Elon Musk’s SpaceX loses rocket and spacecraft in second test flight | CNN
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SpaceX reached several milestones in its Starship rocket system’s second integrated test flight before losing the booster and spacecraft over the Gulf of Mexico.

SpaceX’s Starship rocket system reached several milestones in its second test flight before the rocket booster and spacecraft exploded over the Gulf of Mexico.

  • iterable@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    I wonder what the simulation showed was going to happen compared to the actual flight. Would give you a real metric of progress.

    • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      If the simulation showed a problem, they could have fixed it before launch. I’m guessing they don’t have a enough data to make a super high fidelity integrated model for all phases of fight, so they’d break down the sections individually. But integration always brings extra challenges.

      • iterable@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        So they don’t have a physicist on staff? Or several? We have known the math for rocket science for some time. What data is it they need? When even NASA in the sixties has simulators.

        • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          I’m sure they have tons. But we don’t know the full thermo areo dynamics at hypersonic speeds and complex geometries, especially their effect on unconventional control surfaces across huge temperature and speed ranges. Some military companies have even bought flights on electron to get high altitude hypersonic velocity data on how the air behaves in that regime.

  • Vakbrain@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
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    1 year ago

    There’s no shame in highlighting what went right and still acknowledging what went terribly wrong.

    Censoring the latter prevents improvements. No need for fanboyism.

    • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The launch achieved most of its objectives, but it was supposed to fly farther and splash down near Hawaii. It was a success in that the 32 engines fired together, and the ship achieved separation, and there will be plenty of data about what went wrong. Both the superheavy and the starship were lost.

      But some things did go wrong, so you can’t say it was an “absolute” success. Rocket science is slow and expensive progress. It’s only a failure if we abandon the project. But it is disingenuous to say that everything worked out as intended.

  • Buffaloaf@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    I really wish they’d stop putting Musk’s name on things like this. He didn’t design the engines, he didn’t plan the flight path, he did nothing but throw a bunch of money at a company because he’s obsessed with Mars.

    • Marbles@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      This just false. Sure, he did not do everything alone but he has a huge hand in engineering concepts and design decisions. Lots of hate and complete misunderstanding how spaceship, spaceX and Musk work in this thread.

  • murmur@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    He certainly didn’t have to be all anti-Semitic to deflect attention from this failure. It’s telling.

  • brothershamus@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    Look, I really want to like SpaceX and enjoy all their successes and so on.

    But it’s just not. going. to. happen. And they know why. This isn’t complicated.

  • pan_troglodytes@programming.devEnglish
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    1 year ago

    eh… it looks like hot-staging still has some bugs to work out, but the 2nd stage worked just fine (and since that’s the part that matters, the end fate of the first stage is irrelevant)

    good test all in all

    • neveraskedforthis@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      What bugs? At this point we don’t have an explanation for the first-stage RUD, looking at the overlay it seems there were issues re-lighting the Raptors which could be for any reason.

      From what I saw, the hot-staging went perfectly with the RUD happening when the ship was already in space.

    • neveraskedforthis@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      You do realize that SpaceX is (currently) the only manufacturer that’s trying not to dump their rockets into the ocean (or wilderness/villages in the case of Russia and China respectively), right?

      • kool_newt@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        I was not aware, tho it’s a bit like hanging on to your cigarette butt while coal rolling as you drive from a private jet.