NASA chief hails SpaceX's 1st Starship launch despite explosion

Space..com ^ | Brett Tingley

[aquila48]

NASA leadership had a lot to say after today's explosive first test flight of SpaceX's Starship.

NASA has tapped Starship for its upcoming Artemis 3 mission, which will put astronauts back on the moon no earlier than 2025. Following that, Starship will also ferry human crews to the lunar surface and back for Artemis 4 and perhaps also Artemis 5, according to NASA's current plans.

With so much banking on the successful development of the massive stainless steel vehicle, NASA leaders took the opportunity to hail today's flight test as an important step forward in the agency's moon plans.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson praised the launch, congratulating SpaceX and writing on Twitter(opens in new tab) that "Every great achievement throughout history has demanded some level of calculated risk, because with great risk comes great reward. Looking forward to all that SpaceX learns, to the next flight test — and beyond."

[markman46]

that mini van belongs to nasaspaceflight.com and is a camera van!! no more back window

[citizen]

NASA could not take chances like a private company can. Congress will pull funding (or threaten to)...

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Is not the federal budget (taxpayers) in for $2.9 billion in the Starship program?

SpaceX Wins NASA $2.9 Billion Contract to Build Moon Lander
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/16/science/spacex-moon-nasa.html

[citizen]

So...all that debris stayed on the launch site property?

[StAnDeliver]

"When one of the engines blew it blew up the hydraulic pump which controlled the 2nd stage locks. It’s the orange flame that bursts out from an engine during ascent. No hydraulic pressure, no stage lock release."

Good post. Yep that was a hell of a tell ... at least it didn't freakout gimbal and smoke a bunch of nodes to the inside, but the fact that it sharted a pump upstream is no surprise.

[Ledgerfreedom]

Elon said next launch 1-2 months, I hope he can pump them out that fast otherwise Artemis is going to pay a heavy price for picking a single human landing system for the moon. That’s the big concern now, IMO.

[McGruff]

Elon Musk @elonmusk

3 months ago, we started building a massive water-cooled, steel plate to go under the launch mount.

Wasn’t ready in time & we wrongly thought, based on static fire data, that Fondag would make it through 1 launch.

Looks like we can be ready to launch again in 1 to 2 months.

5:22 PM · Apr 21, 2023

[markman46]

just an update to the Van, spacex allowed nasaspaceflight to place the van with camera and transmitter on roof in that location. not sure if it runs and drives

[markman46]

some ended up on the beach which is owned by spacex

[tomkat]

That contract was going to some outfit or other, and SpaceX was apparently the most competitive and/or technically capable bidder.

No different than NASA inviting bids for the sandwich supplier in the canteen.

[AFreeBird]

They’re revisiting the issue of flame trenches and enhanced water suppression as we speak. I hear it left a nice crater behind.

All that thrust, umm… ya think.

[PreciousLiberty]

“I heard a commentator on the video talking about it flying back. Other than that, I have no idea if they were flying it back or not. IS his first stage disposable? If not they intended on recovering it somehow, which they cannot do.”

The first stages will be recovered later in the test program. For this flight, nothing was intended for recovery, it was strictly a first test with no reuse.

Falcon went through a similar development process, and recently achieved being the most reliable launch system in history.

“Again, failure to separate is still a failure.”

Again, for this flight, anything beyond the initial liftoff was a stretch goal. This was well documented before the flight.

That concept is not “rocket science”. I hope this cleared things up. ;-)

[Justa]

Yes. I suspect having dozens of intakes pulling in fuel next to each other will result in significant currents in the fuel and resulting variances of pressure going into the downstream lines. Might be solved by having baffles up around the intakes inside the fuel tank. Just takes one fuel cavitation going into the pump to totally rock the engine. Huge back pressure then bang goes the fuel line.

The Soviets actually went with the foreign object excuse with the first N1 saying a worker left a rag inside the tank. By the fourth N1 explosion they dropped that and gave up.

I’m just Friday night BS-ing as I’m sure SpaceX addressed these concerns long ago.