| ▲ | terramex a day ago |
| Looks like second stage broke up over Caribbean, videos of the debris (as seen from ground): https://x.com/deankolson87/status/1880026759133032662?t=HdHF... https://x.com/realcamtem/status/1880026604472266800 https://x.com/adavenport354/status/1880026262254809115 Moment of the breakup: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE52_hVSeQz/ |
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| ▲ | dpifke a day ago | parent | next [-] |
| Preliminary indication is that we had an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall that was large enough to build pressure in excess of the vent capacity. Apart from obviously double-checking for leaks, we will add fire suppression to that volume and probably increase vent area. Nothing so far suggests pushing next launch past next month. https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1880060983734858130 |
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| ▲ | perihelions 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Reminds me of one of NASA's reckless ideas, abandoned after Challenger in 1986, to put a liquid hydrogen stage inside the cargo bay of the Shuttle orbiter [0]. That would have likely leaked inside that confined volume, and could plausibly have exploded in a similar way as Starship. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle-Centaur - "The astronauts considered the Shuttle-Centaur missions to be riskiest Space Shuttle missions yet,[85] referring to Centaur as the "Death Star".[86]" | |
| ▲ | anentropic 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I wonder if it's related to the loose panel flapping about at the left of the screen here: https://youtu.be/qzWMEegqbLs?si=aUlI6zfkH3bZCmVm&t=111 | |
| ▲ | Alive-in-2025 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This sounds like one of those "and also" things. I'd say you add fire suppression AND ALSO try more to reduce leaks. It's got to be really difficult to build huge massive tanks that hold oxygen and other gases under pressure (liquid methane too will have some vapor of course). Are leaks inherently going to happen? This is meant to be a human rated ship of course, how will you reduce this danger? I know this stuff is hard, but you can't just iterate and say starship 57 has had 3 flights without leaks, we got it now. Since I have no expertise here, I can imagine all kinds of unlikely workarounds like holding the gas under lower pressure with humans on board or something to reduce the risk. | | |
| ▲ | wat10000 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This might be one of those components where it just needs to be built without problems, and improved safety means fixing individual design and manufacturing flaws as you find them, until you’ve hopefully got them all. This can work. Fundamental structural components of airliners just can’t fail without killing everyone, and high reliability is achieved with careful design, manufacturing, testing, and inspection. I’m not sure if a gigantic non-leaky tank is harder to pull off that way, but they might have to regardless. We’re going to have to accept that space travel is going to be inherently dangerous for the foreseeable future. Starship is in a good position to improve this, because it should fly frequently (more opportunities to discover and fix problems) and the non-manned variant is very similar to the manned variant (you can discover many problems without killing people). But there are inherent limitations. There’s just not as much capacity for redundancy. The engines have to be clustered so fratricide or common failure modes are going to me more likely. Losing all the engines is guaranteed death on Starship, versus a good chance to survive in an airliner. All other practical considerations aside, I think this alone sinks any possibility of using Starship for Earth-to-Earth travel as has been proposed by SpaceX. | | |
| ▲ | WalterBright 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | High reliability of airliners is achieved by having redundancy of all critical parts. The idea is no single failure can cause a crash. For example, if system A has a failure probability of 10%, if A is redundant with another A', the combined failure probability is 1%. That of course presumes that A and A' are not connected. | | |
| ▲ | wat10000 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yes for systems, not always for structure. A failed wing spar means everybody dies. For real-world examples, there were two 747 crashes caused by improper repairs to a rear pressure bulkhead or aircraft skin. When the repairs eventually failed, the explosive decompression caused catastrophic damage to the tail in one instance, and total structural failure resulting in a mid-air breakup in the other. The response to this was to make sure repairs are carried out correctly so the structure doesn’t fail, not to somehow make two redundant bulkheads or two skins. | | |
| ▲ | WalterBright an hour ago | parent [-] | | The wing spar is dual, too. The idea is to design the airplane to survive an explosive decompression failure, not pretend that explosive decompression doesn't happen. For example, on the DC-10, the floor collapsed from explosive decompression, jamming the control cables and causing a horrendous crash. The fix was not preventing explosive decompression. The fix (on the 757) was to locate the redundant set of control cables along the ceiling. Also, blowout panels were put in the floor so the floor wouldn't collapse. It's not always practical to fix an older design like the 747. When it isn't practical, a stepped-up inspection protocol is added. P.S. The 747 was designed to survive a decompression. The oversight was nobody realized that a failure of the rear bulkhead could destroy the tail section. Things like that happen in complex systems, and an airliner is incredibly complicated. P.P.S. When I was a newbie at Boeing, I asked about the wing spar, too. That's how I know it is dual! |
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| ▲ | WalterBright 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Lindbergh's Spirit of St Louis had the main fuel tank directly in front of him. This was in spite of his primal fear of being burned alive. In some airplanes you sit on the fuel tank. | |
| ▲ | mavhc 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Given that a) most human rated rockets have had 0 flights before use, and b) I'd expect each starship to have at least 10 flights, and at least 100 in total without mishap before launching, the statistics should be good | | |
| ▲ | wat10000 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don’t think (a) is true. The Shuttle flew with people on its maiden voyage, but that’s the only one I can think of. (b) is true and should make it substantially safer than other launch systems. But given how narrow the margins are for something going wrong (zero ability to land safely with all engines dead, for example) it’s still going to be pretty dangerous compared to more mundane forms of travel. | | |
| ▲ | laverya 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Most rockets flew test flights before sticking people inside the same model, but most rockets are also single use and so each stack is fundamentally new. A future starship could plausibly be the first rocket to fly to space unmanned, return, and then fly humans to space! |
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| ▲ | raverbashing a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I'm not sure there's fire suppression effective enough for this type of leak (especially given rocket constraints) | | |
| ▲ | psunavy03 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Aerospace fire suppression is generally Halon, which would purge the cavity with inert gas. | |
| ▲ | m4rtink 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Actually the Super Heavy (first stage) already uses heavy CO2 based fire suppression. Hopefully not that necessary in the long term, but should make it possible to get on with the testing in the short term. | | |
| ▲ | Alive-in-2025 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | What is a long term solution for this? Is there something more than "build tanks that don't leak"? I'm sure spaceX has top design and materials experts, now what ;-). | | |
| ▲ | m4rtink 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think its likely not the tanks but rather the plumbing to engines and the engines themselves leaking (sense lines, etc). Next engine revision (Raptor 3) should help, as it is much simplified and quite less likely to leak or get damaged during flight. |
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| ▲ | raverbashing 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | That's interesting However if you see the stream you can see one of the tanks rapidly emptied before loss of signal It seems this was not survivable regardless of fire or not |
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| ▲ | spandrew 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It might not even be about fire suppression. Oxygen and different gases can pool oddly in different types of gravity. If oxygen was leaking, it may be as simple as making sure a vacuum de-gases a chamber before going full throttle. We know nothing, but the test having good data on what went wrong is a great starting point. | |
| ▲ | echelon 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Replying to this comment so people can see the incredible video of the breakup taken from a diverting aircraft: https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1i34dki/starship_... | |
| ▲ | varjag 19 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If you can displace the oxidizer/air remaining in the volume why not. | | |
| ▲ | littlestymaar 15 hours ago | parent [-] | | The initial tweet says: > we had an oxygen/fuel leak If that's correct, then you can't just remove air. The only option would be to cool things down so it stops burning. | | |
| ▲ | shellfishgene 13 hours ago | parent [-] | | If it was really an oxygen/fuel mix burning I don't think you can do much of anything to stop that. | | |
| ▲ | littlestymaar 13 hours ago | parent [-] | | If you cooled the mixture at low enough temperature, you'd stop it from burning (like when you pour water on top of a camp fire), but it's not clear how you're supposed to do that in a spaceship where you can't carry a few tons of water for your sprinklers. | | |
| ▲ | ben_w 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > If you cooled the mixture at low enough temperature, you'd stop it from burning (like when you pour water on top of a camp fire), but it's not clear how you're supposed to do that in a spaceship where you can't carry a few tons of water for your sprinklers. Also water would make it hotter, given this is liquid oxygen. | | |
| ▲ | littlestymaar 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | It's not liquid at the point of ignition, that's the thing: if you mixed liquid oxygen and fuel nothing would happen expect the fuel would freeze. For a fire to take place the temperature must reach the fire point temperature, and if you manage to get your fire below this temperature then the fire stops. I don't know how low this temperature can be when the oxidizer is pure oxygen and maybe it's so low water wouldn't be enough, but then you can imagine using other fluids. The problem being the mass burden it adds to a spacecraft, I'm not it'd make any sense given that such q leak should happen in the first place. | | |
| ▲ | ben_w 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | I believe LOX is injected into the engine as a liquid, it gets atomised rather than boiled? And you can have fires where both fuel and oxidiser are solid: thermite reactions. "Fire point" seems to be more of a factor for conventional fire concerns, albeit I'm judging a phrase I've not heard before by a stub-sized Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_point |
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| ▲ | varjag 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | There are other methods too, e.g. fire inhibitors (like Halon or whatever is allowed now) or shockwave to disrupt fire boundary. But I doubt they are very practical on a spaceship. | | |
| ▲ | m4rtink 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | First stage (Super Heavy) is flushing the engine bay with massive ammounts of CO2. | | |
| ▲ | littlestymaar 6 hours ago | parent [-] | | Unless I'm misunderstanding you, it's not the same thing at all: in the case you're talking about you're shielding against nominal heat, which is not the same thing as contingency planning to extinguish a fire that shouldn't be there in the first place. |
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| ▲ | littlestymaar 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Not an expert but I'm not too sure about shockwave in a confined space. How does Halon works? |
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| ▲ | metalman 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | just increased venting to keep any vapor concentrations of fuel and oxidiser below that capable of igniting, even simple baffling could suffice as the leaks may be trasitory and flowing out of blowoff valves, so possibly a known risk.
