Spacex and Elon Musk over the years, be consistent in developing the starship as a mobility space
vehicle that will make humans exists among the stars as a community.
Even though the starship project is such an exciting one, it’s also a challenging task
to invent a starship that will transform the scope of human existence in the universe.
But it looks like there is always a cause for explosion during every spacex test flight,
which keeps the company on its feet to reiterate and study flight parameters to gain useful
knowledge on how to make next test flight a success.
Spacex is known for blowing up starship at just the first test flight.
Although, as for the last test, the company’s intent is not to blow it up, but since the
first flight is always a trial-and-error adventure, spacex has to watch what will play out as
the starship attains its test flight beyond the launch mount for the first time.
Why is spacex starship always blowing up during the first launch, or is it always a setup
situation to witch hunt the human race to Mars?
Let’s find out.
The overall demonstration of the last starship launch was a mission, or call it a test flight
of the new rocket's ability to fire up and launch above the 500-foot tall launch tower.
Although the starship exploded during the first test flight, the mission could be said
to be a success - because for over ten decades now, spacex has been working on this gargantuan
rocket to fly it into space, and eventually land it on Mars.
Flying it into the sky has been achieved, but flying it into orbit still remains a dream,
thereafter, flying it to Mars, which is the next destination for human settlement.
As soon as spaces massive Starship launched from Texas on its first full test, the 400-foot
stack of hardware began to tumble until it broke apart in a fiery explosion over the
Gulf of Mexico.
At liftoff, some of the rocket's 33 Raptor engines failed to fire up as planned.
And after about 30 minutes into the flight, the starship begins to tumble at roughly three
minutes into flight, and kicked off just after the rocket's Starship upper stage and Super
Heavy booster failed to separate.
Some experts and spectators were left wondering if the test flight's explosive conclusion
was the result of aerodynamic forces shearing the vehicle apart or if it was purposefully
blown up by the flight termination system, or FTS.
SpaceX did later confirm the rocket's breakup was triggered by FTS.
Flight termination systems are essentially explosives built into key areas of rockets
and are, at least on newer vehicles, automatically triggered if a hardware failure is detected.
They're a safety and licensing requirement and are especially important if a rocket appears
to veer off course.
The company also confirmed earlier suspicions that the spacecraft may have triggered its
flight termination system on both booster and ship.
In other words, SpaceX blew up its own Starship and Super Heavy booster four minutes into
the flight as a precautionary measure because things weren't going according to plan.
Ah well — there's always next time.
SpaceX's flight termination system (FTS) allows the rocket to virtually tear itself into pieces
mid-flight in the event of any deviations from the original flight path in order to
ensure the safety of the rocket's range.
That also means the explosion wasn't quite a "rapid unscheduled disassembly," as SpaceX
principal integration engineer John Insprucker described it during today's live stream — and
more of a rapid "ordered" disassembly, as Harvard astronomer and space tracker Jonathan
McDowell argued.
It was a powerful event that also caught the attention of federal regulators.
The Federal Aviation Administration officially kicked off an investigation following the
explosion.
"An anomaly occurred during the ascent and prior to stage separation resulting in a loss
of the vehicle," the FAA said in a statement.
"No injuries or public property damage have been reported."
That means SpaceX will have to go through the FAA first if it wants to get a license
to kick off another attempt at getting its Starship orbital.
"This is standard practice for all mishap investigations," the regulator clarified in
its statement.
Despite the setback and subsequent investigation, Musk is keen on getting the next prototype
Starship and Super Heavy booster to the launchpad.
SpaceX philosophy is more like fail fast but learn faster.
NASA is more like we can't afford to have anything explode while we're learning, we
have to, we have to be ready to go.
It's taxpayers dollars.
You have to admit this, I’ve seen many rockets blow up in flight, as soon as a rocket gets
out of aerodynamic alignment called a symmetric flight, the forces on it are so great especially
after it reaches hi Mock.
