Maybe, but they are learning about all aspects of the craft, including the problems that may be associated with this new fuel. There is little practical flight experience around the world, as methane has only been flying for about three years and on a limited number of flights (<12?). Using methane increases the flight experience with the fuel and the Raptor engines, allowing them to get flight experience with the Raptor 3 sooner and with its predecessor, the Raptor 2. Will this experience lead to a Raptor 4?

On the other hand, three years ago SpaceX had been planning to test launch Starship and Super Heavy with kerosene-fueled Merlin engines, just to test out the structure and the flight concepts, but getting the flight license took too long and they opted to go straight for the methane and the Raptors.

I know Starship is to be Methalox, same as SuperHeavy…. which as fared better than Starship itself.

There is a part of me that wonders whether or not the recent Starship test would have been more successful if it had kerolox Falcon engines that are more of a known quantity.

Payload mass might takes hit –but volume might increase using kerosene as fuel…perhaps kerosene leaks aren’t as critical as methane leaks.

Once the TPS and the airframe has been perfected–then move to all Methalox.

A solution to NewSpace HLLV woes:
https://x.com/SpaceOffshore/status/1880032569988968814

Spit balling here from what I have read but for Flight 7, the asymmetric thrust by progressive engine shutdowns caused SS to start the spinning in space on a ballistic trajectory. The ship stayed together since there were no aerodynamic forces that are present lower in the atmosphere to tear it apart like would happen for a typical stage 1 with similar out of control death spirals as we have seen lots of time before for other doomed rockets that have died before the FTS was triggered by the range officer.

So it seems that SS was in its nominal flight corridor but the AFTS determined after a few minutes it was too low and slow to make Australia ballistically, and per FAA “current” termination protocols, terminated the flight somewhere over 100 kilometers in altitude and created a very larger debris plume that expanded as it descended with some pieces allegedly landing beyond the TFR exclusion zone. IF/when they reprogram the AFTS, to trigger at lower altitudes, the termination event would have occurred much further east and at lower altitude, with a much smaller debris plume in the ocean while still being well short of Africa. Stay tuned for more findings.

https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/statements/general-statements

Both descriptions on the same page!

I grabbed the wrong link. Lets try this one on for size:

https://x.com/BCCarCounters/status/1880082773689414123

Ray Van Dune “BONG”:
Scott Manley was really going nuts with that this last week. Super entertaining :D

To all: Trent emailed me to apologize for his error, and he added this correct link to the FAA’s investigation notice to Blue Origin. As with SpaceX, the agency is “requiring Blue Origin to perform a mishap investigation.” The FAA then tops this by telling everyone to contact Blue Origin for more information.

If that doesn’t tell us that the FAA is ending its fake game of pretending to do these investigations I don’t know what does.

Trent: That is a very old tweet, referring to the New Shepard incident from I think 2022. It doesn’t relate to this week’s New Glenn launch.

At the same time, I expect the FAA to take the same approach with Blue Origin as it does with SpaceX,and that approach will more closely match its policies prior to the Biden presidency, where it recognized it has no qualifications to do any investigations, and will simply require the companies to do it (as if they wouldn’t!) and then accept the results quickly.

With SpaceX this policy will make an appreciable difference, as the company moves very fast between test launches. With Blue Origin it won’t matter much, because Blue Origin tends to work slowly no matter what.

Already in progress.

https://x.com/wapodavenport/status/1569359448690278400?s=19