Space x is also forgoeing much of the full system vibriatory tests, done on traditiinal 1 shot launches, and failure in presurised systems due to
unknown resonance is common.
Big question is did it just blow up, or did the automated abort, take it out, likely the latter or there would be a hold on the next launch. | | |
| ▲ | vessenes 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | There’s no way that was anything but the automated abort — it was a comprehensive instantaneous rapid event. Or I guess I’d say, however it started, the automated abort kicked in and worked. |
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| ▲ | api 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Would be unpleasant if there was crew. Of course this thing is pretty far from human eating. | | |
| ▲ | onion2k 15 hours ago | parent [-] | | Would be unpleasant if there was crew. 19 people have died in the 391 crewed space missions humans have done so far. The risk of dying is very high. Starship is unlikely to change that, although the commoditization of space flight could have reduce the risk simply by making problems easier to spot because there's more flights. | | |
| ▲ | gr3ml1n 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The higher frequency of launches seems likely to have a big impact on reliability. It's no different than deploying once per day vs once per month. The more you do it, the more edge cases you hit and the more reliable you can make it. SpaceX also has a simplification streak: the Raptor engines being the canonical example. Lower complexity generally means less unexpected failure modes. | | |
| ▲ | londons_explore 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > SpaceX also has a simplification streak: the Raptor engines being the canonical example. Not necessarily. Your engine which used to have 200 sensors perhaps now only has 8. But you now don't know when temperatures were close to melting point in a specific part of the engine. When something goes wrong, you are less likely to identify the precise cause because you have less data. Many of those sensors are not to enable the rocket to fly at all, but merely for later data analysis to know if anything was close to failure. In yesterdays launch, if the engines had more sensors musk probably wouldn't have said "an oxygen/fuel leak", but would have been able to say "Engine #7 had an oxygen leak at the inlet pipe, as shown by the loud whistling noise detected by engine #7's microphone array" | |
| ▲ | api 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | My #1 rule for all engineering: simplicity is harder than complexity. I truly wish more software engineers thought this way. I see a lot of mentality in software where people are even impressed by complexity, like "wow what a complex system!" like it's a good thing. It's not. It's a sign that no effort has been put into understanding the problem domain conceptually, or that no discipline has been followed around reducing the number of systems or restraint over adding new ones. I've seen incredibly good software engineers join teams and have net negative lines of code contributed for some time. If we ever encountered, say, an alien race millions of years ahead of us on this kind of technology curve, I think one of the things that would strike us would be the simplicity of their technology. It would be like everything is a direct response and fit to the laws of physics with nothing extraneous. Their software -- assuming they still use computers as we understand them -- would be functional bliss that directly represented the problem domain, with every state a pure function of previous state. We might get to this kind of software eventually. This is still a young field. Simplicity, being harder than complexity, often takes time and iteration to achieve. Often there's a complexity bloat followed by a shake out, then repeat, over many cycles. | | |
| ▲ | psunavy03 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | "Perfection is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry | |
| ▲ | WalterBright 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I've written something good when others look at it and say: "pshaw, anyone could have written that!" | |
| ▲ | exe34 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Their software -- assuming they still use computers as we understand them -- would be functional bliss that directly represented the problem domain, with every state a pure function of previous state. I love that this is also a model of reality. Everything is made of differential equations. |
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| ▲ | BurningFrog 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Modern space ships are very likely to change that, as designs mature and improve. Early aviation was extremely dangerous. Now a plane is among the safest places to be. | |
| ▲ | api 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I could imagine the risk going down to a few times air travel after 50+ years of operating a mature launch system. | |
| ▲ | helpfulContrib 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | coldtea a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | pmontra 19 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Test flights. My tests keep failing until I fix all of my code, then we deploy to production. If code fails in production than that's a problem. We could say that rockets are not code. A test run of a Spaceship surely cost much more than a test run of any software on my laptop but tests are still tests. They are very likely to fail and there are things to learn from their failures. | | |
| ▲ | notorandit 16 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Running a code test doesn't require firing a rocket. How would you test a rocket? | | |
| ▲ | TypingOutBugs 15 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | You test components in isolation, you test integration of components, you run simulations of the entire rocket, and finally you test the rocket launch. You’ll catch issues along the way, but you can’t catch all of them before a full launch test. That’s why there are launch tests. | | |
| ▲ | notorandit 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This can get as far as the test plan is complete, multiply iterated under different interface conditions and thorough. And you are still relying upon the adherence of the simulated models to the physical reality. Real tests do all of this at once with no option to escape reality. Again, one thing is automating thorough software tests, another one is testing physical stuff. | |
| ▲ | brianwawok 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | This is the programmer fallacy if you have a bunch of code passing unit tests, it’s going to work when combined. | | |
| ▲ | SJC_Hacker 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Thats not what he said. Unit tests are the first stage, and are very useful at isolating the problem. Integration tests are the next where multiple units are combined. Then there is staging. | |
| ▲ | liontwist 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Did they say that? | | |
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| ▲ | nicky0 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Test code by running it. Test a rocket by launching it. | | |
| ▲ | johnla 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I would consider these launches test launches. Production is when they include commercial payloads and humans. | |
| ▲ | orwin 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In production? I don't disagree that tests 'in production' are sometimes necessary (canary tests), but most of the quirks are often fixed by then. Honestly I thought they would be live testing fuel exchange in orbit by now. Seems pretty far from it sadly. | | |
| ▲ | ricardobeat 15 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That might still happen this year, it’s the next step in the development plan. What makes these launches “non-production” tests is that they are not carrying any valuable payload. Blowing up rockets like this is exactly what gives the company it’s advantage over competitors who try to anticipate everything during design stages. | |
| ▲ | emilecantin 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There was no real payload on this, so I'd argue it's closer to a QA environment than production. It's true that other rocket companies are treating launches as production, but SpaceX has always been doing "hardware-rich" testing. | |
| ▲ | octopoc 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Some domains have so many different parties doing different things, you just have to test in production. Rockets are probably one of them. | |
| ▲ | mr_toad 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Testing their ability to deploy satellites is a short-term goal that will make them money now. Testing refuelling will be needed for Luna and Mars missions, but that’s a long way off anyway. | |
| ▲ | pclmulqdq 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | They had that on the timeline for 2023, so it's reasonable to assume they would do it. |
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| ▲ | penjelly 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | launching a rocket is far more analogulous to shipping a release, than it is running code. | | |
| ▲ | notorandit 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Launching a rocket is far more complex than shipping a release. It is more like an "all or nothing" process. |
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| ▲ | askl 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Thank god you're not building rockets. | | |
| ▲ | mr_toad 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Testing to failure is pretty common in rocketry. If you don’t push the limits you’ll never really know where the limits are. | |
| ▲ | ls612 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This has been SpaceX’s methodology for a long time now and has gotten them to the point where they have the most reliable western launch vehicles ever launching record amounts of mass to orbit each year at record low prices. | |
| ▲ | ChrisClark 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I truly hope that if you ever design a rocket yourself, that you will test it. I have no idea why you'd think testing is a terrible thing to do if it has to do with rockets. | | |
| ▲ | prerok 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think we all agree that you need to test eventually. I do think most of us would already be double checking for leaks. It just seems one of the obvious things that may go wrong when putting it all together. | | |
