Posted on 01/17/2025 5:37:33 AM PST by Libloather
Elon Musk’s SpaceX lost its 400-foot-tall Starship in space where it was destroyed after launching the rocket from Texas Thursday in its seventh test flight.
The engines of the new and improved spacecraft went out during its ascent and the SpaceX team lost contact with the uncrewed craft, the company said.
The launch however was not without some success. Before the ship loss, the company successfully demonstrated how its massive mechanical arms dubbed “chopsticks” caught the rocket booster at the launch pad for the second time ever.
The “chopsticks” first and only other successful catch-and-return maneuver was demonstrated during an Oct. 13 launch.
Before it imploded, the Starship was supposed to zoom across the Gulf of Mexico and release 10 dummy satellites as practice before it would self-destruct in the Indian Ocean.
Instead, SpaceX crews lost contact with the spacecraft only about 8-and-a-half minutes into its mission.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
"Preliminary indication is that we had an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall that was large enough to build pressure in excess of the vent capacity."
Win some and lose some.
The largest conventional firework ever detonated. Wow
Still, that second rocket parallel parking job was even neater than the first one. And it sounds as if they’re already onto the cause of the second stage loss.
In other words, it blew up.
I think this is the type of loss that will be a big win in the end, they still recovered the booster and a lot will be learned from the failure with no lives lost.
A smart man would see this as in investment and not a loss, Musk is a smart man.
I agree. His strategy of being willing to destroy rockets to improve was the right one.
A clarification. The fully stacked ship, including the booster, is 400 ft. The starship itself, essentially the 2nd stage, which exploded, is approximately 170 ft in height.
It was the maiden flight of block 2, so there are going to be growing pains. I’m certain they got scads of data to pore over.
wishing -> wanting -> planning -> doing -> failure -> feedback -> goto wanting
No, the Challenger was the biggest. May those astronauts RIP.
Very pretty.
Using his own words he can "go f his own face".
I don’t like this chopsticks method. I certainly wouldn’t want to bet my life on it if I were landing in a starship.
Exactly right. It’s the cost of doing business in space.
I still remember the failures of the US Space program in the early 1960s.
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