They had a series of envelope pushing tests on the booster: 1. re-fly (including 29 of 33 engines) 2. new hot staging ring to force the flip in a particular direction 3. different (much more aggressive trajectory - probably what caused the failure due to overheating/overstressing the engines) as a potential technique in saving fuel. 4. Landing control with one of the three center engines out and replaced with a mid-ring engine. They pushed it to failure intentionally. They got answers on the first three of the four questions (based on the timing of when things went boom). The Starship itself is a 'version 2', a heavily redesigned thing. This is the third flight of the redesign (the first two - flights 7 & 8, put on a show over the Caribbean and Florida). The 'version 1' had a similar development arc with control failure on it's third flight. Flights 4 and 5 worked well so they moved to 'version 2'. I don't know the internal design of 'version 2' but whatever they changed is creating a headache with things cracking and breaking (I suspect the leak caused excessive pressure in the cargo bay, preventing the door from opening. The leaks also caused control problems which resulted the the scrubbing of the engine re-light attempt and the burn up on re-entry. As long as they can use the knowledge gained to correct, they may be ready to catch the whole thing (upper and lower stages) by the time the second tower is ready. Probably in two or three more flights. Regards, Art S.
"the internal design of 'version 2' but whatever they changed is creating a headache" ***** IIRC, major redesign of propellant tanks with 25% increase in capacity and also major redesign of fuel delivery plumbing, probably where leak problems are occurring. Other significant changes in order the double the payload to LEO from 50 to 100 tons. Any other developer would have been happy to continue to optimize Block 1 but Space X flys to learn and not afraid of the "optics" of failure....Perhaps one of the reasons that Falcon 9 has had 450+ successful landings from orbital launches and everyone else 0.
Totally agree but when viewed casually, there's a question of why things keep going boom. The answer is: because this is the development phase and they are continually pushing the envelope. They are blowing things up now so that they know what kind of margins they have when they go into series production and commercial use. I have a feeling the final Starship system will be both robust and diverse. Exceeding Falcon 9's reliability and variability (Falcon 9: satellite launcher, crew capsule, space station re-supply cargo capsule, etc.). Regards, Art S.
It takes a special person to push ahead with high risk testing when the establishment want to ruin you. The ABC story from a few days ago is typical..to the effect: “Space X “Mars Rocket” scheduled for 9th launch despite 8 previous failures!”