| ▲ | wat10000 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | They likely did test it, and it passed. The leak was probably caused by the somewhat violent environment of the launch, and that can’t be entirely replicated on the ground. |
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| ▲ | inglor_cz 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Why precisely? Can you elaborate? |
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| ▲ | Cipater 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | He just means MORE checking for leaks. They already implemented a whole host of changes to the vehicles after the first test back in 2023. There's a list of corrective actions here. https://imgur.com/a/Y9dd43o | |
| ▲ | 14 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Even NASA years into their existence has suffered catastrophic fatal failures. Even with the best and most knowledgeable experts working on it we are ultimately still in the infancy of space flight. Just like airlines every incident we try and understand the cause and prevent it from happening again. Lastly what they are doing is incredibly difficult with probably thousands of things that could go wrong. I think they are doing an amazing job and hope one day, even if I miss it, that space flight becomes acceptable to all who wish to go to space. | | |
| ▲ | rob74 17 hours ago | parent [-] | | I you are referring to the two Space Shuttle accidents, both of them could have been avoided with just a little bit more care - not launching in freezing temperatures for Challenger, and making sure insulation foam doesn't fall off the tank for Columbia. | | |
| ▲ | thrwthsnw 14 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The history of rocketry goes much further back than the space shuttle. The shuttle was supposed to be a step towards reusability but didn’t succeed or progress the way they thought it would. Starship is continuing that dream of full reusability and their approach is working. You can’t plan everything on paper when it comes to hardware especially when attempting things that have never been done before, you just don’t have the data in that case. You have to build prototypes and test them to destruction. All manufacturers do this. | |
| ▲ | hnaccount_rng 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | In hindsight yes. The trick is knowing which of the thousands of things to do are necessary. And yes, that’s how you end up with preflight checklists |
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| ▲ | razemio a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Can you name a space company with less failures? Also I think it is unfair to even compare SpaceX to anything else, because of the insane amount of starts / tests combined unparalleled creativity. According to this website their current success rate is 99,18%. That's a good number I guess? Considering other companies did not even land their stages for years. https://spaceinsider.tech/2024/07/31/ula-vs-spacex/#:~:text=.... | | |
| ▲ | pyrale 20 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Success rate isn’t a great metric for efficient initial work: it will keep improving as more launches are done, regardless of the initial work. | | |
| ▲ | HPsquared 18 hours ago | parent [-] | | There's more to "overall success" then launch failure rate. Cost and time are very important, which are the other dimensions they are optimizing for here. |
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| ▲ | input_sh 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It says right there in your source that that figure refers to Falcon in particular. For comparison, Starship's current track record is 3/7 launch failures (+1 landing failure). There's an order of magnitude difference between them. If they were cars, it'd be like comparing the smallest car you can think of vs one of the biggest tanks ever made. | | |
| ▲ | razemio 18 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I ignored those, since the starship at this stage can be considered a prototype. I am just trying to argue, that calling SpaceX unreliable, especially compared to its competitors and time to market, is bold. | |
| ▲ | zarzavat 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The usual definition of success for a rocket is getting the payload to the intended orbit. Since Starship doesn't have a payload yet, at least not a real one, its "success rate" is not measuring the same thing. I'd say that only the 7th mission was legitimately a failure, because there was some rerouting of flights outside the exclusion zone. The other six missions were successful tests since nothing other than the rocket itself was affected. | |
| ▲ | rvnx 19 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It’s like comparing the reliability of the Model 3 and the Cybertruck. | |
| ▲ | inglor_cz 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You cannot compare a mature product to something that is still under initial development. That would be like comparing a 1-y.o.'s ability to run to a 10-y.o.'s. Of course the younger kid doesn't yet control their legs, but that doesn't mean it's going to stumble and fall forever. |
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| ▲ | askl 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's just taxpayer money they're blowing up, so it doesn't really matter. | | |
| ▲ | jacobr1 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The taxpayer money is for r&d. We should be very tolerant of failure. Aggressively testing with real hardware is a key part of how we learn to make a more robust systems. Fear of failure and waste will slow down progress. | |
| ▲ | ericd 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | They're blowing up their own money, unless you still count it as being the taxpayer's after the government pays them for launch services. | | |
| ▲ | pclmulqdq 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | R&D for starship has a several-billion-dollar NASA grant. Something like 30-50% of the money being blown up on this program is taxpayer money. | | |
| ▲ | Workaccount2 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The savings Spacex has promise of delivering to NASA make every dollar given to them probably an easy 2x-3x ROI. Without Spacex, the typical cohort of gov contractors would have been happy bleeding NASA dry with one time use rockets that have 10x the launch cost and carry 1/4 the cargo. | | |
| ▲ | pclmulqdq 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Sorry, Artemis carried more than one banana and actually made it to orbit. SpaceX has not provided any ROI yet. You can't compare the (very optimistic) promises of SpaceX against the actual returns of the rest of the industry. | | |
| ▲ | vardump 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Zero ROI? Isn’t SpaceX the largest launch provider in the world and for the U.S. government? Many times than the rest of the U.S. space industry combined. | | |
| ▲ | pclmulqdq 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | *Starship has zero ROI and has sucked up a lot of federal funds. Falcon 9 has had plenty of "ROI" but it wasn't really federally funded. Let's not get carried away though about "more than the entire US space industry combined," though. | | |
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| ▲ | ericd 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Fair. I think that was for HLS rather than the launch systems, but I guess if it’s already been disbursed, it’s probably all commingled. But that still means it’s not just taxpayer money, it’s mostly theirs. They’ve been raising equity rounds this whole time. | | |
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| ▲ | drillsteps5 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Starship program is funded in part by NASA as part of Artemis program. So some of this money is ours. | | |
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| ▲ | fsloth a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | It sounds like he's talking to investors and not to general public. In my experience in corporate america you communicate efficiency by proclaiming a checklist of things to do - plausible, but not necessarily accurate things - and then let engineers figure it out. Nobody cares of the original checklist as long as the problem gets resolved. It's weird but it seems very hard to utter statement "I don't have specific answers but we have very capable engineers, I'm sure they will figure it out". It's always better to say (from the top of your head) "To resolve A, we will do X,Y and Z!". Then when A get's resolved, everyone praises the effort. Then when they query what actually was done it's "well we found out in fact what were amiss were I, J K". | | |
| ▲ | the_duke 21 hours ago | parent [-] | | He's talking to the FAA, because this will trigger an investigation and would usually mean months of no launches. | | |
| ▲ | cmsj 15 hours ago | parent [-] | | Fortunately (for him) he'll be President on Monday and can then order the FAA to let him do whatever he wants. | | |
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| ▲ | throw0101a a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > (as seen from ground) As seen from a plane in the air with the break up right in front of it: https://old.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1i34dki/starship_... |
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| ▲ | mrandish a day ago | parent | next [-] | | While the video post does mention "Right in front of us", and it may have appeared that way to the pilots, it wasn't. Gauging relative distance and altitude between aircraft in flight can be notoriously deceptive even to experts, especially in the case of intensely bright, massive, unfamiliar objects at very high speed and great distance. The RUD was in orbit over 146 kilometers up and >13,000 mph. I'm sure using the FlightAware tracking data someone will work out the actual distance and altitude delta between that plane and the Starship 7 orbital debris. I suspect it was many dozens of miles away and probably still nearly orbital in altitude (~100km). Spectacular light show though... | | |
| ▲ | aredox 18 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Stupid comment. Several flights had to be diverted because of the break-up, and anyone in flight at that time would be rightly concerned about barely-visible high-speed shrapnel showering a much larger area than where the visible debris are - especially when you are responsible for keeping your hundreds of passengers safe in a very unexpected situation with no rehearsed procedure to follow. | | |
