First launch of Starship, a successful failure
Elon Musk, sitting in the control room of his SpaceX in Boca Chica, today watched two
million of his dollars literally go up in smoke, at exactly 2:37 p.m. UT on April 20,
2023.
Starship, the world's largest and most powerful rocket, had in fact just exploded 30 kilometers
above his head….
Just for a moment, framed in close-up by his director, the Tycoon looked decidedly displeased;
then a smile, his fingers grazing his smartphone: "Congratulations everyone, we learned a lot
today, soon we will be ready for a new launch.
In the meantime, we will improve reliability."
With this message on Twitter (also owned by him), the world's richest man had already
filed the first flight test of the rocket destined to take man back to the Moon, then
leap to Mars, and thus transform humanity into a multi-planetary race.
In his maddening timetable, which includes such "bagatelles" as running Tesla, one must
always move forward.
From science and technology, he has borrowed and made his own the principle of "Get it
wrong fast, learn even faster," which he applies in every business and, fundamentally, in every
aspect of his life.
Not least because it is he, out of his own pocket, who puts up the dough, and he can
spend as he wants and when he wants.
This is definitely forbidden at Nasa, which being a public entity has to be very careful
about how it spends taxpayers' money and is in fact forced to move with replay speed compared
to Musk.
After all, on closer inspection, Starship's first liftoff didn't go so badly: the mission
to take the spacecraft capable of carrying 100 passengers to the Moon and Mars into orbit
failed, but in the meantime, the spacecraft and the first stage, the SuperHeavy booster,
didn't explode on liftoff.
That's something, right?
Much better than the first Starship-only launches had gone-remember them?
Explosions already on the ramp or at very low altitudes.
Then it was okay on the fifth attempt, with the spaceship coming to rest on the ground
after climbing the sky as seen only in science fiction movies.
But today was more difficult.
In fact, today's was the first test with the two giants assembled together: the first stage,
the 70-meter-tall, 200-ton Super-Heavy rocket, equipped with 33 "Raptor 2" methane and liquid
oxygen engines, and above it the 50-meter-long, 100-ton Starship spacecraft.
The former was all shiny because of ice forming on the surface cooled by the super-compressed
gas in the tanks, the latter half-black because of thermal plates serving as protection upon
re-entry into the atmosphere.
The launch attempt began with the classic familiar operations seen during previous tests,
starting with the closure of the road leading to Boca Chica Beach.
Around the launch site, at a safe distance, were thousands of fans gathered to witness
the historic test.
SpaceX's live streaming also garnered more than 1.5 million views.
Once SpaceX was ready, local police forces began checking the Boca Chica beach and surrounding
area to make sure no unauthorized personnel was in the area during the launch attempt.
As with the aborted attempt three days earlier, the countdown was halted with less than 40
seconds to go.
But this time without any particular fear that the mission would fail to get off the
ground: glancing out over the quiet marshes that pushed the rocket to the horizon, one
could tell that this was going to be it.
Don't ask me why, but you could tell.
The launch director must have had the same feeling, too, integrating the information
that a myriad of sensors was bouncing off his monitors and it took him but a couple
of minutes to resume counting.
Where a NASA operator would have stopped the countdown at the first slight anomaly, the
free enterprise of a private industry such as SpaceX, which now launches Falcon rockets
at the rate of one a month, has evidently allowed engineers to learn when to really
worry and take calculated risks.
And so the flight director said Go!
Launch!
And Starship began to rise majestically, one inch at a time, detaching itself like a phoenix
from an inferno of flames that enveloped it all.
And God only knows if hell can be hot in the same way...The temperature in the ramp exceeded
2800 degrees Celsius, twice that of a blast furnace...But down there, between metal and
concrete, nothing melted, because everything was immediately flooded with floodgates of
water pumped from the swamp...
Within seconds, which seemed a very long time, the vehicle passed the tower and slowly began
to tilt toward the Gulf of Mexico as the entire system began its gravitational turn, all followed
by the cheers and applause of the SpaceX staff gathered at the company's headquarters in
Hawthorne, California.
During the moments of liftoff, a series of debris was clearly seen being thrown by the
rocket all around the ramp, and during the first two minutes of flight, even the exhaust
from the engines did not appear to be the cleanest.
Be that as it may... fingers and toes crossed you were already in the first minute of flight.
And what a sight...
Super-Heavy all shimmering, Starship all black, still united silhouetted against the celestial
sky; and below them the blueish trail of burning methane.
Within 60 seconds of takeoff, with ground vibrations felt as far as 15 kilometers, the
rocket reached an altitude of 6 kilometers and a speed of 680 kilometers per hour.
And it was already wonderful that everything was still in one piece and functioning.
Still, zero problems, apart from the failure to fire 5 out of 33 engines, and no explosions
on the launch tower as had been feared...
And that for Musk, let's face it, was already a big saving, in dollars and time to clean
and rebuild everything!
We are now in the second minute of flight and the imperious ascent continues...