This rocket tumbled not once but twice and remained intact.
That is a testament to what a beast this rocket is going to be.
Starship is a friggin monster of a rocket!
Did anybody saw how it stumbled down with both stages still attached and preserving
it structural integrity despite the pressure and stress on its steel frame after losing
aerodynamic alignment immediately after take off.
The quality, materials, and technique they used in its construction are beyond words.
The fact starship was able to leave the launch pad in one piece was a huge success.
This thing is so massively tall and heavy I thought under full thrust the fully filled
rocket could buckle under the extreme forces and fold in half.
It not only held together, it stay as one piece even when tumbling end over end.
Surprisingly Very solid!
And guess what?
It’s the first time it has left the launch pad and even fly beyond the launch tower,
up to t24 miles up there.
Most of the damage was done from the Launchpad.
It became dust and bullets that destroyed the engines and probably caused the malfunction
in the stage separation.
It would be good to know if anything else went wrong.
The failure and restarting of 1 specific booster engine is the most exciting for me.
It is not easy to ignite a space engine, let alone shut it down, and restarting it again.
The fact that this launch was unmanned but closely supervised was good, and I feel had
not the issues seen just at launch had happened, it would have made it to orbit.
I felt that the lost of the raptor engines and some evidence of explosions near the gimbaled
engines may have been due to concrete from the bottom of the launch pad hitting the engines,
as it can be seen flying into the ocean as well.
I have never seen a launch cloud as big as that launch cloud, or a launch structure as
impacted after launch, which of course would be expected given the mighty thrust of all
those engines.
Despite that, the rocket survived Max Q and it seemed like it might have made it to stage
separation but I felt if the gimbaling system was partially operating, that is what might
have caused the tumbling to happen if the thrust vectored in the wrong direction.
The rocket, massive as it was, even with three raptors initially out, flew straight and true
to quite a height above the atmosphere but once it gets into the absence of atmosphere,
it is harder to keep it going without the gimbaled rocket motors moving in concert.
There is nothing serious that went wrong as far as we can tell right now.
There were already works underway to install better fire/blast protection mechanisms below
the launchpad, they were halted so this flight could take place.
In other words SpaceX knew full well that the pad would suffer serious damage due to
the launch.
But it seems they figured that the data they would gather by launching now would be more
valuable than waiting for the water deluge system and flame diverter being installed.
There is already a full new stack ready to fly and a second one either ready or days
away from being ready so there is no problem in that respect.
The biggest challenge now is just getting the pad sorted out and of course showing the
FAA that these first flight issues have been mitigated before trying again.
Paperwork and processes being what they are we are likely to see a similar situation as
we did with this launch where SpaceX is able to launch weeks before the paperwork allowing
them to launch is finalized.
At the very least you have to prove to the FAA that you can blow it up exactly when you
want to and have debris field 1000% where you intend it to be!
In any case this is a very exciting time to be alive we are finally finding our way to
space in a reliable and cheaply repeatable way.
With starship and its successor the cost of launching anything into space will drop so
dramatically that for the first time ever space will become a place where business can
be conducted.
For many organization the issue will not be the cost to put something up there but the
cost of being stuck with only earth resources and not making use of the unlimited possibilities
of space.
What people usually dont get is this will open a new chapter in space exploration.
The space station, Hubble, James Webb were all limited by the rockets capacity.
Starship' is the start of a new era.
There are companies out there already with plans based on the cargo size of Starship.
Imagine rotating space stations, massive telescopes, a space dock in orbit.
it really will change the world.
Musk is a true "Captain" of industry.
It is my hope that he ushers in a new era where industry is no longer crippled by the
fear of failure.
Embracing First Principle thinking, we should view risk-taking and setbacks as integral
components of the journey towards achieving ambitious goals.
Do you think Musk will achieve all of his plans soon?
Look deeper about how will the trip to Mars be and when, just click on the video.