| ▲ | stouset 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Nobody is saying it wasn’t prudent to divert. It would have been impossible for the pilot to know if that debris was shortly in front of them and at co-altitude or extremely far in front of them and at a significantly higher altitude. In this case it was almost certainly the latter. But the uncertainty alone was enough to warrant diverting. > Stupid comment. Aim higher on HN. | |
| ▲ | javawizard 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Ok, this: > Stupid comment got me. There's literally an HN rule about this: [0] > When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." I feel like the world would be a better place if people would tone down the ad-hominem in their day-to-day discourse just a little bit. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | |
| ▲ | pineaux 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | this. |
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| ▲ | kryptn a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's in front of them enough. | | |
| ▲ | mrandish a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Sure. In a similar way as when the moon is low on the horizon and I stand in my back yard facing it. There's the moon. It's right in front of me... :-) | | |
| ▲ | kryptn a day ago | parent [-] | | in a way that if they kept their heading there was a higher than acceptable risk of impact and they had to divert, yes. | | |
| ▲ | mrandish 21 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | As I said, the debris was likely closer to around ~100km in altitude. Commercial airliners fly around ~10km in altitude. Appearing to be at a similar altitude as the plane and "in front" of it was an optical illusion because the debris was intensely bright, very far away, very high and moving several times faster than a bullet. While we don't have exact data yet, I believe it is highly likely there was zero chance of that plane ever hitting that debris given their relative positions. It couldn't even if the pilots weren't mistaken about how close the debris was and they had intentionally tried to hit it. The debris was too far, too high and moving at hypersonic speeds (hence the metal being white hot from atmospheric friction). Starship's flight paths are carefully calculated by SpaceX and the FAA to achieve this exact outcome. In the event of a RUD near orbit, little to no debris will survive reentry. Any that does survive won't reach the surface (or aircraft in flight) until it is far out into the Atlantic Ocean away from land, people, flight paths and shipping lanes. For Starship launches the FAA temporarily closes a large amount of space in the Gulf of Mexico to air and ship traffic because that's where Starship is low and slow enough for debris to be a threat to aircraft. These planes were flying in the Caribbean, where there was no FAA NOTAM closing their airspace because by the time Starship is over the Caribbean, it's in orbit. If there's a RUD over the Caribbean it's already too high and going too fast for debris to be a threat to aircraft or people anywhere near the Carribean. The only "threat" in the Caribbean today was from anyone being distracted by the pretty light show in orbit far above them (that looked deceptively close from some angles). | | |
| ▲ | logifail 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | > the debris was likely closer to around ~100km in altitude. Commercial airliners fly around ~10km in altitude (Not wishing to ask the obvious, and depending on the size of the pieces) debris at 100km altitude pretty much always ends up being debris falling through 10km ... right? | | |
| ▲ | eps 19 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Apparently quite a bit of debris made it to the ground - > The locals here are pissed in Turks and Cacos. Huge dabris rained down everywhere It's from the pilot at the reddit link above. https://old.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1i34dki/starship_... | | |
| ▲ | ricardobeat 15 hours ago | parent [-] | | No pictures or reports of anything falling in the Caribbean. People just love adding to the drama, they will later backtrack and explain that by “rain down” they meant the light show. It would be extremely unlikely due to the laws of physics, last time I checked they were still in effect. |
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| ▲ | mrandish 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | At the incredible speeds Starship was moving (>13,000 mph) by the time it was over the Caribbean, debris from a Starship is expected to burn up by the time it reaches the surface. But you said "depending on the size", so let's imagine it's a different spacecraft carrying something that won't entirely burn up, like the Mir space station from several years back. In that scenario, debris from 100km will survive to pass through 10km. The point is: if the mass becomes debris >143km high traveling at >13,000 mph over the Caribbean - it doesn't pass through 10km anywhere near the Caribbean. Even though the friction causing tempered metal to glow white hot is slowing it, the trajectory is ballistic so by the time it slows enough to get that low (10km) it's hundreds or thousands of miles East from where the explosion happened (and where that airplane was). It's weird because given these orbital velocities and altitudes, our intuitions about up and down aren't very useful. Starship exploded in orbit over the Caribbean, so planes in the Caribbean were safe from falling debris. If it was Mir instead of Starship, planes hundreds or thousands miles to the East of the Caribbean would be at elevated risk. My high school astronomy teacher once said something like "Rockets don't go up to reach orbit. They go sideways. And they keep going sideways faster and faster until they're going so fast, up and down don't matter anymore." While that's hardly a scientific summary, it does give a sense of the dynamics. You'll recall that Mir was intentionally de-orbited so it would land in a desolate part of the Indian Ocean. So, did they blow it up right over the Indian Ocean? Nope. To crash it in the Indian Ocean, given the altitude and speed, they "blew it up" on the other side of Earth, like maybe over Chicago (I actually don't recall where the de-orbit began, but had to be very far away). | | |
| ▲ | logifail 19 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > so by the time it slows enough to get that low (10km) it's hundreds or thousands of miles East from where the explosion was seen Appreciate that, the question would be, do we know that there won't be any aircraft at the right (wrong) altitude in that area(?!) With aircraft regularly travelling thousands of miles, would be interesting to know whether route choices are made to avoid being "under"* the track of a rocket's launch? There's apparently another video of the debris, this one appears to show very clearly that the debris is "going sideways"* rather than coming vertically down
https://x.com/kristinafitzsi/status/1880032746032230515?s=61 * apologies for the poor phrasing :) | | |
| ▲ | mrandish 19 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There are people on HN far better qualified than I to discuss both orbital mechanics and spacecraft safety assessments but I'll give it a layman's stab based purely on the high-level concepts (which is all I know). They know there's little to no risk to aircraft or people hundreds or thousands of miles to the East of a Starship RUD in orbit because they know exactly what's inside Starship and how it's built. They model how it will break up when traveling at these insane speeds and how the metal masses will melt and burn up during re-entry. They actually test this stuff in blast furnaces. It's a statistical model so it's theoretically possible a few small bits could make it to the ground on rare occasion, so we can't say debris will never happen - but there's been a lot of history and testing and the experts are confident it's extremely safe. The case of the MIR space station was very different than a Starship. MIR was built a long time ago by the Soviet Union and they used a big, heavily shielded power plant. That lead shielding was really the part that had a significant risk of not burning up fully on re-entry. Starship, Starlink satellites and other modern spacecraft are now usually designed to burn up on reentry. However, there are still some things in orbit and things we'll need to put in orbit in the future that won't entirely burn up on reentry. There will always be a very small risk of an accidental uncontrolled reentry causing a threat. However, these risks are vanishingly small both because we design these spacecraft with redundant systems and fail-safes and because Earth is mostly uninhabited oceans, much of our landmasses are unpopulated or sparely populated, even in the unlikely event one of the few spacecraft with a large mass that won't entirely burn up has failed and is de-orbiting out of control, we can still blow it up - and timing that at the right moment will still put it down in a safe place (like it did with MIR). There's no such thing as absolute 100% perfect safety. But you're far, far more likely to die from a great white shark attack than be injured by satellite debris. More to the point, a huge number of meteorites hit Earth every year and it's estimated over 17,000 survive to hit the surface. There are a bunch listed right now on eBay. Do you know anyone injured by any of the 17,000 space rocks that crashed into our planet this year or any airliners hit by one? | | |
| ▲ | thombat 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | That description of heavy lead shielding of a power plant on Mir surprises me since photos show it as having solar arrays. Wikipedia also gives the power source as solar with no mention of lead components. Can you add further details of this? |
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| ▲ | m4rtink 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | There were quite large areas of airspace closed just for this reason via NOTAMS - with airlines grumbling about that even before launch. |
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| ▲ | zardo 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > At the incredible speeds Starship was moving (>13,000 mph) by the time it was over the Caribbean, debris from a Starship is expected to burn up by the time it reaches the surface. Don't the heat tiles at least make it through? And possibly large hunks of metal like the thrust frame and engines. | | |
