Time to take the fireworks away from ToddlerX. Ground SpaceX, pull the contracts, deport the overlord. Let real rocket scientists do the heavy lifting.
@@SaberToothBicycle You mean like the real rocket scientists who can't even get Ariane 6 off the ground way over budget and desperately behind schedule? Those proper rocket scientists? How about SLS running at around $5 BILLION per launch? Or like the rocket scientists at SpaceX who are on schedule for 100 Falcon 9 launches this year? Grow up freak.
Thank you for your great coverage as always. You are not always the quickest to talk about things, but you always give some of the best and most detailed commentary. If you say something, it's always very relevant and so well researched. It really shows, that you are a proper scientist.
My grandfather was on the DSOC team about 40 years ago before he retired. And when they called said that the project actually worked after they launched Psyche to the asteroid belt he has yet to stop talking about it for the better part of a week. He's so happy about it and it really brings me joy. Talked my ear off about it saying how it's supposed to make sending data a lot faster process but sadly it doesn't much change how quickly the data travels through space than we're able to rn. But once you do start getting the data from the system after it makes the journey from satellite to receiver / vice versa, it grabs it all crazy QUICK. So once someone using the system starts receiving data they don't have to wait as long for the whole package to finish downloading.
@@Valery0p5... you do realize that's VERY unrelated, right? To start with, the point of JWST isn't to send the picture back quickly. It just has to be able to send them a bit quicker than what it'll take to produce them. Actually I'll end here, because there's no point in discussing this if you understand that point. And as much if you don't, since it would mean you can't.
@@huyxiun2085 Original comment is even worse than unrelated -- JWST can actually downlink at 28 Mbps; a quick Google search says ADSL tops out at 24 Mbps.
Depends on the exact reason for the failure, though. It could also be that instead of using more power to prevent the deceleration, the answer may be to be less aggressive in powering up again afterwards... e.g. sticking with 3 engines until the fuel has settled, instead of rapidly re-lighting the others.
17:17 This explains the job ad I saw on Ursa Major's website the other day: "We are looking for a new hand-held camera operator with a can-do attitude to replace the former guy, who will sadly no longer be available for our next test firings."
The tracking shot are really amazing aren't they, I love the imagery during separation and they are firing the 3 engines on the for section. The way the gases and plumes do not move instinctively simply because the ship is operating in an environment completely alien to us so the way matter moves in relation to each other is not familiar, it looks awesome. Also the tracking shot at 7:50 focused on the exhaust of all the engines, it's really cool how they have somewhat combined and the shock diamonds are present as if it was a single large exhaust flow.
This was a great video. It's interesting how you talk about all the different programs going on but also highlight their similar ambitions and how close they all are to achieving success.
The second crew tower mostly allows Dragon to work around Falcon Heavy missions because they both could only launch from 39A. Now Dragon will be able to launch from SLC40 which makes scheduling a lot easier!
Thanks Scott. I always enjoy your updates. I always seem to learn some new insight from watching that differentiates you from the others covering space flight. Fly safe!
@21:49. Funny you said that. Just two days ago the midbody section of a New Glenn 1st stage was spotted and photographed rolling on its way back to the main factory after getting done up with not only testing and insulation, but getting painted up in the official livery. This is a massive piece of hardware that's compromised of the LOX and LNG tanks and is over 30 meters long. Even right before that, Lex Fridman tweeted a photo of him and Jeff Bezos together inside the NG factory and lots of interesting hardware can be glimpsed past them, including an unpainted midbody section in the final assembly area, but also an insulation-covered interstage with control fins attached!
What worries me about Starship is that, like Shuttle, it seems to have no robust abort mode from the second phase of ascent unlike small pods like Dragon.
i personally dont think we will see a manned launch of starship for a *very* long time, possibly ever. Which honestly is fine, its capability as a heavy lift vehicle alone is insane
I think they'll need to add a third stage until Starship has proven it's reliability. There's some design choices in Starship that are detrimental in the near term and I really don't love going back to ceramanic tiles - ended up being a huge weakness for the shuttle.
Deliberately aggressive throttling to favor the second stage being successful might have put the first stage at risk. Future launches could adjust the throttling of both stages to keep the first stage with positive G the whole time.
I - like many others - just really appreciate you taking time for these updates. And your broad knowledge enables you to always keep it spicy and fun to watch. Thanks!
What I find interesting on the starship booster MEGA mach diamonds is that it looks like the mach diamond is rotating to the left. Is that because of the gimballing Raptors?
@@StillAliveAndKicking_ Yup feels a bit bittersweet, doesn't it? At least it helps Europe maintain continued development so that we might some day see a contemporary European design, and not be completely dependent on others.
@@StillAliveAndKicking_ yes, but not all space launches will be done by SpaceX even in the future, there’s room for multiple companies like Firefly, RocketLab etc. And plenty of nations don’t want to be reliant on one specific company who (with constantly shifting geopolitics) could conceivably be prohibited from accepting contracts for launches from their space agency or companies in their country. SpaceX is without question going to gobble up the majority of the heavy lift market but I’m confident there will be plenty of opportunities for Ariane 6 as well.
By dumb luck my brother was attending a wedding just north of Vandenberg the first time they did an RTLS there and got a pretty good show out of it. Definitely hope to watch in person (up close) at some point. I was in CA for a while and saw a bunch of Vandenberg launches from ~100 miles to the east, still a good show, but not the same...
Wouldn't be much to see. If you're expecting the launch to fail, you don't install a real cockpit. It would just be an empty shell, perhaps with a bunch of telemetry devices.
for SpaceX booster issues: is it a possibility to create a sponge-like solution for the tanks inside the booster as are used in NasCar vehicles that prevent fuel-depletion towards the engine because of negative G-force etc etc..
would be cool, and also done in most fighter jets for the same reason, but probably not practical, at least not for a very large volume, if only because starship is GIANT and being a rocket saving even a few kilograms of dry mass here and there adds up. I think adding a buffer tank with simple backflow prevention valves is a probably lighter-weight solution.
@thamiordragonheart8682 However there is also the problem of fuel sloshing causing damage. I suspect some kind of lightweight internal baffles or spongy material could be used towards the aft of the tanks to reduce the specific impulse and spread out the momentum transfer, but it's critical that nothing small can break off and clog a line or valve. It would be interesting if you could create some kind of cryogenic aerogel inside part of the booster tanks that dissolved or melted into fuel or oxidizer as it warmed up, since that could negate the mass penalty while slowing down the sloshing. Most likely you'd have to use a third chemical and end up with a tripropellant system in the booster. And that's a chemistry rabbithole that's going to slosh around in my brain for a while.
@@kamikazejs950 I don't think gels would help because for it to help it has to be fixed to the bottom of the tank so it doesn't move with the fuel. The idea of baffles or spongy material is that it would prevent the fuel from moving in the first place. so it probably wouldn't break, but the engines just use such a large volume of fuel and any sponge is going to be heavy since it's too cold for polymers and most lightweight metals would galvanically corrode with the steel structure. I think the best solution is still to just change the procedure so that negative acceleration on the booster doesn't happen, maybe just throttling up the booster engines as the starship engines start to counter the pressure would be enough. The second best solution is probably to add header tanks like the starship uses, in this case probably the methane downcomer and a second dome on the bottom to make a small LOX tank.
