LunaTheLunatic

Smack-Fu Master, in training
80
Subscriptor
The new permit was approved. There were never actually any findings of contamination
So, this is probably a stupid question, but where can I look at that permit and related info? It has to be public records somewhere, right? Also, are we talking about an FAA permit, or the EPA, or some combination of both? I think I remember hearing, somewhere in all the debate, that the FAA gives the permits to fly but doesn't look at the same environmental effects that the EPA does. I don't know whether that's accurate, though, about what the FAA does or doesn't look at when approving a permit. It would be really good to have that info, and a link I can refer someone to, the next time someone gets in my face about it.
 

LunaTheLunatic

Smack-Fu Master, in training
80
Subscriptor

Xavin

Ars Legatus Legionis
30,547
Subscriptor++
So, this is probably a stupid question, but where can I look at that permit and related info? It has to be public records somewhere, right? Also, are we talking about an FAA permit, or the EPA, or some combination of both? I think I remember hearing, somewhere in all the debate, that the FAA gives the permits to fly but doesn't look at the same environmental effects that the EPA does. I don't know whether that's accurate, though, about what the FAA does or doesn't look at when approving a permit. It would be really good to have that info, and a link I can refer someone to, the next time someone gets in my face about it.
It was never actually an environmental issue, it was bureaucratic infighting between state and federal agencies, where they couldn't agree on the correct paperwork SpaceX was supposed to file.
 

Peldor

Ars Legatus Legionis
10,804
With rockets, "blowing up" generally means an explosion with pieces being scattered over a wide area. I can't look at the video you linked, but if there was a fire after landing, then any explosion was very low-yield as the boosters land with just about no fuel or oxidier remaining.

As Skoop just said, this was probably not an explosion, but a deflagration. Yes, we're being pendants on a topic explicitly about rockets. Words are important.
If it only generally means that, then it sometimes means something else leaving pedants, like the SpaceX rocket, insufficient legs to stand on.
 
It was never actually an environmental issue, it was bureaucratic infighting between state and federal agencies, where they couldn't agree on the correct paperwork SpaceX was supposed to file.
Well, that and someone misplaced a decimal point in the lab results on a TCEQ report, making things look FAR worse than reality. Reality being "this water meets drinking water standards for the metals we tested"
 

BigLan

Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
7,363
Oops maybe skipping the FAA incident investigation was a mistake
You don't buy an election just to have to keep doing FAA investigations every time you drop some debris over the Gulf named after your own (adopted) country!

Seriously though, are chopstick catches now as boring/normal as regular booster landings?
 

BigP

Ars Praetorian
408
Subscriptor++
You don't buy an election just to have to keep doing FAA investigations every time you drop some debris over the Gulf named after your own (adopted) country!

Seriously though, are chopstick catches now as boring/normal as regular booster landings?
After three good ones? And this one with 2 engines not lit for the boost back burn after stage separation? I'm not bored yet but it sure looks like they got that part figured out!

To be honest though, I've always thought that booster recovery would be the "easy" part of all this given the Falcon 9 experience they've developed. The plan to catch it was shockingly ambitious when they first announced it and I thought that getting the performance out of the tower was going to be the hard part. I think I've pretty much always had faith that they could put a booster where they wanted when they wanted.

This whole second stage thing though. . . Getting to orbit should be a total non-issue at this point. This is twice in a row with a catastrophic failure inside the last minute of the burn. While we don't yet know what the cause was this time, if it's the same as last time then this may be the first time I'm aware of that a "fix" wasn't sufficient. They usually only have each failure mode once.

And now there's the "President Elon" dimension: how are his proclivities and newly-distended influence going to affect the response from both SpaceX and regulators?
 

Ecmaster76

Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
16,011
Subscriptor
While we don't yet know what the cause was this time, if it's the same as last time then this may be the first time I'm aware of that a "fix" wasn't sufficient. They usually only have each failure mode once.
I'm not sure how much of the planned fixes were applied to this starship. It was already almost complete during the previous launch after all. Also it did make it further through the flight so thats something I guess.

Raptor v3 is needed to stop a lot of the leakage too which they've known for a while.
 

1Zach1

Ars Praefectus
3,396
Subscriptor
No surprise of course, but the FAA has confirmed a mishap investigation will be required.

FAA Statement on SpaceX Starship Flight 8 Mishap

This information is preliminary and subject to change.