| ▲ | mrandish 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | As I said, I'm only familiar with the high level concepts of vehicle launch safety and not qualified to assess detailed scenarios. I'm just a guy interested enough to read some technical articles and skim a few linked papers several years ago when there was a lot of heat about launch safety from Boca and not much light. When there's a lot of heated rhetoric in the mass media, I find it's better to check directly in scientific and engineering sources. I dove deep enough to a get sense that these questions have been extremely well-studied and not just by 2020s FAA and SpaceX but going back to the Shuttle and Apollo eras. The body of peer-reviewed engineering studies seemed exhaustive - and not just NASA-centric, the Europeans and Soviets did their own studies too. Your question is reasonable and occurred to me as well. Components engineered to withstand the enormous heat and pressure of orbital re-entry should be more likely to survive a RUD scenario and subsequent re-entry burn for longer. From what I recall reading, this fits into a safety profile required to ensure very, very low risk because even if a tiny percentage of mass occasionally survives to reach the surface, the actual risk that surviving mass presents is a combination of its quantity, mass, piece size, velocity and, most importantly, where any final surviving bits reach the surface. I recall seeing a diagram dividing the Boca orbital launch trajectory into windows, like: right around the launch pad, out over the gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean, Atlantic, Africa, Indian ocean, and so on. The entire path until it's out over empty Atlantic ocean has minimal land, people and stuff under it. The gulf of Mexico is by far the highest risk because the rocket is still relatively low and slow. A RUD there could potentially be a lot of stuff coming down. There's not a lot out there in the gulf, just a few ships and planes but the FAA closes a huge area because, while the statistical risk is very low in an absolute sense, it's still too high to take chances. For later windows, they don't close the corridor underneath to plane and ship traffic because the rocket's much greater speed and altitude later in the flight allows more precisely modeling where the debris field will come down. There was another diagram showing a statistical model of a debris field impact zone as an elongated oval with color-coded concentric rings dividing the debris mass into classes. The outermost ring is the debris that breaks up into smaller, lighter pieces. It's the widest and longest but it's the stuff that's much lower risk because it's smaller and slower. The smallest concentric ring in the middle is where the small amount of heavier pieces most likely to survive will come down, if any do survive. As you'd expect, that innermost ring is shifted toward the far end of the oval and is a much smaller area. The headline I took away was that there's a very small amount of higher mass debris that both A) is less likely to break up into tiny, lower mass pieces, and B) is less likely to completely burn up. This is the higher-risk mass and, due to its mass, it tends to stay on trajectory, go fastest, farthest and not spread out much. In short, the statistical model showed a very high probability of any higher risk stuff which survives coming down in a surprisingly tiny area. The overall safety model is based on a combination of factors working together so it meets the safety requirements in each window of the flight for each class of mass. The carefully chosen launch location, spacecraft design, component materials, flight path and a bunch of other factors all work together to put the small amount of higher risk stuff down somewhere that fits the safety profile of very, very low risk to people and property. Disclaimer: I've probably got some details wrong and left some things out but this is the sense I got from what I learned. I came away feeling that the safety work done on space launches is comprehensive, diligent and based on a long history of robust, peer-reviewed science backed up by detailed engineering tests as well as real-world data from decades of launches, RUDs and de-orbits. A fun side story: a few months ago I was at the Hacker's Conference and Scott Manley ("Everyday Astronaut" on YouTube) was attending as he often does. He brought along some interesting space artifacts just to set out on a table for casual show and tell. I was able to pick up and examine a Starship heat tile that was fished out of the gulf of Mexico. It was surprisingly light weight. Sort of like a thick wall piece from a styrofoam picnic cooler. It had a very thin hard shell on one side. This shell was clearly very brittle as it had already been broken up and I was holding an index card-sized shattered piece that weighed maybe a couple ounces. This was clearly not something that was going to maintain structural integrity post-RUD. Once it wasn't packed tightly together into a smooth aerodynamic surface, it's gonna shred into tiny pieces. And that seemed by design - which apparently worked as intended because even without a RUD, at the low and slow speeds over the gulf and near the launch pad it did shatter into small, light pieces - assisted only by the rocket tipping over into the water followed by the relatively mild explosion of the remaining propellant (mild compared to an unimaginably violent orbital RUD, that is). Holding it I remembered the debris field oval diagram and thought, "this is smaller, slower, safer stuff in the outer zones." | | |
| ▲ | mkl 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Everyday Astronaut is Tim Dodd. | | |
| ▲ | mrandish 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Oops! I somehow conflated two space YouTubers who I sometimes watch and appreciate. Scott Manley is just Scott Manley on YouTube. Thanks for the correction. |
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| ▲ | gusgus01 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I know this is just another reddit post so could be fake, but supposedly debris is already washing ashore in Turks and Caicos. Specifically in this post a heat shield tile, but the poster mentions other stuff on the beach. So at least some debris probably dropped nearby. https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/1i3na4a/... | | |
| ▲ | mrandish 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | As I said above, the safety model predicts some lightweight stuff with a consistency not much stiffer than tin foil and coated styrofoam could fall not that far downrange. However, that's also the exact stuff that doesn't present serious risk to people or property. So even if those claims are true, just finding a little debris doesn't invalidate the safety model or indicate there was ever unacceptable risk. The real question is if any debris from a higher risk class fell in a place the safety model didn't predict and why. That would certainly be notable and worth incorporating into future safety models. In the absence of solid confirmation, I'm going to stick with the model and the basic physics. If the debris is just the expected stuff, I'm sure SpaceX regrets littering the beaches and should definitely pay for some crews to pick that stuff up and trash it. |
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| ▲ | throw5959 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | No, all or the absolute majority of it burns around 50km. |
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| ▲ | InDubioProRubio 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | The ISS is in the front of every plane and behind it every 90 minutes. |
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| ▲ | a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | muteh a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | To be clear, you’re claiming that this was in fact behind them? | | |
| ▲ | fastball 20 hours ago | parent [-] | | No, I think he is claiming that if they kept flying straight they would not collide with any debris. |
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| ▲ | varjag 19 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion | | |
| ▲ | gcanyon 15 hours ago | parent [-] | | I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. | | |
| ▲ | ashoeafoot 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | Fiery the angels fell, Deep thunder rolled around their shores, burning with the fires of Orc |
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| ▲ | IAmGraydon a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | That is absolutely insane. Honestly, I would probably assume a MIRV given the current environment. |
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| ▲ | Cu3PO42 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| What a strangely beautiful sight. While I was excited to see ship land, I'm also happy I get to see videos of this! |
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| ▲ | mrandish a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes, both spectacular and beautiful. I guess Starship can now say what the legendary comedy actress (and sex symbol) of early cinema Mae West said: "When I'm good... I'm very good. But when I'm bad... I'm even better." :-) Combined with another tower catch, that's two spectacular shows for the price of one. Hopefully the onboard diagnostic telemetry immediately prior to the RUD is enough to identify the root cause so it can be corrected. | |
| ▲ | Molitor5901 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I felt.. bad watching that breakup, it reminded me of Columbia. | | |
| ▲ | dpifke a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Which coincidentally launched 22 years ago today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-107 | |
| ▲ | birdman3131 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I remember being woken up by the thunder from Columbia. Lost it over the years but I used to have a photo of about 20 vans of people parked on our property doing the search for debris. Don't think they found any on our land but there was a 3 ft chunk about 5 miles down the road. | | | |
| ▲ | inglor_cz 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | OTOH I remembered Columbia too and I felt good knowing that Starship is being tested thoroughly without jeopardizing the crew. The space-shuttle could not fly to the orbit automatically. It had to have people on board, and the first flight, IIRC, came close to a disaster. | |
| ▲ | xattt a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted, but I thought this too. | | |
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| ▲ | afavour a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | As long as the debris has no effect wherever it lands, I agree with you | | |
| ▲ | verzali a day ago | parent | next [-] | | A lot of flights seem to be diverting to avoid it... https://bsky.app/profile/flightradar24.com/post/3lfvhpgmqqc2... | | |