Hi Scott, Thank you for your brilliant RUclips videos! I have watched them since the first launch of Falcon Heavy in 2018 - and believe me, you're the best! In the new episode of Deep Space Updates, can you discuss the simplest way to avoid fuel sloshing during Starship's stage separation? 1) We know the remaining amount of fuel and oxidizer before stage separation - let's say it is 12% of full tanks (plus some safety margin). 2) Let's place a steel membrane in each of 2 tanks, separating the bottom 12% volume from the rest. 3) Distribute the sufficient amount of unidirectional valves in these membranes (say 40 large valves or 1000 small ones). 4) Voila - the engines won't catch any gas bubbles when experiencing negative Gs during stage sep. And we want more: 1) Three inner Raptors of Super Heavy probably suffered from Engine Reach exhaust before RUD during Test Flight 2. 2) Let's save these engines during the 3rd test flight to explore them on Earth! 3) We can safely shut down these engines after stage separation: let them work for, say, 15 seconds, get positive acceleration, then light up several more Raptors, and shut down the invaluable inner 3 ones before they eat up themselves; 4) Perform controlled splashdown in the ocean; 5) Examine surviving Raptors in the lab! I'll be glad if you will discuss these theories during next episode of Deep Space Updates ) Next time, I'd like to discuss the marvellous usage of Starship's MoonLander legs and upper engines On Earth. Thank you for your time reading this ) Kind regards Alex
Thanks Scott, nice analysis on several issues. BO getting New Glenn to launch next year would be a neat trick, doubt it will happen though. The folks with the Mars sample return will have a window where they'll need to consider changing launch vehicles very soon I would imagine. I would be they'll be looking at a F9 or probably already are. On the subject of sloshing in the fuel compartment, it's a pretty old problem. I knew a guy who drove milk trucks in Wisconsin while he was in HS (MANY years ago) and he said that back then, they didn't even have baffles in the milk truck tanks! If he wasn't EXTREMELY careful, he'd set up a harmonic (of sorts) while braking that would keep the truck moving right through red lights and so on, which was (of course) VERY dangerous! I'm hopeful to see the next Starship booster hit the pad in the next 10 days or so!
Your Deep-Space video content is always short but to the point. I'm not surprised that many fans think the same. Greetings from Europe. SpaceX enthusiast.
Can someone explain how the booster encountered negative acceleration? Were the second stage rockets pushing back on the booster with more force than the 3 rockets accelerating it?
Yes, most likely, since Superheavy would be relatively light at that moment due to most of its fuel being expended, se six Raptors on Starship were probably enough to push, even if little.
the exhaust from starship built up pressure in the interstage since the hot staging grate ring isn't completely open, so the force pushing them apart is much larger than the standard thrust of the engines. it's also true that superheavy had sea level engines at half throttle, and starship had 3 vac engines (slightly higher thrust) that were probably at more than half throttle. slamming on the breaks with a cup of water is exactly what happened to the propellent.
Thanks I love how you cover the world launches not just US. It is great to see the different countries launches and technologies and how they plan to do space. Thanks. I do miss the lego livestreams though, they are too late for me in the Atlantic.
So, basically, the hot staging caused cavitation in the propellant tanks, and the Rayleigh-Plesset equation did the rest. More or less like hitting the top of a glass bottle full of water: chaos ensues.
Even without cavitation, a relatively low deceleration of the vehicle over a sufficiently long enough period of time might allow some of the liquid methane to be displaced by the pressurized methane gas rather than creating a vacuum. Or at least it makes it easier for the liquid methane to slosh around, perhaps more than the baffles in the tank accounted for.
I would like to see the numbers on how a hot staging actually helps payload to orbit. It does for expendables, but if you reuse the first stage you need to carry a blast deflector...which is heavy. How does that compare to shutting down the first stage engines and then starting ullage motors to settle the propellant?
it means you don't need nearly as large ullage motors on the second stage, and adding disproportionate mass to the first stage to take it off the second stage is usually a net win for the payload to orbit. The real reason is probably reliability though, at least once you get it working. hot staging not only gets rid of ullage motors on the booster, it gets rid of the entire stage separate system and replaces it with some hold-down clamps, and makes the ullage motors on the second stage only required on orbit where you have more time to troubleshoot. it also maintains a lot more control in the thin upper atmosphere since the booster maintains thrust vector control though the whole maneuver.
There's some other benefits besides payload to orbit, overall this seems less complex than the previous method of releasing the clamps, then having the booster flip without also making the Starship flip. I believe it had to coast for a decent amount of time, which adds up to a good amount of gravity loss. No ullage motors were ever on Starship, not sure what they were going to do, maybe header tank startup. Unlike Falcon where there's a pusher to forcefuly separate the stages and settle propellant on the second stage, Starship is too big for that to be practical. If the dome survives a good number of flights, I think it'll be the simplest way to separate for Starship
I was just watching the latest engine test of the SLS engine. It was gimbaling, and it made me think how do the cryogenic fuel pipes, articulate? Are there special joints? Do they just bend the pipes, that's what it looks like? You should do a video on this.
Interesting to see the gimbal movement on the Ariane test firing. Didn't expect those high angular speeds and frequencies they went up to. Maybe a future video on gimbals, thrust vectoring and their limitations?
The scary thing is that the plume is invisible between the nozzle and the shock diamond. You can't see it, but there is a stream of intense violence in that space.
As for Starship booster: think the bottle where you thump it on top and a vacuum gets created at the bottom. Once that slams down, ... the bottom falls out.
Just a couple of days ago someone spotted half of what appears to be a flight first stage booster out in the open seemingly close to completion. New Glenn is a lot more mature than people give it credit for.
A lot of these comments are mirrors of falcon launches whem they were in development, itll never have crew, it wont be a completed program, *insert crash meme here* but here we are with 88 launches in the year alone. Itll happen, or spacex would go under developing it
And a lot of people seem to have forgotten that the first test flight of the Falcon 9 Heavy was delayed nine whole years from it's first announced launch date that was to have been 2009, so it's no surprise that people were skeptical. Even Musk admitted the entire process was a lot tougher than he thought it was going to be.
Foxconn (HonHai-Langhua) also manufactures AppleTV units as well... (and some of the very specific custom order MBPros too, not sure why Quanta can't/won't make those, since HH doesn't seem to have a problem with running them despite their low volume rarity.) I spent 5 years as one of the (squeaky)wheels in the Apple logistics infrastructure... :)
Curious to me - Lots of vegetation around the North Korean launch site. Probably not an issue but it's a striking contrast against all the other very clean, maintained launch sites.
I feel like it just depends on the locations available - Kourou and the Kennedy are both built in coastal swamps and Baikonur is in the middle of the Kazakh steppe. Not sure if North Korea has access to as much rocket-friendly terrain!
YOU THINH "When Glenn|" Is going to make AN August launch? And we have a Mars mission depending in BE-4 which has never flown anywhere, AnyWhen? My skepticometer is running off-scale.
@@RogerM88plenty of people are skeptical. There are dozens of channels dedicated to debunking spacex and everything musk related, including hyperloop, which is somehow still a topic
Even the first flight of Starship and SuperHeavy had video feed from Starships engine bay so it looks like they want to keep that data (video) classified.