The FAA is requiring SpaceX to perform a mishap investigation into the loss of the Starship vehicle during launch operations on March 6.

during the event, the FAA activated a Debris Response Area and briefly slowed aircraft outside the area where space vehicle debris was falling or stopped aircraft at their departure location. Normal operations have resumed.

 

1Zach1

Ars Praefectus
3,396
Subscriptor
SpaceX has updated their Flight 8 page with some information from today. Initial indications from the Ship anomaly below.

Starship continued its ascent to its planned trajectory. Prior to the end of the ascent burn, an energetic event in the aft portion of Starship resulted in the loss of several Raptor engines. This in turn led to a loss of attitude control and ultimately a loss of communications with Starship. Final contact with Starship came approximately 9 minutes and 30 seconds after liftoff.

https://www.spacex.com/launches/mission/?missionId=starship-flight-8
 

Xavin

Ars Legatus Legionis
30,547
Subscriptor++
I do agree with Musk's sentiment here he's often quoted: success is never guaranteed, but entertainment is. They do burn pretty.

I wonder at this point though if there's much value in throwing up more ships until Raptor V3 is ready to integrate.
It really depends on the failure mode and if it's something likely to stick around in a v3 ship. They also need to keep testing the satellite deployment and reentry. If the plumbing is different enough for the v3 engines then maybe wait, but otherwise it's probably better to work through this now than when with will be throwing away v3 engines that might be reusable for a while.
 

QtDevSvr

Ars Legatus Legionis
12,008
Subscriptor++
Yeah a Scott Manley vid today pointed toward the plumbing. As a commenter(pikaachoo3888) summed it up:
The methane downcomers when fully submerged in LOX is dampening the vibrations and preventing serious damage, however, once the LOX level becomes low enough as the flight goes on, the methane downcomers start to vibrate since not enough LOX is surrounding them to absorb the destructive vibrations. This causes the methane downcomer to rupture, starting a leak and pumping the attic full of flammable gas. Not only that, the Raptor engines NEED methane for regenerative cooling of the engine bells, if not enough methane is feeding the engine, it loses thrust AND the engine bell starts to overheat, causing burnthrough that we seen in the RVac in the video, the lack of thrust also causes Starship to pitch into the side of the failing RVac engine (we see a small pitchover prior to failure). Now the attic and its vents/nitrogen purge is overwhelmed by a massive methane leak that then ignites, knocking out all 3 SL Raptors + the already failing RVac.
and
Yes, S34 conducted a 1min static fire with FULL Lox tanks, which explains why their fix didnt work. Because the data they gathered was incorrect and was based on dampened vibrations. The static fire only simulated the conditions on the early parts of the ascent phase when the LOX tanks where nearly full.
 
I've been mulling over this article on the recent bout of SpaceX failures, particularly the Falcon 9 stage 2 and booster recovery issues. Had some thoughts that might get more discussion here than in the far dregs of the main article comments which are (understandably) focused on Musk's politics.

QC is a Hard Problem, especially for the most sophisticated, high performing, and low-margin pieces of engineering known to humanity. I wonder if SpaceX is having issue transitioning from development of shiny new technology to operations of a staid, boring old thing. Part of that has to be related to the working culture of SpaceX - young engineers might be willing to work ridiculous hours for exciting new projects, but it's a little less compelling to do so for manufacturing Upper Stage #485 or Booster Recovery Operation #276. Similarly, spotting and troubleshooting issues might have been more successful when the engineers and technicians that were around for early development contributed to the day-to-day operations.

But SpaceX has infamously high turnover - maybe we're now seeing the effect of attrition of institutional knowledge, as the "old timers" with 5-10 years of experience are checking out and moving on to other roles? That might be internally - some amount of "superstar" engineers moved from Falcon to Starship I'm guessing. And externally there are plenty of SpaceX's former top employees working at the new round of exciting startups, more traditional aerospace companies, or elsewhere in tech.

Maybe a company that will remain reliable at launch #500 or #1000 needs to transition to a bit more of an old-space culture. That may come with necessary increases in cost to retain more QC engineers and technicians with higher salaries and less hours. Probably harder will be establishing a consistent culture, like I'm sure SpaceX has Quality Management Systems and Document Control, but how much are they reliant on unwritten institutional knowledge? Can they effectively train new employees and transfer enough knowledge to keep the boring parts of the company going?