| ▲ | Kye a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Does SpaceX bother with NOTAM for its launches? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOTAM It seems like the flights should have been planned around it so no diversion would be needed. | | |
| ▲ | sbuttgereit 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | My understanding is that there are areas which are noted as being possible debris zones across the flight path, but that aircraft are not specifically told to avoid those areas unless there an actual event to which to respond. If my understanding is correct, it seems sensible at least in a hand-wavy way: you have a few places where things are more likely to come down either unplanned or planned (immediately around the launch site and at the planned deorbit area), but then you have a wide swath of the world where, in a relatively localized area, you -might- have something come down with some warning that it will (just because the time it takes to get from altitude to where aircraft are). You close the priority areas, but you don't close the less likely areas pro-actively, but only do so reactively, it seems you'd achieve a balance between aircraft safety and air service disruptions. | |
| ▲ | enragedcacti a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | They do but its not clear to me whether the area where it broke up was actually included in the original NOTAM. The NOTMAR definitely does not according to the graphic shown on the NASASpaceflight stream. They are still live so I can't link a time code but something like -4:56 in this stream as of posting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nM3vGdanpw | | | |
| ▲ | sbuttgereit 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Actually, this video is a good indication for exactly what transpired: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6hIXB62bUE It's ATC audio captured during the event. | | |
| ▲ | Kye 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | This video, the map elsewhere in this subthread, and the stream recording give a nicely detailed view into what went down. It seems like everything went like it was supposed to in terms of pre-warning, but based on the video the information didn't make it to pilots with coinciding flight plans until after the fact. As far as I understand airline pilots have a high level of authority and diverting probably was the right call depending on the lag between seeing it and knowing what it was or if there was a risk of debris reaching them. They wouldn't necessarily know how high it got or what that means for debris. | | |
| ▲ | sbuttgereit 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yeah... and ATC for a good while didn't have any estimate for time to resolution. So, do you run the airplane's fuel down to a minimal reserve level in hopes that the restrictions might lift... or just call it done and divert? I think it's an absolutely reasonable choice to just say comfortably divert rather than try to linger in hopes of it not lasting too long and possibly ending up diverting anyway... but on minimums. |
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| ▲ | a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | ralfd a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Understandable, but an over reaction. Any debris not burning up is falling down after minutes. | | |
| ▲ | Kye a day ago | parent [-] | | Would you bet hundreds of lives and millions of dollars on that? | | |
| ▲ | ricardobeat a day ago | parent [-] | | Yes. Space debris near orbiting speeds doesn't fall straight down, it's simple physics. If anything planes much further downrange (thousands of km) should be diverted, not immediately under the re-entry point. | | |
| ▲ | s1artibartfast a day ago | parent | next [-] | | The planes diverting were downrange. Also, I doubt they had much information to go off, and were essentially flying blind about where the debris were unless they had a direct line to NORAD. Do you have a better explanation why they are doing donuts over the pacific at the time of reentry, then were diverted? https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/ABX3133 https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/N121BZ/history/20250... https://www.flightaware.com/live/flight/NKS172 | | |
| ▲ | asciii a day ago | parent | next [-] | | I was on r/flightradar24 and someone was listening on ATC and heard that one of the flights declared emergency due to fuel. Other planes were also caught up in the chaos but SJU was at capacity apparently | | |
| ▲ | dadadad100 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | The ATC is up on YouTube - I heard it on the vatsim channel. ATC would not let pilots transit the designated danger airspace without declaring an emergency. So they did. |
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| ▲ | ricardobeat a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I don't have. Maybe they were indeed diverted because people got scared? Still seems pointless given the distances involved. Most reports are coming from social media / people watching flightradar24, and news media is just picking those up. | | |
| ▲ | s1artibartfast a day ago | parent [-] | | There are several, all at the same time, all in the same area, where the debreis was seen. Why do you think it is pointless? If I am a pilot and the tower says "debris seen heading east of Bahamas", I probably wont want to keep flying towards that direction. Yeah, it is probably low risk, but I dont have a super computer or detailed map of the Starship debris field or entry zone. | | |
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| ▲ | adolph a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | > donuts over the pacific Atlantic | | |
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| ▲ | 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It wasn’t at orbital speeds yet. | | |
| ▲ | ricardobeat a day ago | parent [-] | | Over 21000km/h when it broke up, compared to ~28k for stuff orbiting in LEO. Should still go quite far. | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz a day ago | parent [-] | | Yes, although drag is gonna be… substantially higher like this as well. | | |
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| ▲ | a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | dylan604 a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | More as long as there were no humans onboard |
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| ▲ | ijidak a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. | | |
| ▲ | mrandish a day ago | parent [-] | | The number of SpaceX video clips that I know are "actual things really happening" which still activate the involuntary "Sci-Fi / CGI effect" neurons in my brain is remarkable. | | |
| ▲ | bigiain a day ago | parent [-] | | Yeah. I know that feeling. That tower catch. That _had_ to be a new version of Kerbal, right? The physics looked good, but there's no way that was real... | | |
| ▲ | mrandish a day ago | parent [-] | | Indeed. The one that still flips a bit in my brain is the two Falcon rockets landing in unison side by side. I'd say it was high-end CGI except no director would approve an effects shot of orbital rockets landing in such a perfect, cinematically choreographed way. It would just be sent back to ILM marked "Good effort, but too obviously fake. Rework to be more realistic and resubmit." | | |
| ▲ | somenameforme a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Just to link that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbSwFU6tY1c&t=1793s Such an unbelievable moment. And I also think an indicator of how much better society could be if we focused more on doing amazing things. The comments on YouTube are just filled with hope optimism and general awesomeness. FWIW that link goes straight to the moneyshot - it's always so much better if you watch it all the way through. It's an amazing broadcast. | | |
| ▲ | mrandish a day ago | parent [-] | | When I was in elementary school back in the 1970s, I read every sci-fi book in the tiny school library. They were all old, even then. Early stuff by Asimov, Heinlein and Bova. Paperbacks on cheap pulp with cover paintings of rockets sitting upright on alien terrain. Tiny people in space suits climbing down ladders to explore a new world. With the Apollo moon landings in recent memory, I'd read those sci-fi books late at night with a flashlight under the covers of my bed and then fall asleep thinking about how "I'll still be alive 50 years from now. I'll get to actually live in the world of the future. Maybe I'll even work in space." And by the time I graduated from high school it was already becoming clear things were going much to slow for me to even see humans colonizing Mars. And that was reality until about a decade ago. So, yeah. Watching the live video of the first successful Starship orbital launch with my teenage daughter... I got a little choked up, which surprised me. Felt like discovering a very old dream that's been buried too long. And somehow the damn thing's still alive. Or maybe I just got something in my eye. Anyway, I know it's too late for me to ever work off-planet. But maybe not for my kid... so, the dream lives on. It just had to skip a generation. | | |
| ▲ | dotancohen 19 hours ago | parent [-] | | Thank you for this beautiful comment. I could have written it word for word. I still watch every Starship launch with my kids, and CRS-7 was the first Falcon launch that we missed watching live. At that time we were waiting months between launches. And I'm currently petting a dog named Asimov while writing this. SpaceX brought our childhood dreams back. But more importantly, SpaceX is bringing our naive childhood expectations to fruitation. |
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| ▲ | TMWNN a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Seeing a rocket land vertically goes against almost 70 years of what we "know" about rockets. Falcon 9 rockets landing on legs seem unnatural enough; now we have a rocket, the size of a 20-story building, landing on chopsticks. There are lots of vertical-landing rockets ... in science fiction, and only before Sputnik in 1957. Once actual space programs came about and lots of engineers understood just how difficult landing a rocket is compared to launching it, they all went away. Fictional vehicles became more and more complex to make them "realistic" (that is, consistent with real spacecraft on the news), or just didn't bother with the details at all and went to quasi-magic technologies like in Star Wars and Star Trek. SpaceX is taking us to the future by going with something from the past. | | |