I think we may discover something by looking at the brightness of the engines on Superheavy from separation through the relight sequence, and thinking about what the accelerations are on the booster. Throughout the sequence, the engines need to reliably keep the fuel pressed against the rear bulkheads - first so that the engine turbines are never starved for fuel and oxidizer (cavitation or gas ingestion on either fuel or LOX intake is a great way for the inlet turbine to overspeed and destroy itself), and second so that the plumbing doesn't collapse like a drinking straw does when you suck liquid out of it - which would be most likely experienced by the long oxygen down comer. 1. From separation through Superheavy pivoting through an angle of about 30 degrees, the center three engines are lit brightly indicating healthy fuel and LOX flow. It looks like there was enough fuel and LOX available throughout the separation even despite negative acceleration from Starship pushing us backward, at least for the center 3 engines. However, there could be internal damage especially to the LOX down comer. 2. At 30 degrees rotation or so, the three center engines dim greatly, indicating either throttle down or a loss of either fuel or LOX pressure. This is around the time that you'd start drawing lots of fuel and LOX to start up pairs of engines in the ring of 10 around the middle three. Perhaps there is not enough liquid available to do this due to a collapsed LOX down comer? 3. Between about 45 and 60 degrees rotation, pairs of engines are lit until 9 of the 10 in the ring around the center three are lit. All of these are running dimly. The 10th engine never lights. None of these or the inner engines throttle up to full power. 4. At 90 degrees rotation, atmospheric drag is going to settle the fuel and LOX to one side of the engine inlet pipes or (given the low quantity left in the the tanks), completely expose some engine inlets to gas rather than liquid. Catastrophic events may happen at engine inlet turbines. 5. Later energetic events or pipe collapse/damage introduce LOX into the fuel tank, and rapid combustion inside one of the tanks ruptures the tank. Superheavy is capable of speedier acceleration than Starship, as it is mostly empty tankage at the separation event. It needs to be careful to never let fuel or LOX lift off the inlet feeders lest inlet pipes partially collapse or fuel/LOX inlet cavitate. There's a tradeoff in stronger internal piping (and its weight) and all the accelerations involved. Perhaps it needs to slow its rotation at the 30-45 degree point until it has all its engines lit and then do a powered completion of rotation back to the 180 degree point. I'm sure that Space X has some great numeric models for this sort of activity with their expertise with Falcon 9 boosters. It has to be applied to the scale of the physics experienced and the temperament and of the Raptor here, but I'm sure that they learned a lot with this flight and will dial it in quickly on the next flight or two, with a model that gives them much more confidence about the safety limits involved.
Although Starship launch was impressive, will take a long time until SpaceX has a functional Starship, with a payload hatch for commercial applications, as figuring out reentry with an improved TPS shield, not falling apart at launch. And even longer, to be Crew rated.
That's why I'm starting to support the ULA approach for the Vulcan Centaur reusability process. Get experience with the platform, and then iterate for reusability systems.
@@RogerM88 more like you have a case of MDS. There are far more similarities between Falcon 9 and Starship than between Vulcan/SLS and Falcon 9. Answer this: is the Falcon 9 crew rated? Are SLS and Vulcan reusable?
@@meanderinoranges Indeed, they "crew rated" SLS before it ever made a flight, based almost entirely on the fact that most of it is Shuttle hardware. Sounds stupid to me too.
@Scott Manley : In some ways, the in-flight escape test of the New Shepard capsule also was some odd kind of hot staging that happened with a reusable first stage ^^ (but I agree it's not an orbital rocket, btw ^^)
By ensuring the high altitude breakup of the booster, and not letting it drop onto land in one piece, the North Korean space program is officially acting more responsibly than the Chinese program. XD
I realize the starship is a new system with many aerospace 1st technologies. That being said, how can one say the failure of the rocket was a success. The SLS was a success it launched, sending a capsule around the moon landing the craft intact successfully. It seems Elon gets a pass and carries a lot of influence it this space. I get the enthusiasm surrounding the starship heck, I am a huge fan of the starship program, and I think this second flight was hugely impressive and SpaceX learned a ton, but a successful flight it wasn't. If the blue New Glen explodes, I'm not so sure people will say it was a success because they gathered data. When the first Space Shuttle flew, it was a success. The crew had balls of steel, and it was a successful flight. Don't blow smoke up my asteroid. Both the booster and ship were lost. SpaceX has a wonderfully unique build iterate and build really fast and learn along the way. It might be the very best way to build such a complex system. But this mission was clearly a failure.
Because there were 2 very different development paths being followed. When SLS went for it's flight it was the test flight of a system that was already done development. The final proof before it's ready for missions. Spacex is still in development. They're building throw away test articles. They don't expect success, the goal is to learn from the failures. So each time a test pushes things further than the previous test, it's a success.
As moose of doom said, 2 different development paths. Also 2 different approaches with how the rockets are planned to be used. After all, once the SLS solid rocket boosters detached from the core stage, they just burnt up and crashed into the ocean. Same with the SLS core stage after it detached from the upper stage. Starship's booster attempted to turn around and fly back, which is when it exploded. Further, SpaceX (at least through Elon Musk) stated their primary and secondary goals days prior to the flight. They just wanted to get through the hot staging process. Anything after was a bonus. SpaceX actually has multiple Starships built or nearly completed as is. Almost 10 upper stages at this point and a few boosters as well. So a flight that is simply "launch it and see what happens" is much more reasonable with them than with someone like Blue Origin who is years delayed on their single prototype. SpaceX will very likely have a second Starship with numerous changes learned from this flight completed prior to even being given permission to launch again.
@anthonypelchat LOL I guess if you temper expectations in advance, you're going to have a successful outcome. I hope the next flight is more successful.
@@mp6756 The way I look at is like someone planning to run a marathon. You don't run the marathon distance on your first run. You start with smaller goals to build up to a full marathon run. For example, you may plan to run nonstop for 1 mile. However, it is pointless to stop at 1 mile if you feel that you can continue to further. So you plan to run an additional 0.5 miles if you can. On that run, you manage to go 1.25 miles. Does that mean that you missed your goal because you didn't run nonstop for 1.5 miles? Of course not. Same here. Each of Starship's flights require a massive amount to go right. Hundreds of tons of super chilled fuel loaded, 33 engines started, massive connections quickly disconnected, a ton of electronics, computers, and sensors to monitor and control everything. All of that needed just to leave the launch pad. So the first flight was mainly concerned about getting off of and away from the launch pad. But it never made it through stage separation. So the second flight had that as its primary goal. Third flight will likely be for the upper stage to make it to its destination and possibly the booster to boost back as planned with a secondary goal to soft land in the water near the launch site. Both will still be destroyed. And they are not planning to recover either, nor even soft land the upper stage. My guess is they go for orbit on the forth launch, possibly with a small number of Starlink satellites. They may wait until the 5th launch for the satellites though.
@@anthonypelchat this like Spacex is training for running a marathon by running marathons and then congratulating themselves for getting further than last time while not completing the marathon they said that they would do.
I might give up amateur astronomy, because at the rate things are going trying to observe or take photos will become like doing it through a chain link fence.
