Musk press conference on Starship/Superheavy launch
Yesterday Elon Musk held an hour-long audio press conference with a number of space reporters, broadcast over youtube. I have embedded that conference below, for those of my readers who wish to hear what Musk had to say, in his own words.
The key take-aways from Musk:
- The launch was about what he expected
- They will be ready to launch again in about two months
- The debris “was really just basically sand and rock so it’s not toxic at all … it’s just like a sandstorm, essentially”
- The biggest issue is making sure the flight termination system functions better.
- The next flight will be a repeat, with the main goal getting to stage separation
- He gives them an 80% chance of making orbit this year
When asked about obtaining the permit for that next flight, Musk side-stepped the question. It remains to my mind the largest obstacle for meeting his schedule.
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In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
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Yesterday Elon Musk held an hour-long audio press conference with a number of space reporters, broadcast over youtube. I have embedded that conference below, for those of my readers who wish to hear what Musk had to say, in his own words.
The key take-aways from Musk:
- The launch was about what he expected
- They will be ready to launch again in about two months
- The debris “was really just basically sand and rock so it’s not toxic at all … it’s just like a sandstorm, essentially”
- The biggest issue is making sure the flight termination system functions better.
- The next flight will be a repeat, with the main goal getting to stage separation
- He gives them an 80% chance of making orbit this year
When asked about obtaining the permit for that next flight, Musk side-stepped the question. It remains to my mind the largest obstacle for meeting his schedule.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Thanks for the feed…..
Robert,
Thank you for the link. It was informative.
My other takeaways:
— There was not much damage to the launch mount, and the tower is also in good shape. This means that it can be reused in a reasonable amount of time, and that they are doing well in figuring out how to protect the mount. They will be replacing some of the vertical propellant tanks in the tank farm with horizontal ones, but they had desired to go horizontal anyway.
— They were being cautious with the engine startup, so they were on the pad for a couple of seconds longer than they expect operational flights to take. Obviously, this added to the damage to the pad under the launch mount.
— The pressurization of the propellant tanks, using their own propellants ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogenous_pressurization ) rather than helium, worked very well. My takeaway is that they don’t have to take helium to Mars or the Moon, which is an important factor. This also means that they can save money on not buying increasingly expensive helium for each launch from Earth.
— The reasons for engines shutting down was explained, except for the three initial engines, which were shut down because they were not healthy enough for the engine control unit to bring them to full thrust. He did not specify whether they thought this was due to debris damage, but they were shut down rather early, so I am beginning to think that debris may not have damaged the engines. I await further explanation.
— As things began to deteriorate, starting about T+27 seconds, the engine controller continued to keep control, despite engine heat shields being knocked out on four engines — some kind of explosion, he said — and the loss of a fourth engine and visible fires.
— As things continued to deteriorate through T+62 seconds, more aft heat shield damage, and at T+85 seconds, thrust vector control (TVC) is lost. The loss of the hydraulics is why TVC was lost, and without the hydraulics there could be no separation of Starship. Stage separation uses the hydraulics to operate. My takeaway is that the control software was robust and did a yeoman’s job of keeping it going through increasingly difficult conditions.
— Super Heavy is designed with good engine isolation, meaning a failure of one engine does not adversely affect other engines, making for a reliable design. My takeaway is that the engine controller is able to successfully account for an engine failure and compensate with controls to the remaining engines.
— Booster 9 and beyond are designed better than booster 7, so future launches should be more robust than booster 7. Many of us already know that SpaceX is using electrical TVC in the future, switching from booster 7’s hydraulic TVC. I suppose that stage separation will also be electric rather than hydraulic.
— Apparently there was no throttle up after passing through max Q. It was not clear to me why this occurred — or rather didn’t occur. Was the controller unable to perform this function, and if so, why?
— The speculation about what happened to the concrete of the launch pad was fascinating. However, they are not sure exactly how the concrete failed. They believe that the steel plate idea should be superior to the bare concrete design. The steel will extend beyond the mount to avoid damage elsewhere in future launches.
— Because SpaceX is good at production (e.g. a Falcon upper stage built every three or four days and daily Raptor engine production), Starship and Super Heavy test units are able to be built quickly enough to keep a high cadence on test flights. I advocate for rapid development techniques, and high production rates help with the ability to perform rapid development.
— Starship is now costing a couple of billion dollars per year, but Musk does not think they will need to raise funding for Starship. This suggests to me that each Falcon 9 launch makes a profit that approaches $25 million or $30 million.
— If Starship is not successfully orbited by the end of the year (8 months), Musk is completely confident that it will orbit within twelve months.
Having an outsider might be of use.
Tim Marshall is both a storm chaser and an engineer who studies the effects of tornadoes upon buildings. Haig Engineering is in Texas…and they and Texas Tech might give a fresh perspective on the “rock tornado.”
I do not have a high opinion of storm chasers. Particm chase, their truck blasted through a stop sign at 70 mph, colliding with fellow storm chaser Corbin Jaeger. All involved were killed” and. ” On March 28, 2017, a vehicle with two storm chasers from The Weather Channel, Kelley Williamson and Randall Yarnall, drove past a stop sign at an estimated speed of 70 mph and crashed into a car driven by Corbin Jaeger, of Phoenix, a 25-year-old storm spotter for the National Weather Service. All three men died instantly. While we can laugh it off as time for a collective Darwin Award, it’s no joke when the inevitable innocents die.
Bob this was actually held on Twitter spaces and is exclusive content for Elon’s Twitter subscribers. If you subscribe you will be able to join in. He’s holding another Starship update for his Twitter subscribers in about 3 weeks.
The FTS issue is important, of course, but the elephant in the room seems to me to be the engine malfunction/failure rate.
Elon states that the booster’s “lean away” maneuver on liftoff was caused by the asymmetric thrust from the three non-functioning engines. I am not only puzzled by why engine gimbaling did not correct this, but even more by why you would WANT to correct it!
I observed the same maneuver used by the Saturn 5, only there it was stated to be intended to avoid tower damage. So why not use such a maneuver by Starship, which moves the engines away from the tower, and does so without moving them directly over the rim of the launch table until they are higher up and further away from it?
Is it possible that this accidental maneuver saved tower damage, and “correcting” it will create more of it?!