120 seconds after takeoff Starship has pierced the sound barrier and is hurtling along at
1,600 kilometers per hour at an altitude of 21 kilometers.
Only 26 of 33 Raptor II engines arranged in three circles turn out to be lit, a masterpiece
of technology that is also a work of art...but no problem, the system is built on the principle
of redundancy.
During this test flight, the engines were not expected to operate at 100 percent thrust,
but even at this level of thrust, Super-Heavy officially became the most powerful rocket
ever launched, producing about 6,800 tons of thrust.
The previous record was held by the Soviet Union's N1 rocket, which had a takeoff thrust
of 4,626 tons.
By the third minute, the speed exceeded 2,000 kilometers per hour, and the altitude was
38 kilometers.
Soon the separation procedure between the first and second stages, between the Super-Heavy
buster and the Starship spacecraft, should begin.
At this point, it is expected that the whole assembly should take on a particular tilt,
and so when you see it tilting, you don't worry--at least until the speed begins to
drop toward 1,500 kilometers per hour, and then drop again.
The convoy now seems to lie on the flank and even begins to point toward Earth.
Things become incomprehensible and precipitous.
One fears the worst.
We are in the fourth minute--those following from home or lucky enough to be there among
the thousands of spectators stationed three kilometers from the base begin to pray nervously
in ancient Aramaic.
It is panic because Starship was already sympathetic to us...
But not only that... if everything explodes there is a danger for all those who stand
around with their noses in the air!
Or is it?
Be that as it may, with the cold-bloodedness that we surely would not have had,,,,, the
control room makes heavy decisions in the thread of seconds.
First, it commands the emptying of fuel tanks held at very high pressure.
Those of Super-Heavy are already half-empty, as most of the mixture of methane and liquid
oxygen is used for the first boost, to conquer the first kilometers of altitude, the first
kilometers of freedom from gravity.
Those of the six engines, also Raptor II, of the Starship spacecraft, on the other hand,
are still full.
White "purge" jets can clearly be seen staining the sky where the convoy is still writhing
between the conflicting thrusts of the still-functioning engines and the air resistance to the fall.
Only then in the control room did they hit the self-destruct button, with 300 tons of
metal fragments opening up in umbrella-like fumes and vapors and then falling hard into
the Atlantic Ocean in the no-go zone.
The explosion occurred at an altitude of 29 kilometers, 3 minutes and 59 seconds after
takeoff, when Starship was by then plummeting uncontrollably on the 2,000 kilometers per
hour mark.
A bit of a disappointment, that is...
If after detachment from the booster all six of Starship's engines had successfully ignited,
the spacecraft would have had to perform a burn of about six minutes and 23 seconds.
To get into orbit?
Not really--SpaceX had chosen to take the spacecraft on a reentry trajectory into the
Pacific Ocean, just northwest of Hawaii, with no additional engine ignitions required.
To take one less risk during such an important test.
The booster, on the other hand, would have begun to turn over soon after separation by
reigniting its 13 internal engines to perform the 'boost back" maneuver.
This ignition would have lasted about 55 seconds and would have caused it to crash into the
Gulf of Mexico, about 31 km off the Texas coast.
This was not the case, and perhaps, all things considered, things were not as bad as everyone
expected.
Heavy rockets like Starship are inherently more complex and more difficult to develop
than smaller rockets, just as building an aircraft carrier requires much more work than
a modest yacht.
Moreover, by aiming to make all parts of the spacecraft reusable and able to launch again
a few hours after landing, SpaceX is attempting an engineering challenge that goes beyond
what has been accomplished in the previous 60 years of the space age.
It is therefore no surprise to experts that SpaceX was not fully successful on its first
attempt.
However, SpaceX has a history of learning from mistakes.
The company's mantra is essentially "Fail fast, but learn faster."
Traditional aerospace companies have tried to anticipate and prevent as many failures
as possible in advance.
But this approach takes time and money and can lead to oversized vehicles.
SpaceX, on the other hand, is more like a Silicon Valley software company, starting
with an imperfect product that can be improved quickly.
A couple of years ago, you will no doubt remember because of the spectacular launches, the company
took a similar approach to fine-tune the landing procedure for Starship.
In a series of tests, Starship prototypes were launched to an altitude of about ten
kilometers before shutting down the engines.
Then followed the famous belly-fall and deadfall to slow its speed before getting vertical
again and firing up the engines again for landing.
The first few launches resulted in disaster before an attempt finally succeeded.
After all, SpaceX, as one of the most valuable private companies, has a large financial cushion
to absorb setbacks, unlike its early days when the first three launches of its original
rocket, the small Falcon 1, failed to reach orbit.
On that occasion, Musk scratched the bottom of his available funds to finance a fourth
launch.
If it had failed, SpaceX would have ceased operations.
And the fourth launch succeeded perfectly.
In short, it often takes a lot of luck as well.
For my part, I can only say: It would have been great if it had not blown up...
But it was still great!
And see you not until next fall at the earliest for the next attempt!