And yes politics matters. SpaceX's recruiting efforts might not get the best and the brightest now that Musk's latent fascism has come to the forefront. Whatever engineering culture that worked before when they could reliably get their pick of top engineering graduates will not work when they're mostly attracting DOGE wannabe baby edgelords, or engineers that are just going to punch a clock for a few years until they get a job at a company that actually want to work for.
 

Ecmaster76

Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
16,011
Subscriptor
I've been mulling over this article on the recent bout of SpaceX failures, particularly the Falcon 9 stage 2 and booster recovery issues. Had some thoughts that might get more discussion here than in the far dregs of the main article comments which are (understandably) focused on Musk's politics.

QC is a Hard Problem, especially for the most sophisticated, high performing, and low-margin pieces of engineering known to humanity. I wonder if SpaceX is having issue transitioning from development of shiny new technology to operations of a staid, boring old thing. Part of that has to be related to the working culture of SpaceX - young engineers might be willing to work ridiculous hours for exciting new projects, but it's a little less compelling to do so for manufacturing Upper Stage #485 or Booster Recovery Operation #276. Similarly, spotting and troubleshooting issues might have been more successful when the engineers and technicians that were around for early development contributed to the day-to-day operations.

But SpaceX has infamously high turnover - maybe we're now seeing the effect of attrition of institutional knowledge, as the "old timers" with 5-10 years of experience are checking out and moving on to other roles? That might be internally - some amount of "superstar" engineers moved from Falcon to Starship I'm guessing. And externally there are plenty of SpaceX's former top employees working at the new round of exciting startups, more traditional aerospace companies, or elsewhere in tech.

Maybe a company that will remain reliable at launch #500 or #1000 needs to transition to a bit more of an old-space culture. That may come with necessary increases in cost to retain more QC engineers and technicians with higher salaries and less hours. Probably harder will be establishing a consistent culture, like I'm sure SpaceX has Quality Management Systems and Document Control, but how much are they reliant on unwritten institutional knowledge? Can they effectively train new employees and transfer enough knowledge to keep the boring parts of the company going?

And yes politics matters. SpaceX's recruiting efforts might not get the best and the brightest now that Musk's latent fascism has come to the forefront. Whatever engineering culture that worked before when they could reliably get their pick of top engineering graduates will not work when they're mostly attracting DOGE wannabe baby edgelords, or engineers that are just going to punch a clock for a few years until they get a job at a company that actually want to work for.
Those are all good possibilities

It's also possible that in an effort to increase cadence they are intentionally (or perhaps the degree is unintentionally more than expected) streamlining certain aspects of the builds and refurbishment processes

At least one failure was from a customer required sensor they added to stage2. Almost certainly a gov contract since a) they were pretty tight lipped about the why and b) because commercial companies would probably be told NO
 
But SpaceX has infamously high turnover - maybe we're now seeing the effect of attrition of institutional knowledge, as the "old timers" with 5-10 years of experience are checking out and moving on to other roles? That might be internally - some amount of "superstar" engineers moved from Falcon to Starship I'm guessing. And externally there are plenty of SpaceX's former top employees working at the new round of exciting startups, more traditional aerospace companies, or elsewhere in tech.
I would expect the vast majority of motivated, experienced SpaceX engineers (not just the "superstars") have either moved to Starship development or moved on to another company. There is very little engineering development on Falcon and realistically there hasn't been much since Block 5 was proven out in 2018.
 

Jonathon

Ars Legatus Legionis
16,960
Subscriptor
Their stated end goal is to make Starship launches cheap and frequent enough that Falcon 9's not needed any more-- from that point of view, any additional money spent on Falcon 9 development is completely wasted.

This might be premature, given that they can't seem to actually get Starship into orbit and they're only 50/50 on it not exploding. A complete, human-rated Starship is almost certainly still several years out, so, even if they got Starship working and transporting cargo tomorrow, they'll need Falcon 9 and Dragon launching reliably for a long while for anything that carries people. (Might explain Musk's desire to kill off the ISS, as that would get them out of probably all of their obligations for crewed flights for the foreseeable future.)
 
Their stated end goal is to make Starship launches cheap and frequent enough that Falcon 9's not needed any more-- from that point of view, any additional money spent on Falcon 9 development is completely wasted.
Realistically even if starship development proceeds on time with no further setbacks, the Falcon 9 will still have more new launches left in its life than any non-SpaceX rocket system has ever flown. Any improvements in reliability, payload capacity or cost-effectiveness still have hundreds of launches left to pay off. I would not be surprised if the Falcon 9 still has more launches ahead of it than behind it.