@@taraswertelecki3786 If it's any consolation, the launch price of Starship should be so low that it could put up the equivalent of a dozen JWSTs day, so professional astronomy should be pretty good going forward.
Fantastic Starship launch. It would be interesting to know why both parts detonated. Presumably the first stage ruptured due to liquid slosh resulting from sudden changes in acceleration at stage separation.
Seems to me the things to do are: 1) Burn the 1st stage a little harder to avoid a change in acceleration sign. 2) Put in some lateral (relative to the stage body) translation movement at this point to get the exhaust off of the 1st stage. 3) Really separate slowly so the exhaust doesn't slow down the 1st stage. May need more protection for the 1st stage (weight). 4) Orient the 1st stage bottom down while maintaining minimal thrust, wait for the fuel to settle, then begin igniting other engines. Indeed, if the 2nd stage gimbals its engines to effect a mild pitch or yaw rotation, this could be arranged to help "push" the 1st stage into its new orientation. Spitballin'
that material is extremely brittle and soft - due to it's feature of being so heat-resistant. They'll have to do more work o the mounting interface and how that is being embedded in those tiles. Overlapping (scales) might not really help there.
The names of NK rocket and satellite are pretty cool (Chollima: Horse that could run 1,000 li (~400km) in one day, and Malligyong: Mirror that could see what happened 10,000 li (~4000km) away.) Also, the acquisition of RD-250 technology really upped their game from Unha.
Hear me out: when starship hot stages, they should keep the three booster engines on until it’s separated. Once they’ve done that, they can turn them off, and SLOWLY rotate the booster with the “rcs” gas. The negative acceleration provided by the ship would cause the propellant to float, but as soon as the booster starts turning away it’ll have drag pulling the booster back. The propellant would then ride the edge of the tank as the booster decelerates and turns, and when the booster is fully rotated then they can turn the engines back on.
Slowly is bad. The booster only has a limited amount of time before it falls back into the atmosphere, and every second you spend turning around is one second closer to that happening. Worse, every second you spend turning around is also another second the booster spends flying downrange at 5000+km/h. The combined effect is that when you do start your boostback to the launch site, you now have to travel a greater return distance *and* do so in less time - i.e you need to go a lot faster, burning a lot more fuel in the process. Extra fuel that you now have to lift up to stage separation in the first place, which takes even more fuel to do. SpaceX would likely much prefer to keep the current fast flip and just figure out how to keep the fuel settled while doing so.
@@lazarus2691 true, but imo actually getting back at all without exploding is probably a bit better than saving some fuel lmao (In my unprofessional opinion)
@@temhgb I mean sure, if they can't get the current method to word and have no choice, inefficient is better than nothing. But I fully expect them to give it a few more tries with minor tweaks before giving up, because they want that efficiency.
Hey SpaceX. Scott has your crash investigation report ready.
SpaceX calling RUclips comments section WAKE tf UP.
@@straighttalk2069 ?
@@straighttalk2069 Umm?
Time to take the fireworks away from ToddlerX.
Ground SpaceX, pull the contracts, deport the overlord.
Let real rocket scientists do the heavy lifting.
@@SaberToothBicycle You mean like the real rocket scientists who can't even get Ariane 6 off the ground way over budget and desperately behind schedule? Those proper rocket scientists? How about SLS running at around $5 BILLION per launch? Or like the rocket scientists at SpaceX who are on schedule for 100 Falcon 9 launches this year? Grow up freak.
Thank you for your great coverage as always. You are not always the quickest to talk about things, but you always give some of the best and most detailed commentary. If you say something, it's always very relevant and so well researched. It really shows, that you are a proper scientist.
@@Styrofo4mwhat's wrong with you
@@Styrofo4mnot everyone is as informed as you. Do you want negativity to be the way? Not very cash money.
@@Styrofo4m Are you remembering to be awesome today?
Yeah, Scott Manley is the real deal. He could be in charge of something big.
@@Styrofo4mWho pissed in your Wheaties this morning?
Very nice work as usual. Scott supplies international updates and they’re comprehensive for us layman. Always a treat to see the quality of his work.
My grandfather was on the DSOC team about 40 years ago before he retired. And when they called said that the project actually worked after they launched Psyche to the asteroid belt he has yet to stop talking about it for the better part of a week. He's so happy about it and it really brings me joy. Talked my ear off about it saying how it's supposed to make sending data a lot faster process but sadly it doesn't much change how quickly the data travels through space than we're able to rn. But once you do start getting the data from the system after it makes the journey from satellite to receiver / vice versa, it grabs it all crazy QUICK. So once someone using the system starts receiving data they don't have to wait as long for the whole package to finish downloading.
As a grandpa, I know how we love to 'drone on and on'!
I really wish they had tested this when your grandpa was still working at Nasa, instead an ADSL is faster compared to what the JWST can transmit...
@@Valery0p5... you do realize that's VERY unrelated, right?
To start with, the point of JWST isn't to send the picture back quickly. It just has to be able to send them a bit quicker than what it'll take to produce them.
Actually I'll end here, because there's no point in discussing this if you understand that point. And as much if you don't, since it would mean you can't.
@@huyxiun2085 Original comment is even worse than unrelated -- JWST can actually downlink at 28 Mbps; a quick Google search says ADSL tops out at 24 Mbps.
Some of these projects span generations. Glad he got to see the mission.
Scott is the best
Hey Scott! The French missile test was not fired from a submarine but from a pool of the test center near the coast of the bay of Biscay
It'll be interesting to see the booster engine count during hot staging on Starship IFT3. I'll be amazed if it's kept at 3.
You think it will be more or less?
@@kyle.cushway more. Or at least it'll be 3 at full power instead of heavily throttled.
@@meanderinoranges Makes sense! Will be cool to see all the changes next launch.
@@kyle.cushway we're living in amazing times.
Depends on the exact reason for the failure, though. It could also be that instead of using more power to prevent the deceleration, the answer may be to be less aggressive in powering up again afterwards... e.g. sticking with 3 engines until the fuel has settled, instead of rapidly re-lighting the others.
Cannot tell you how much I appreciate your videos
Thanks for your comprehensive space updates. I could never grab everything for myself and comprehend it to the level you offer. Thanks again.
17:17 This explains the job ad I saw on Ursa Major's website the other day: "We are looking for a new hand-held camera operator with a can-do attitude to replace the former guy, who will sadly no longer be available for our next test firings."
That tracking shot of starship was amazing, hopefully that continues for future flights!
The tracking shot are really amazing aren't they, I love the imagery during separation and they are firing the 3 engines on the for section. The way the gases and plumes do not move instinctively simply because the ship is operating in an environment completely alien to us so the way matter moves in relation to each other is not familiar, it looks awesome. Also the tracking shot at 7:50 focused on the exhaust of all the engines, it's really cool how they have somewhat combined and the shock diamonds are present as if it was a single large exhaust flow.
Thank you Mr. Manley, as always very informative. Please keep carrying on, Scott
This was a great video. It's interesting how you talk about all the different programs going on but also highlight their similar ambitions and how close they all are to achieving success.
2:40 -- 'Oceanography' is a funny way to say "Aircraft carrier tracker".