| ▲ | perilunar 15 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | SpaceX landing and catching boosters is amazing, but landing rockets is not new: all the Apollo LMs, indeed everything ever landed on the Moon was done with "vertical-landing" rockets. | |
| ▲ | pyrale 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Not to rain too much on your harping, but the DC-X program did vertical landing 30 years ago. | | |
| ▲ | dotancohen 19 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes, and that was all the experimental program did. No humans on board, no payloads, no orbit, not even suborbital as they stayed close to the ground. The Falcon 9 puts humans into orbit then turns around and lands not far from the launch tower. It's then brought in for maintenance and a few weeks later launching again - some of them have done 20 flights. | | |
| ▲ | pyrale 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | You’re comparing an experimental program that lasted 6 years with a company founded 22 years ago. How many payload flights did space-x do 6 years into its existence? | | |
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| ▲ | eecc 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Nice, what happened of it? | | |
| ▲ | pyrale 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | It happened at about the time budgetary winter happened for the us space budget, so there was no follow-up on the demonstrator. |
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| ▲ | dotancohen 19 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Excitement guaranteed | |
| ▲ | TMWNN a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >What a strangely beautiful sight. "My god, Bones, what have I done?" | |
| ▲ | badgersnake 16 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It’s a pretty expensive way to make fireworks. |
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| ▲ | olex a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Inadvertently perfect timing for this footage. Glowing and backlit by the setting sun, against clear and already darkening evening sky... couldn't plan the shot any better if you tried. Let's hope no debris came down on anyone or anything apart from open water. |
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| ▲ | andrewinardeer a day ago | parent [-] | | I take it if SpaceX debris hit and destroyed a boat the owner can claim damages from SpaceX? Does international space law allow for this? | | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz a day ago | parent | next [-] | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Liability_Convention Only used once, when the Soviets dropped a nuclear reactor on Canada. > States (countries) bear international responsibility for all space objects that are launched within their territory. This means that regardless of who launches the space object, if it was launched from State A's territory, or from State A's facility, or if State A caused the launch to happen, then State A is fully liable for damages that result from that space object. | | |
| ▲ | dr_orpheus 8 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | But don't forget about a local government in Australia fining NASA $400 for littering after debris from Skylab re-entry landed there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab#Re-entry_and_debris | |
| ▲ | krick a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I feel like it should be updated. When it was written it wasn't like every Musk could launch high-orbit rockets on sundays. Only actual states did. | | |
| ▲ | dragonwriter a day ago | parent | next [-] | | The convention does not prevent national law from providing private liability which may come into play between entities subject to the jurisdiction of the same state or between the state who is liable to other states under the convention and entities operating within the state. So, there is no need to update the convention; the states from which private launches operate simply need adequate domestic law to cover both fully-internal liability and private launcher liability for claims against the government under the convention. (And the US generally does, with the basic regulatory regime being adopted and the private space launch industry operating in the 1980s; it is not an issue that arose with Musk/SpaceX.) | |
| ▲ | condiment 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | FAA launch licenses require substantial liability insurance. 500 million in this case. https://drs.faa.gov/browse/excelExternalWindow/DRSDOCID17389... | |
| ▲ | ceejayoz a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | States can set whatever rules they like internally. The US can make SpaceX pay them back if they want. | | |
| ▲ | dylan604 a day ago | parent [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | dragonwriter a day ago | parent [-] | | The President has very little case-by-case authority over civil liability between private parties. I suppose Trump could advocate that Congress pass a new liability regime more favorable to SpaceX speciically or private launchers generally, though. | | |
| ▲ | dylan604 a day ago | parent [-] | | Time and time again, we have seen GOP congress critters kowtow to Trump even before he won the election. You think any of them are going to suddenly grow a backbone and stand up to him now? You think if Musk picks up the phone and starts "asking" people they will push back? |
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| ▲ | tcmart14 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | No expert, but I would assume, the USA would front it, but then take a case against SpaceX. So it would be Boat Owner v. USA, then USA v. SpaceX shortly after. Although I could be totally wrong. But yea, seems appropriate to update it or if that is going to be the process, write it in stone. | |
| ▲ | oskarkk a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Every rocket flight has to be approved by the government. No launch until FAA (and also FCC) OK's it. |
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| ▲ | twic a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Does the thing have to have got into space and then come back for this to apply? | |
| ▲ | walrus01 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | As I recall a village in Australia also billed NASA with their standard municipal littering fine, for skylab debris that landed there, and the bill was paid 20+ years later by a radio station as a publicity stunt. | |
| ▲ | bigiain a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] |
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| ▲ | somenameforme a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Most things put into space are designed to burn upon uncontrolled descent through orbit. And then the overwhelming majority of Earth is water and even on land the overwhelming majority of land is either completely uninhabited or sparsely inhabited. And then even if against all odds somehow something doesn't burn up in the atmosphere, and somehow lands in a densely populated area - the odds of hitting a spot with somebody or something relevant on it is still quite low. The overall odds of actually hitting somewhere really bad are just astronomically low. Nonetheless, recently NASA won the lottery when part of some batteries they jettisoned from the ISS ended up crashing through a house in Florida. [1] Oddly enough there are treaties on this, but only from an international perspective - landing on your own country was not covered! But I'm certain NASA will obviously make it right, as would SpaceX. If they didn't, then surely the family could easily sue as well. [1] - https://www.space.com/space-debris-florida-family-nasa-lawsu... | |
| ▲ | HPsquared a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's probably similar to if a US ship crashed into your yacht. | | |
| ▲ | dylan604 a day ago | parent [-] | | Rules of the water says smaller ship yields right of way to bigger ship. Sounds like you screwed up if your yacht got hit by a bigger ship. Of course that applies when the vessels are not tied up. If a big ship his a docked boat, that's an entirely different scenario | | |
| ▲ | cdbyr a day ago | parent | next [-] | | There is a whole hierarchy of right of way on the water, but a better rule of thumb is that the less maneuverable boat generally has priority. https://www.whoi.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Abbreviated-... | | |
| ▲ | ta1243 16 hours ago | parent [-] | | And of course there's the old tale: Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision. Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision. Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course. Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course. Americans: This is the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, the second largest ship in the United States' Atlantic fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers and numerous support vessels. I demand that YOU change your course 15 degrees north, that's one five degrees north, or countermeasures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship. Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighthouse_and_naval_vessel_ur... |
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| ▲ | lmm a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Rules of the water says smaller ship yields right of way to bigger ship. Sounds like you screwed up if your yacht got hit by a bigger ship. Not necessarily. Steam is obliged to give way to sail, even when the sailing ship is much smaller. | | |
| ▲ | krisoft 16 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | There is a lovely bit of complication with it! Not saying to correct you, just because i think it is a lovely bit of trivia even though it has nothing to do with space debris. Both sailing and power driven vessels need to give ways to (among other things) “vessel restricted in her ability to maneuver”. And an aircraft carrier launching or recovering aircraft is considered to be restricted in her ability to maneuver (quite rightfully so, it is hard enough to land on them without the ship swerving left and right). So that means that a mighty aircraft carrier needs to (at least according to the regulations) dodge tiny sailing ships, but once they start launching or recovering aircraft it is the responsibility of the sailing ship to avoid them. Source: Rule 18 of the ColRegs (The International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea 1972) | |
| ▲ | dotancohen 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Where do Methalox-powered vehicles lie in this hierarchy? And if the Starship is not under power yet falling and using the flaperons for control, is that considered "under sail" for purposes of right of way? | | |
