heavier heatshield, or finding a way to carry more propellant to afford carrying out a longer deorbit/slow down burn prior to the ship entering the heating phase of the reentry. Or it could just be that they were expecting the flaps in thier current install location to get beaten up and its business as usual as the flap shape and mount point location is already planned to change. At the very least I am sure SpaceX had 100's of temp sensors inside and under the shield in many places and they will have a very complex heat map now which will help them make a better ship for future flights.
Remember: There is a reason why no Gen2 ships or Boosters have begun to be built yet, that is simply because why build Gen2, when they might learn more from Gen1 and still have a number of Gen1 prototypes to launch yet. Expect the first Gen2's to enter build when they have 1 or 2 prototypes from Gen1 left only. Currently they seem to have a good 5 left.
Great overview so shortly after the attempt AA
The heat shield seemed to do just fine. The issue was with the wing hinges. And I believe Elon had expressed his concern about the heat protection on those areas.
This says something about the redundancy of starship. Engines failing, flaps burning up and still able to land the thing
Also a note on the re-entry and heat: Max temperature was achieved long before it started taking damage. It started taking damage as pressure increased as it got lower in the atmosphere. This tells me that the challenge will be the high pressures, and SpaceX really needs to figure out how to keep the tiles attached and reduce the forces being experienced by the weak points. Increased temperatures from a moon return probably won't be a big deal as long as they can bleed off enough speed in the upper atmosphere and figure out the problems in the lower atmosphere.
The hot-stage ring is intended to become an integrated part of superheavy. It's currently a separate part because superheavy was initially designed to mate to starship. Some weight can probably be dispensed with since it won't need the extra set of docking clamps and the strength of the structure becomes part of the rest of the hull.
As for the burning through of the flaps, you'll notice that it began near the hinge, which seems to indicate that plasma was getting through there. It isn't burning through at the tip, which might indicate that the tiles there are doing their job. In fact, I don't know that we were shown any indication that the rest of the ship was suffering tile loss or burnthrough. If it had, I would have expected the whole thing to just blow up, or suffer catastrophic loss of attitude control.
I don't know why Angry on stream was expecting a deceleration burn--as far as I know, no such burn is going to take place. It relights once for landing. Now as to whether it relit at the appropriate altitude or not, that I don't know.
That's what i was waiting for.
It's not just "people are saying"; SpaceX themselves stated in the broadcast of the flight that the jettisoning of the hot-staging ring was a *temporary* measure to allow them to move forward with test flights while they work on reducing booster mass.
Progress towards an end goal can be a rather asymptotic approach. Great strides can be achieved in the early stages, but it takes increasingly greater time and effort to incrementally proceed towards the end goal.
The flaps were already planed to move aft before this flight..
The hinges will then be in a wake!
SpaceX needed to salvage the starship for a post mortem.
I wish
That is why they have sensors.....
@@1flash3571 to see it would be so cool though.
No need, gigabyes of data will be all that's needed.
Lunar Starship doesn't need to be the same size at this point as a tanker Starship. A stripped down wingless short Starship needing only a few launches from a very simple big dumb tanker Starship to get it refueled is an option on the table in the near term.
it seems you and most others forget what the biggest obstacle to getting to other planets is: people and "low gravity"! In the former Soviet Union, I saw cosmonauts landing after winning the record for the longest space flight. They couldn't walk, they had to be lifted out of the vehicle. Today we have more experience, with daily training we can slow down muscle loss, but we can't do anything about high/low blood pressure, vascular diseases, bone structure, osteoporosis and weakening of the immune system. And radiation is also a danger. In order for this to be a success for humanity, we need to make great progress in medicine, otherwise Mars will be as much a dream in 20 years as it is today.
Could you imagine this being a manned mission. Better be brave boys!
You can tell both Foward flaps sustained the same damage. The camera pointing at the aft flap isn't on the same side of the vehicle as the camera looking at the forward flap.
But if you look closely at the footage from the aft flap facing camera you can see the blue sparks flying very close to the camera on the right side of the image. These blue sparks are the heat tiles being eaten and that means the forward flap the camera is on is also dissentigrating and likely in the same way.
Just cannot give the credit no matter what. Am i watching Thunderfoot? 😀😀
Imagine being lost at sea in thr gulf of Mexico and the booster comes down right next to you.
Remember Starhopper? 2019. Now compare that to Starship flight 4. 2024. Remarkable progress in just 5 years. SpaceX is a remarkable organisation. Every flight is solving monumental engineering problems encountered on the previous flight, and advancing to the next phase of development. Mere mortals stand almost awestruck at how the challenges are being met; and so quickly overcome. 5 years may seem a long time to impatient human beings but looking at man's progress on Earth we are observing progress at unimaginable speed. Can you think of another organisation on this planet that can point to so much achievement in such a short space of time?
Thanks. Greatest space news channel on YT.
Looks like it was a good idea in switching to stainless steel😊
Based on telemetry and the little views we had I think it landed as it should.
Slowed down. Splashed and you could see speeding it back up while tilting over into the water.
Flaps definitely would be the hardest part tp re-entry. Way more pressure differences and drag compared to the body.
It was cooked but managed to land.
And maybe spaceX does know where it landed but definitely wouldn't tell this on forehand to prevent people going there.
Hopefully they are able to recover both stages.
Have you reviewed the next generation of starship? With the smaller flaps that are repositioned further back to avoid plasma. They are going to scrap some of the current starships. They are further along than you think.
1. Starship's landing was at night, so unless you are really close, all you would see would have been the engine exhaust.
2. The flap hinges were always going to be an issue. Any flow path, no matter how small, between the flap and the body is a failure point.