The second crew tower mostly allows Dragon to work around Falcon Heavy missions because they both could only launch from 39A. Now Dragon will be able to launch from SLC40 which makes scheduling a lot easier!
Thanks Scott. I always enjoy your updates. I always seem to learn some new insight from watching that differentiates you from the others covering space flight. Fly safe!
Always a treat to have a new episode. Fly safe
@21:49. Funny you said that. Just two days ago the midbody section of a New Glenn 1st stage was spotted and photographed rolling on its way back to the main factory after getting done up with not only testing and insulation, but getting painted up in the official livery. This is a massive piece of hardware that's compromised of the LOX and LNG tanks and is over 30 meters long.
Even right before that, Lex Fridman tweeted a photo of him and Jeff Bezos together inside the NG factory and lots of interesting hardware can be glimpsed past them, including an unpainted midbody section in the final assembly area, but also an insulation-covered interstage with control fins attached!
What worries me about Starship is that, like Shuttle, it seems to have no robust abort mode from the second phase of ascent unlike small pods like Dragon.
it'll get cancelled anyways. its not gonna work.
@@jebes909090most likely but I have hope
i personally dont think we will see a manned launch of starship for a *very* long time, possibly ever. Which honestly is fine, its capability as a heavy lift vehicle alone is insane
I can see a big capsule on the top of future human rated starships
I think they'll need to add a third stage until Starship has proven it's reliability.
There's some design choices in Starship that are detrimental in the near term and I really don't love going back to ceramanic tiles - ended up being a huge weakness for the shuttle.
Thanks Scott for the best and most detailed explanation of the most likely reasons for the destruction of the last Starship launch.
Actually, it was not "destroyed"; it was just a RUD, or Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly!! LOL LOL LOL :D
Deliberately aggressive throttling to favor the second stage being successful might have put the first stage at risk. Future launches could adjust the throttling of both stages to keep the first stage with positive G the whole time.
Yes, the "new normal" is always better than the old normal right!! LOL ;D@@RobertLutece909
I - like many others - just really appreciate you taking time for these updates. And your broad knowledge enables you to always keep it spicy and fun to watch. Thanks!
What I find interesting on the starship booster MEGA mach diamonds is that it looks like the mach diamond is rotating to the left. Is that because of the gimballing Raptors?
Coriolis force?
The crew access arm at SLC 40 is also vital for "last minute" loads going aboard Cargo Resupply launches of Dragon 2 capsules.
Did anybody notice the acronym "meco" shown as "most engines cut off" on the SpaceX info?
Yeah, clearly wanted to keep the acronym despite the hot staging development.
Great report, Scott. On top of things as usual.
Congratulations to ESA, seems like great progress on the Ariane 6!
Nice launch but it’s already semi-obsolete as it cannot compete commercially with SpaceX, unless a longer fairing is essential.
@@StillAliveAndKicking_ Yup feels a bit bittersweet, doesn't it? At least it helps Europe maintain continued development so that we might some day see a contemporary European design, and not be completely dependent on others.
lol
@@Greippi10 Very true, Europe does need an independent launch capability.
@@StillAliveAndKicking_ yes, but not all space launches will be done by SpaceX even in the future, there’s room for multiple companies like Firefly, RocketLab etc. And plenty of nations don’t want to be reliant on one specific company who (with constantly shifting geopolitics) could conceivably be prohibited from accepting contracts for launches from their space agency or companies in their country. SpaceX is without question going to gobble up the majority of the heavy lift market but I’m confident there will be plenty of opportunities for Ariane 6 as well.
Thanks Scott for your analysis on all things space!
By dumb luck my brother was attending a wedding just north of Vandenberg the first time they did an RTLS there and got a pretty good show out of it. Definitely hope to watch in person (up close) at some point. I was in CA for a while and saw a bunch of Vandenberg launches from ~100 miles to the east, still a good show, but not the same...
Thank you for cutting through the noise and giving us the news!
If Scotts enthusiasm is anything to go by, this channel is around to highlight the size/amount of the non space x orbit payloads.
So many rocket launches, it dazzles me.
I would love to see video from inside the cockpit of the Starship.
Wouldn't be much to see. If you're expecting the launch to fail, you don't install a real cockpit. It would just be an empty shell, perhaps with a bunch of telemetry devices.
It has no cockpit ....... yet.
Call Elon and tell him to ride the next one while wearing a GoPro...
RUclips bumping 1080p down to 720 then trying to charge for 1080 is nuts
So SpaceX needs to check it's hot staging?
you need to check your apostrophes
@@ZygonesBzygones English spelling needs to check something. :-(
You are right "its" is the only possessive form that does not have an apostrophe, it's confusing. @@benjaminshropshire2900
Great (international) coverage as always, Scott, thank you
for SpaceX booster issues: is it a possibility to create a sponge-like solution for the tanks inside the booster as are used in NasCar vehicles that prevent fuel-depletion towards the engine because of negative G-force etc etc..
would be cool, and also done in most fighter jets for the same reason, but probably not practical, at least not for a very large volume, if only because starship is GIANT and being a rocket saving even a few kilograms of dry mass here and there adds up. I think adding a buffer tank with simple backflow prevention valves is a probably lighter-weight solution.
@thamiordragonheart8682 However there is also the problem of fuel sloshing causing damage. I suspect some kind of lightweight internal baffles or spongy material could be used towards the aft of the tanks to reduce the specific impulse and spread out the momentum transfer, but it's critical that nothing small can break off and clog a line or valve.
It would be interesting if you could create some kind of cryogenic aerogel inside part of the booster tanks that dissolved or melted into fuel or oxidizer as it warmed up, since that could negate the mass penalty while slowing down the sloshing. Most likely you'd have to use a third chemical and end up with a tripropellant system in the booster. And that's a chemistry rabbithole that's going to slosh around in my brain for a while.
Sounds heavy, no?
@@kamikazejs950 I don't think gels would help because for it to help it has to be fixed to the bottom of the tank so it doesn't move with the fuel.
The idea of baffles or spongy material is that it would prevent the fuel from moving in the first place. so it probably wouldn't break, but the engines just use such a large volume of fuel and any sponge is going to be heavy since it's too cold for polymers and most lightweight metals would galvanically corrode with the steel structure.
I think the best solution is still to just change the procedure so that negative acceleration on the booster doesn't happen, maybe just throttling up the booster engines as the starship engines start to counter the pressure would be enough.
The second best solution is probably to add header tanks like the starship uses, in this case probably the methane downcomer and a second dome on the bottom to make a small LOX tank.
Hi Scott,
Thank you for your brilliant RUclips videos!
I have watched them since the first launch of Falcon Heavy in 2018 - and believe me, you're the best!
In the new episode of Deep Space Updates, can you discuss the simplest way to avoid fuel sloshing during Starship's stage separation?
1) We know the remaining amount of fuel and oxidizer before stage separation - let's say it is 12% of full tanks (plus some safety margin).
2) Let's place a steel membrane in each of 2 tanks, separating the bottom 12% volume from the rest.
3) Distribute the sufficient amount of unidirectional valves in these membranes (say 40 large valves or 1000 small ones).
4) Voila - the engines won't catch any gas bubbles when experiencing negative Gs during stage sep.
