SpaceX Starship

Blue Origin blew up also in the Atlantic -- but no one saw it screaming across the sky.

 

FAA requires mishap investigation for failed New Glenn landing

https://spacenews.com/faa-requires-mishap-investigation-for-failed-new-glenn-landing/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20FAA%20is%20requiring%20Blue,before%20allowing%20launches%20to%20resume.

 

seems prudent

"The FAA is requiring SpaceX to perform a mishap investigation into the loss of the Starship vehicle during launch operations on Jan. 16. There are no reports of public injury, and the FAA is working with SpaceX and appropriate authorities to confirm reports of public property damage on Turks and Caicos.

The FAA had said it "briefly slowed aircraft outside the area where space vehicle debris was falling or stopped aircraft at their departure location. Several aircraft requested to divert due to low fuel levels while holding outside impacted areas.

The FAA activated a Debris Response Area, which is done "only if the space vehicle experiences an anomaly with debris falling outside of the identified closed aircraft hazard areas."

 

Thanks for posting. Interesting report on the flight and issues experienced. Their (Space-X) ability to evaluate test results, make changes to hardware, and fly again is unprecedented

 

Scrub.

Hopefully tomorrow.

 

Thought this was interesting:

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2025/03/04/starship-test-flight-8-was-a-scrub-but-building-out-toward-mars-goes-on-n4937555

 

I watched it live... dang

The booster catch is still crazy.... looks like it's going to wipe out the tower until the last moment

For the Starship.... seems like the issue is the engines being unstable... they need Raptor 3's in there

Tweet

— Twitter API (@user) date

 

"they need Raptor 3's in there"
*****
Looked a couple of days ago, still in development and testing....no mention of time line for use.

 

1. Elon may be spread too thin.
2. Too many design changes between V1 and V2?
3. They do seem to have the whole booster catch thing going pretty well, with margin.
I find the Starship development process fascinating!
Regards,
Art S.

 

Nah, they did a massive redesign, much more than just the flaps, between Starship V1 and Starship V2. Part of that redesign was a lot of the plumbing feeding the engines, which isn't easy to do. The last two launches were V2.

I'm curious if the engine failure in 8 had a cause that was related to the internal fire in 7.

 

"Nah, they did a massive redesign,"
******
It's amazing how quickly SpaceX can make massive changes in design and be ready for the next test flight. The flight 8 Ship was essentially a new design on the way to a "stable" platform, hopefully by the end of this year. Musk's philosophy of "blow s*** up to make progress" is in total contrast to traditional rocket engineering, ie. NASA, Blue Origin, etc. Probably the biggest design hurdle, according to Musk, is to have a reusable heat shield surface that can be re-flown in a short turn around. I don't think he is particularly concerned by engine/plumbing or software problems. He survived his first three Falcon failures and being just a few weeks from financial collapse; I think that gave his a very different perspective. Just the idea that the plan it to go to an entirely new engine, Raptor 3, is mind blowing; simpler, more powerful and will save about 30,000 pounds of weight in main booster.

 

Juan is grumpy about rockets falling from the sky... :^)
Actually, a very interesting and different perspective:

 

Space is hard...

 

Nice thing is she is unmanned so test, fail, fix and repeat works if you can afford it. Fully reusable TSTO will revolutionize spacelift once it works.

 

It shows just how incredible STS-1 was let alone the subsequent flights. That's one of a few reason John Young is my favorite astronaut of all time...

 

Even being unmanned it amazes me the amount of hardware they are willing to throw away. There is obviously a good balance between testing and analysis/simulation. I'm all for doing testing but 8 failed launches is crazy. Any other company would be lambasted for that many failures. Even Falcon 1 only had 3 failures and that was from a brand new company. Somehow SpaceX gets a pass though.

 

But they haven't had 8 failed launches. There are two components, the booster and ship, so each should be viewed separately. They have had 3 catches of the booster, and 1 'failure' that was not the fault of the booster. Was cahtcing the booster even a goal on all 8 launches? They are not testing a production version of the 'ship' at this point so also can't say they have had 8 failures there. These last two failures of the ship have not been a result of test parameters, so this is disappointing and is IMO a more serious issue.

 

If they're prepared to pay for it, how's it anyone's business to lambast.
Compare that to Nasa and the OEM's far bigger budget off the gov teat, and decades to make a rocket which is obsolete.