News Changes to the SpaceX BFR rocket.

[statisticsnerd]

Well, when the 'upgrades' could have been as simple as reverting to previous designs that lacked the random RUD feature, I wouldn't really call it an 'improvement'.

Didn't IFT-5 work more or less as intended? The booster was caught by the tower and the 2nd stage landed in the Indian Ocean. I'm just an armchair expert, but it seems like they could go back to that design and make changes from there.

 

[Urwumpe]

Didn't IFT-5 work more or less as intended? The booster was caught by the tower and the 2nd stage landed in the Indian Ocean. I'm just an armchair expert, but it seems like they could go back to that design and make changes from there.

It could also just have been a lucky Starship.

 

[jedidia]

Well, when the 'upgrades' could have been as simple as reverting to previous designs that lacked the random RUD feature, I wouldn't really call it an 'improvement'.

That reminds of how, if a dependency somewhere in an application produces a weird, esoteric and unexpected problem, I rdiculously keep hoping that I find some method called "disableThisWeirdBug()" in the documentation...

 

[diogom]

Three ships in a row made it to the Indian Ocean, two on target and whole. The engines are the same and continue to have issues, but the redesign is suspect here. We're even seeing things we hadn't before, like the glowing regen manifolds on the RVacs.

But they can't simply just go back, the ships are structurally quite different. It means scrapping every already built ship, it's not a fix that can be made post-build, and would mean waiting around for months for V3. Wisdom can be argued, but we know that's not how they work, so if there is indeed an underlying design flaw with V2 causing these failure modes, my bet is they mitigate it as much as possible to get it through reentry for the heatshield data and payload demo and leave the proper fix for V3 later in the year. Only when that's nearing flight (and Pad B's readiness also plays into it) do I expect them to skip hardware again.

At least I hope they started giving the V3 design another look as soon as S33 blew up.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Looks like there was a booster engine failure on relight and the booster exploded.

 

[statisticsnerd]

It is kind of embarrassing that the payload bay door didn't open. Shouldn't that be pretty simple?

At least the video feed of the payload bay didn't show dead birds floating around.

 

[Urwumpe]

It is kind of embarrassing that the payload bay door didn't open. Shouldn't that be pretty simple?

As usual, in space, simple things get extremely hard. Uneven thermal expansion is big problem for all spacecraft, even the Space Shuttle had to invest some insane amount of engineering on such a simple task.

And even if they manage to open the bay doors, that doesn't mean that they can close them again...

 

[Thunder Chicken]

It is kind of embarrassing that the payload bay door didn't open. Shouldn't that be pretty simple?

Stuff that is simple on Earth at 1g can be pretty complicated when in space in a tumbling metal can installed between two cyrogenic tanks.

At least the video feed of the payload bay didn't show dead birds floating around.

That's specific. Did this ever happen?

 

[statisticsnerd]

That's specific. Did this ever happen?

Haha, I don't believe so. I was making a joke about a potential scenario I thought of where some birds would make a nest in the payload bay while Starship is on the ground, the workers don't notice and close the payload bay door, Starship launches, the payload bay video feed is turned on for the world to see, and there are dead birds floating around. It was just a silly thought that I had.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Haha, I don't believe so. I was making a joke about a potential scenario I thought of where some birds would make a nest in the payload bay while Starship is on the ground, the workers don't notice and close the payload bay door, Starship launches, the payload bay video feed is turned on for the world to see, and there are dead birds floating around. It was just a silly thought that I had.

 

[jedidia]

Chicken... good!

 

[Frilock]

https://www.accuweather.com/en/space-news/spacex-rocket-debris-litters-mexico-beach-threatens-environment/1782495

 

[GLS]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1933164556953526482

https://twitter.com/x/status/1933185100860076500

 

[GLS]

Video

https://twitter.com/x/status/1933166636007051600

 

[Frilock]

Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starship Explodes in Dramatic Fireball

The failure marks another setback for Elon Musk.

www.thedailybeast.com

 

[Frilock]

Watch: Moment SpaceX rocket explodes into massive fireball

A live stream has captured the moment a SpaceX Starship rocket exploded when preparing for a flight test in Texas on Wednesday.

www.bbc.com

 

[GLS]

(warning: contains engineering language)

Judging by the metal melting, that was heat similar to a hydrogen fire, and lots of propellant didn't burn, it was spreading at the base of the fireworks.

 

[Urwumpe]

This sure did wake a few people up.

 

[GLS]

 

[jedidia]

I guess they're taking side-jobs from Micheal Bay now... ?