And we want more:
1) Three inner Raptors of Super Heavy probably suffered from Engine Reach exhaust before RUD during Test Flight 2.
2) Let's save these engines during the 3rd test flight to explore them on Earth!
3) We can safely shut down these engines after stage separation: let them work for, say, 15 seconds, get positive acceleration, then light up several more Raptors, and shut down the invaluable inner 3 ones before they eat up themselves;
4) Perform controlled splashdown in the ocean;
5) Examine surviving Raptors in the lab!
I'll be glad if you will discuss these theories during next episode of Deep Space Updates )
Next time, I'd like to discuss the marvellous usage of Starship's MoonLander legs and upper engines On Earth.
Thank you for your time reading this )
Kind regards
Alex
I would like to point out that I think these are in fact the biggest mach diamonds ever seen.
poor Lucy made a stealth flyby of an asteroid that nobody talks about...
Starship nose looks like a very successful escape system of the Starship 🤣
First they all say "It can't be done" followed shortly after by it being done and them saying "we are doing it too"
Nice report out Scott! Very informative as always!
Thanks Scott, nice analysis on several issues. BO getting New Glenn to launch next year would be a neat trick, doubt it will happen though. The folks with the Mars sample return will have a window where they'll need to consider changing launch vehicles very soon I would imagine. I would be they'll be looking at a F9 or probably already are.
On the subject of sloshing in the fuel compartment, it's a pretty old problem. I knew a guy who drove milk trucks in Wisconsin while he was in HS (MANY years ago) and he said that back then, they didn't even have baffles in the milk truck tanks! If he wasn't EXTREMELY careful, he'd set up a harmonic (of sorts) while braking that would keep the truck moving right through red lights and so on, which was (of course) VERY dangerous!
I'm hopeful to see the next Starship booster hit the pad in the next 10 days or so!
Space is a place where lots of stuff happens but most of it goes unreported because it almost all of it doesn’t happen in our neck of the woods.
Yes, space is really big as Douglas Adams said: "Space is big....etc. etc". in HHGTTG. LOL ;D
I had a stroke reading that for Christ's sake!
@@TheFalseShepphard the truth of a stroke is a stroke is no joke so pray you mend fast so the stroke doesn’t last. 🤞
In English it's called a "figure of speech", not to be taken "literally," by the non- English, LOL :D@@GadZookz
Your Deep-Space video content is always short but to the point. I'm not surprised that many fans think the same. Greetings from Europe. SpaceX enthusiast.
Can someone explain how the booster encountered negative acceleration? Were the second stage rockets pushing back on the booster with more force than the 3 rockets accelerating it?
Yes, most likely, since Superheavy would be relatively light at that moment due to most of its fuel being expended, se six Raptors on Starship were probably enough to push, even if little.
There is also a lot of aerodynamic force involved, especially when the front of the booster is exposed
@@JKa244 If I have a cup of water and slam on the brakes in my car - the water will fly forward. Is this what happened to the fuel?
the exhaust from starship built up pressure in the interstage since the hot staging grate ring isn't completely open, so the force pushing them apart is much larger than the standard thrust of the engines. it's also true that superheavy had sea level engines at half throttle, and starship had 3 vac engines (slightly higher thrust) that were probably at more than half throttle.
slamming on the breaks with a cup of water is exactly what happened to the propellent.
the problem is at the time of separation the booster is mostly empty and the starship is full.
Thanks I love how you cover the world launches not just US. It is great to see the different countries launches and technologies and how they plan to do space. Thanks. I do miss the lego livestreams though, they are too late for me in the Atlantic.
So, basically, the hot staging caused cavitation in the propellant tanks, and the Rayleigh-Plesset equation did the rest. More or less like hitting the top of a glass bottle full of water: chaos ensues.
Even without cavitation, a relatively low deceleration of the vehicle over a sufficiently long enough period of time might allow some of the liquid methane to be displaced by the pressurized methane gas rather than creating a vacuum. Or at least it makes it easier for the liquid methane to slosh around, perhaps more than the baffles in the tank accounted for.
@@SuperCuriousFox they designed for that. It’s going to be something they didn’t design for. We’re obviously speculating, here, admittedly.
Scott, great quality video as ever! Thanks for sharing! 🙂😎🤓
I would like to see the numbers on how a hot staging actually helps payload to orbit. It does for expendables, but if you reuse the first stage you need to carry a blast deflector...which is heavy. How does that compare to shutting down the first stage engines and then starting ullage motors to settle the propellant?
I've seen discussions citing 10% increase in mass to orbit with hot staging.
it means you don't need nearly as large ullage motors on the second stage, and adding disproportionate mass to the first stage to take it off the second stage is usually a net win for the payload to orbit.
The real reason is probably reliability though, at least once you get it working. hot staging not only gets rid of ullage motors on the booster, it gets rid of the entire stage separate system and replaces it with some hold-down clamps, and makes the ullage motors on the second stage only required on orbit where you have more time to troubleshoot. it also maintains a lot more control in the thin upper atmosphere since the booster maintains thrust vector control though the whole maneuver.
There's some other benefits besides payload to orbit, overall this seems less complex than the previous method of releasing the clamps, then having the booster flip without also making the Starship flip. I believe it had to coast for a decent amount of time, which adds up to a good amount of gravity loss. No ullage motors were ever on Starship, not sure what they were going to do, maybe header tank startup. Unlike Falcon where there's a pusher to forcefuly separate the stages and settle propellant on the second stage, Starship is too big for that to be practical.
If the dome survives a good number of flights, I think it'll be the simplest way to separate for Starship
I was just watching the latest engine test of the SLS engine. It was gimbaling, and it made me think how do the cryogenic fuel pipes, articulate? Are there special joints? Do they just bend the pipes, that's what it looks like?
You should do a video on this.
Interesting to see the gimbal movement on the Ariane test firing. Didn't expect those high angular speeds and frequencies they went up to.
Maybe a future video on gimbals, thrust vectoring and their limitations?
The scary thing is that the plume is invisible between the nozzle and the shock diamond. You can't see it, but there is a stream of intense violence in that space.
@@RCAvhstape It's a good comparison with the methalox Raptors too... with hydrogen burning so clear, the diamond effect looks very different.
07:27 - IFT-2, not IFT-1. 🙂
Again Scott thank you love your updates
As for Starship booster: think the bottle where you thump it on top and a vacuum gets created at the bottom. Once that slams down, ... the bottom falls out.
Blue Origin will definitely have test hardware at the Cape by December.
Not sure which century at the moment.
and what test hardware it is.. could be test mock-ups or cgi test rendering equipment.
Just a couple of days ago someone spotted half of what appears to be a flight first stage booster out in the open seemingly close to completion.
New Glenn is a lot more mature than people give it credit for.
Are you going to do a video on the flipper?
Incredible updates this episode!
Spotted a Flipper Zero on your desk! How do you like it, Scott?
A lot of these comments are mirrors of falcon launches whem they were in development, itll never have crew, it wont be a completed program, *insert crash meme here* but here we are with 88 launches in the year alone. Itll happen, or spacex would go under developing it
And a lot of people seem to have forgotten that the first test flight of the Falcon 9 Heavy was delayed nine whole years from it's first announced launch date that was to have been 2009, so it's no surprise that people were skeptical. Even Musk admitted the entire process was a lot tougher than he thought it was going to be.
@@EnglishMike yep! If NASA could do everything with the tech they had in 69, we'll be able to do the same!
Stainless steel is really strong compared to Alu alloys. Much new learning is happening...
Foxconn (HonHai-Langhua) also manufactures AppleTV units as well... (and some of the very specific custom order MBPros too, not sure why Quanta can't/won't make those, since HH doesn't seem to have a problem with running them despite their low volume rarity.) I spent 5 years as one of the (squeaky)wheels in the Apple logistics infrastructure... :)
2:00 FoxConn isn't best know for that...but for running their Apple assembly plants like the military and their "nettting."
Curious to me - Lots of vegetation around the North Korean launch site. Probably not an issue but it's a striking contrast against all the other very clean, maintained launch sites.
How bout that Sub 🏄♂️🚀🎯
Check out the Guyana launch site if you want some jungle
I feel like it just depends on the locations available - Kourou and the Kennedy are both built in coastal swamps and Baikonur is in the middle of the Kazakh steppe. Not sure if North Korea has access to as much rocket-friendly terrain!
@@chrisoddy8744 From the Earth to the Moon🧹🪄🤙
Incredible analysis of starship 2nd full test flight
YOU THINH "When Glenn|" Is going to make AN August launch? And we have a Mars mission depending in BE-4 which has never flown anywhere, AnyWhen? My skepticometer is running off-scale.
Curious that many aren't also skeptical about Starship claimed capabilities, falling for all the hype.
@@RogerM88plenty of people are skeptical. There are dozens of channels dedicated to debunking spacex and everything musk related, including hyperloop, which is somehow still a topic
starship makes super nova after splashed😁
I wonder why we (or at least I) haven’t seen video from the 2nd stage of the Starship Superheavy during separation, as we usually see with Falcon 9’s.
Even the first flight of Starship and SuperHeavy had video feed from Starships engine bay so it looks like they want to keep that data (video) classified.
It stays in house until they're done and ready to release.
Excellent video and thank you for the new phrase, to inertify a vehicle.
I promise to stop mocking Blue Origin as soon as they achieve orbit.
I don't promise to stop mocking Blue Origin at all.
@@tarmaque Absolutely fair.
🤣🤣👍👍@@riparianlife97701
Love your vids Scott!❤
Marry me Scott
Sorry, his first love has an Isp over 325 sec and a thrust-to-weight ratio over 140. Hard to compete with that.
The wedding might have to be done in the state of Utah
Hardware is what you seek or just an update❓
Scotts taken!
@@randbarrett8706 what why u say that can u 👀A BFR from there🍊🐊
I think we may discover something by looking at the brightness of the engines on Superheavy from separation through the relight sequence, and thinking about what the accelerations are on the booster.
Throughout the sequence, the engines need to reliably keep the fuel pressed against the rear bulkheads - first so that the engine turbines are never starved for fuel and oxidizer (cavitation or gas ingestion on either fuel or LOX intake is a great way for the inlet turbine to overspeed and destroy itself), and second so that the plumbing doesn't collapse like a drinking straw does when you suck liquid out of it - which would be most likely experienced by the long oxygen down comer.
1. From separation through Superheavy pivoting through an angle of about 30 degrees, the center three engines are lit brightly indicating healthy fuel and LOX flow. It looks like there was enough fuel and LOX available throughout the separation even despite negative acceleration from Starship pushing us backward, at least for the center 3 engines. However, there could be internal damage especially to the LOX down comer.
2. At 30 degrees rotation or so, the three center engines dim greatly, indicating either throttle down or a loss of either fuel or LOX pressure. This is around the time that you'd start drawing lots of fuel and LOX to start up pairs of engines in the ring of 10 around the middle three. Perhaps there is not enough liquid available to do this due to a collapsed LOX down comer?
3. Between about 45 and 60 degrees rotation, pairs of engines are lit until 9 of the 10 in the ring around the center three are lit. All of these are running dimly. The 10th engine never lights. None of these or the inner engines throttle up to full power.
4. At 90 degrees rotation, atmospheric drag is going to settle the fuel and LOX to one side of the engine inlet pipes or (given the low quantity left in the the tanks), completely expose some engine inlets to gas rather than liquid. Catastrophic events may happen at engine inlet turbines.
5. Later energetic events or pipe collapse/damage introduce LOX into the fuel tank, and rapid combustion inside one of the tanks ruptures the tank.
Superheavy is capable of speedier acceleration than Starship, as it is mostly empty tankage at the separation event. It needs to be careful to never let fuel or LOX lift off the inlet feeders lest inlet pipes partially collapse or fuel/LOX inlet cavitate. There's a tradeoff in stronger internal piping (and its weight) and all the accelerations involved. Perhaps it needs to slow its rotation at the 30-45 degree point until it has all its engines lit and then do a powered completion of rotation back to the 180 degree point. I'm sure that Space X has some great numeric models for this sort of activity with their expertise with Falcon 9 boosters. It has to be applied to the scale of the physics experienced and the temperament and of the Raptor here, but I'm sure that they learned a lot with this flight and will dial it in quickly on the next flight or two, with a model that gives them much more confidence about the safety limits involved.
Could you please wash your clothing before you give us these wonderous updates. Your shirt had pie all over the front of it.
I bet Scott set off flight termination with his Flipper... ;)
The termination system not destroying the nose is probably a good thing since the plan is to eventually have people in it.
There’s no recovery system like parachutes, so really it would just be prolonging the time before crew is lost.
@@HenryZwiefelhofer not yet
11:00 This is a tough problem with sloshing without adding more weight.
Although Starship launch was impressive, will take a long time until SpaceX has a functional Starship, with a payload hatch for commercial applications, as figuring out reentry with an improved TPS shield, not falling apart at launch. And even longer, to be Crew rated.
That's why I'm starting to support the ULA approach for the Vulcan Centaur reusability process. Get experience with the platform, and then iterate for reusability systems.
People said similar things about Falcon 9. Yes, it'll be a few years. But how long have Vulcan and SLS been in development?
@@meanderinoranges Fanboys and their Falcon 9 argument...so tiring. Complete different rockets!
@@RogerM88 more like you have a case of MDS. There are far more similarities between Falcon 9 and Starship than between Vulcan/SLS and Falcon 9. Answer this: is the Falcon 9 crew rated? Are SLS and Vulcan reusable?
@@meanderinoranges Indeed, they "crew rated" SLS before it ever made a flight, based almost entirely on the fact that most of it is Shuttle hardware. Sounds stupid to me too.
@Scott Manley : In some ways, the in-flight escape test of the New Shepard capsule also was some odd kind of hot staging that happened with a reusable first stage ^^ (but I agree it's not an orbital rocket, btw ^^)
Then you'd need to include all rocket propelled escape systems that were made long before Shepard.
By ensuring the high altitude breakup of the booster, and not letting it drop onto land in one piece, the North Korean space program is officially acting more responsibly than the Chinese program. XD
Yeah NK showing social responsibility is quite bizarre lol.
I realize the starship is a new system with many aerospace 1st technologies. That being said, how can one say the failure of the rocket was a success. The SLS was a success it launched, sending a capsule around the moon landing the craft intact successfully. It seems Elon gets a pass and carries a lot of influence it this space. I get the enthusiasm surrounding the starship heck, I am a huge fan of the starship program, and I think this second flight was hugely impressive and SpaceX learned a ton, but a successful flight it wasn't. If the blue New Glen explodes, I'm not so sure people will say it was a success because they gathered data. When the first Space Shuttle flew, it was a success. The crew had balls of steel, and it was a successful flight. Don't blow smoke up my asteroid. Both the booster and ship were lost. SpaceX has a wonderfully unique build iterate and build really fast and learn along the way. It might be the very best way to build such a complex system. But this mission was clearly a failure.
Because there were 2 very different development paths being followed. When SLS went for it's flight it was the test flight of a system that was already done development. The final proof before it's ready for missions. Spacex is still in development. They're building throw away test articles. They don't expect success, the goal is to learn from the failures. So each time a test pushes things further than the previous test, it's a success.
As moose of doom said, 2 different development paths. Also 2 different approaches with how the rockets are planned to be used. After all, once the SLS solid rocket boosters detached from the core stage, they just burnt up and crashed into the ocean. Same with the SLS core stage after it detached from the upper stage. Starship's booster attempted to turn around and fly back, which is when it exploded.
Further, SpaceX (at least through Elon Musk) stated their primary and secondary goals days prior to the flight. They just wanted to get through the hot staging process. Anything after was a bonus. SpaceX actually has multiple Starships built or nearly completed as is. Almost 10 upper stages at this point and a few boosters as well. So a flight that is simply "launch it and see what happens" is much more reasonable with them than with someone like Blue Origin who is years delayed on their single prototype. SpaceX will very likely have a second Starship with numerous changes learned from this flight completed prior to even being given permission to launch again.
@anthonypelchat LOL I guess if you temper expectations in advance, you're going to have a successful outcome. I hope the next flight is more successful.
@@mp6756 The way I look at is like someone planning to run a marathon. You don't run the marathon distance on your first run. You start with smaller goals to build up to a full marathon run. For example, you may plan to run nonstop for 1 mile. However, it is pointless to stop at 1 mile if you feel that you can continue to further. So you plan to run an additional 0.5 miles if you can. On that run, you manage to go 1.25 miles. Does that mean that you missed your goal because you didn't run nonstop for 1.5 miles? Of course not.
Same here. Each of Starship's flights require a massive amount to go right. Hundreds of tons of super chilled fuel loaded, 33 engines started, massive connections quickly disconnected, a ton of electronics, computers, and sensors to monitor and control everything. All of that needed just to leave the launch pad. So the first flight was mainly concerned about getting off of and away from the launch pad. But it never made it through stage separation. So the second flight had that as its primary goal.
Third flight will likely be for the upper stage to make it to its destination and possibly the booster to boost back as planned with a secondary goal to soft land in the water near the launch site. Both will still be destroyed. And they are not planning to recover either, nor even soft land the upper stage. My guess is they go for orbit on the forth launch, possibly with a small number of Starlink satellites. They may wait until the 5th launch for the satellites though.
@@anthonypelchat this like Spacex is training for running a marathon by running marathons and then congratulating themselves for getting further than last time while not completing the marathon they said that they would do.
14:20 High surface area means high air resistance, low mass means less material to burn.
I can see the day when there are so many satellites that they'll physically link them together to make a Buckey Ball
I might give up amateur astronomy, because at the rate things are going trying to observe or take photos will become like doing it through a chain link fence.
@@taraswertelecki3786 you'll have to pay spacex (or whoever) to launch your own amateur space telescope.
That would be trillions of satellites.
@@taraswertelecki3786 If it's any consolation, the launch price of Starship should be so low that it could put up the equivalent of a dozen JWSTs day, so professional astronomy should be pretty good going forward.
Go Scott keep up the updates hi from Australia
Fantastic Starship launch. It would be interesting to know why both parts detonated. Presumably the first stage ruptured due to liquid slosh resulting from sudden changes in acceleration at stage separation.
Thanks for the updates..
That looks like a wild ride for 2nd stage!
Wow, that telescope footage is stunning
Seems to me the things to do are:
1) Burn the 1st stage a little harder to avoid a change in acceleration sign.
2) Put in some lateral (relative to the stage body) translation movement at this point to get the exhaust off of the 1st stage.
3) Really separate slowly so the exhaust doesn't slow down the 1st stage. May need more protection for the 1st stage (weight).
4) Orient the 1st stage bottom down while maintaining minimal thrust, wait for the fuel to settle, then begin igniting other engines.
Indeed, if the 2nd stage gimbals its engines to effect a mild pitch or yaw rotation, this could be arranged to help "push" the 1st stage into its new orientation.
Spitballin'
Fantastic video Scott you have answered all my questions 😀
Ps if folks give a thumbs down please don't hide behind your keyboard and tell us all why.
I went looking through your store for the interesting PI-shirt you were wearing but couldn't find it. Did I overlook something? - Daniel
Hi Scott Manley
He is a manly scott. Ad Astra.
Jesus Christ. Around 10:00 you also have the best slow motion footage of the whole adventure!
Hey Scott, whatcha doing with the Flipper on your work bench?
One of those Mach diamonds is about the size of my two bedroom house!
Second stage of Ariane6 has allready been tested several times also for long duration and re-boost. But yes, another test is scheduled early December.
Why doesn't spacex mimic reptile scales for the heat shields?
that material is extremely brittle and soft - due to it's feature of being so heat-resistant. They'll have to do more work o the mounting interface and how that is being embedded in those tiles. Overlapping (scales) might not really help there.
The names of NK rocket and satellite are pretty cool (Chollima: Horse that could run 1,000 li (~400km) in one day, and Malligyong: Mirror that could see what happened 10,000 li (~4000km) away.) Also, the acquisition of RD-250 technology really upped their game from Unha.
Hear me out: when starship hot stages, they should keep the three booster engines on until it’s separated. Once they’ve done that, they can turn them off, and SLOWLY rotate the booster with the “rcs” gas.
The negative acceleration provided by the ship would cause the propellant to float, but as soon as the booster starts turning away it’ll have drag pulling the booster back.
The propellant would then ride the edge of the tank as the booster decelerates and turns, and when the booster is fully rotated then they can turn the engines back on.
Slowly is bad. The booster only has a limited amount of time before it falls back into the atmosphere, and every second you spend turning around is one second closer to that happening. Worse, every second you spend turning around is also another second the booster spends flying downrange at 5000+km/h.
The combined effect is that when you do start your boostback to the launch site, you now have to travel a greater return distance *and* do so in less time - i.e you need to go a lot faster, burning a lot more fuel in the process. Extra fuel that you now have to lift up to stage separation in the first place, which takes even more fuel to do.
SpaceX would likely much prefer to keep the current fast flip and just figure out how to keep the fuel settled while doing so.
@@lazarus2691 true, but imo actually getting back at all without exploding is probably a bit better than saving some fuel lmao
(In my unprofessional opinion)
@@temhgb
I mean sure, if they can't get the current method to word and have no choice, inefficient is better than nothing.
But I fully expect them to give it a few more tries with minor tweaks before giving up, because they want that efficiency.
@@lazarus2691 100%