| ▲ | krisoft 16 hours ago | parent [-] | | For funsies i would call it a “vessel not under command”. At least after the breakup that feels to fit. But for real, i think the simple answer is that debris falling from space is outside of the scope of the ColRegs. Simply speaking they come too fast so you can’t maneuver your vessel out of their way, and unless you are a warship you don’t have the tools to even know where exactly they will hit. If you try to run you might even put yourself in their path. After all from the most unlucky position they would be just bright stationary spots on the sky getting ever so slightly bigger. Until they start to get bigger faster and faster. (Constant bearing and decreasing range being the hallmarks of an impending colision.) |
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| ▲ | hnburnsy a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | https://www.npr.org/2024/06/23/nx-s1-5016923/space-debris-na... | |
| ▲ | delichon a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Musk said that part of the launch licensing was a requirement to estimate the potential damage to whales in the ocean. He said that the odds turned out to be so low that in his opinion if a whale gets hit it had it coming. https://jabberwocking.com/did-elon-musk-really-have-to-study... | | |
| ▲ | slippy a day ago | parent [-] | | If a whale got hit, would the whale be able to file for damages? | | |
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| ▲ | 9cb14c1ec0 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Given that the engine telemetry shown on the broadcast showed the engines going out one by one over a period of some seconds, I could easily imagine some sort of catastrophic failure on a single engine that cascaded. |
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| ▲ | s1artibartfast a day ago | parent | next [-] | | It could be many things, plumbing to the engines, tank leak, ect. You could see fire on the control flap actuators, so the ship interior was engulfed in fire at the same time the first engine was out. | | |
| ▲ | consumer451 a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Given the huge spread of the debris, it must have been a decent sized boom, no? I mean that's got to be 10's of miles wide in this video. https://x.com/adavenport354/status/1880026262254809115 | | |
| ▲ | nialv7 a day ago | parent | next [-] | | do we know when this video was taken? this could just be ship breaking up during re-entry because it lost altitude control. not necessarily the moment of the primary failure. | |
| ▲ | walrus01 a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | the flight termination system is sort of a shaped charge that's designed to rupture the oxidizer and fuel tanks. Even if only a few % fuel remains, it'll be a big boom. | | |
| ▲ | s1artibartfast a day ago | parent | next [-] | | For context, The lower stage reportedly has 150 tons of propellant on board when it lands. | | |
| ▲ | FuriouslyAdrift a day ago | parent [-] | | The whole thing (booster et al) is around 1/3 as tall as the Eiffel tower... for context | | |
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| ▲ | enragedcacti a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | It wasn't FTS, it just blew up: https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1880033318936199643 | | |
| ▲ | oskarkk a day ago | parent | next [-] | | That doesn't explicitly say that it wasn't FTS. Activation of the FTS is never scheduled and it results in rapid disassembly. There's speculation that it flew for a significant time after losing telemetry. FTS is designed to activate if it goes off course (if it's still on course, it's better to keep flying). | | |
| ▲ | mrandish a day ago | parent [-] | | Yeah, I was wondering if it was FTS. I guess it doesn't really matter as FTS is just designed to intentionally cause the same kind of RUD that happened anyway. The main criteria is a RUD sufficient to ensure pieces small enough to burn up on reentry. From the looks of the explosion from the videos helpfully captured from the ground, the RUD certainly looked sufficient. Given it was 146km up at >13,000 mph, rolling down a window would trigger a sufficient RUD. At those speeds, temps and pressures exploding into tiny pieces isn't just easy - it's the default. NOT exploding is much harder! |
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| ▲ | dmix a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Oh interesting, maybe that's why the debris looked so interesting |
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| ▲ | m4rtink a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yeah, most likely engine bay fire taking out systems one by one. Would be interesting to compare the telemetry cutoff with the video of explosion if possible. That could indicate if the fire even triggered an explosion, flight termination being activated or just reentry heating making the tanks explode. | | |
| ▲ | s1artibartfast a day ago | parent [-] | | Who knows where it started, but the fire was definitely in the payload bay in front of the header tanks if seen through the flap actuators during ascent, after speration at ~7:45 min | | |
| ▲ | Culonavirus 18 hours ago | parent [-] | | The single instance of a fire that could be seen in the stream was in the hinge area of a bottom flap. |
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| ▲ | jiggawatts a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | I noticed that the CH4 tank level was much lower than the O2 tank level. That suggests a leak. | | |
| ▲ | dotancohen 19 hours ago | parent [-] | | Or FOD in the LOx supply lines. The methane would keep following, even with the turbopump shut down, until the valve closes. And the methane turbopump might actually keep running with reduced supply oxygen - Raptors have two turbopumps. |
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| ▲ | idlewords a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | There's a flickering flame briefly visible on the flap hinge of the second stage in the last footage it sent down. |
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| ▲ | s1artibartfast a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Most Sci-Fi real footage I have ever seen. Edit: Reminds me of "The Eye" from star wars Andor https://youtu.be/9lrr0CWHDGA?t=43 |
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| ▲ | JumpCrisscross a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Wow. It reminds me of the comet scene from Andor. I wonder if suborbital pyrotechnics will become a thing one day. |
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| ▲ | dylan604 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Watching those videos, my hand naturally looks for the roller ball from too much time playing missile command |
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| ▲ | echoangle a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Probably one of the most expensive fireworks (but probably still cheaper than the first Ariane 5 launch), but it looks very cool. |
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| ▲ | m4rtink a day ago | parent [-] | | I think the N1 test flights are also a contender. I still remember something about kerosene raining for 15 minutes after the explosion. |
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| ▲ | r0m4n0 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Does anyone know the timing of when the breakup actually occurred? I’m curious because I was on a flight to Puerto Rico from Florida at 3pm ET they diverted our flight. They didn’t really give us many details but said the “landing strips were closed”. Our friends on a slightly early flight diverted to ST Thomas. We were going to divert to a nearby airport in Puerto Rico (we were going to land in Aguadilla instead of San Juan) so I feel like these diversions wouldn’t be related but the timing seems pretty odd. |
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| ▲ | krick a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I'm not worried about the Starship itself, but it looks kinda dangerous. Is it? |
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| ▲ | dmix a day ago | parent [-] | | It's very likely it exploded on purpose by SpaceX after it wasn't showing good data (aka Flight Termination System). Specifically over water. |
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| ▲ | 16 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | llm_trw a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Is there a video you don't need to log in to view? |
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| ▲ | nomilk a day ago | parent | next [-] | | The fourth one (instagram) doesn't require login. Side note: annoying that twitter/X requires login. I'd have sworn Elon said he was removing that requirement to login to view tweets (I think he discussed it with George Hotz). Found it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkNkSQ42jg4&t=49m30s Elon: > This is insane. You shouldn't need a twitter account at all unless you need to write something George: > Why did you put the pop up back? Elon: > We should not be prohibiting read-only scroll So there seems to be agreement that twitter shouldn't require an account to read (view) posts. The Twitter Space is from 23 Dec 2022 so perhaps things changed since. | | |
| ▲ | llm_trw a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Instagram requires login. Twitter does not. | | |
| ▲ | numpad0 a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Twitter started requiring login post acquisition. Never did before. | |
| ▲ | dylan604 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I just closed the login prompt for the insta link, and watched the video. So it does prompt one to login, but it definitely isn't required to watch the video from that link | |
| ▲ | nomilk a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | I'd have sworn I was unable to view tweets recently without logging in. But maybe I was wrong. Instagram lets me view the video without login (I have to click the 'X' in the top-right of annoying popup, but I can watch it without logging in). | | |
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| ▲ | krick a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Musk's promises never age well, but, really, this particular dialog should be a meme. |
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| ▲ | mgerdts a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | https://mastodon.social/@BNONews/113840549980938951 | |
| ▲ | hrldcpr a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | for the record I was able to watch without logging in, on Firefox Linux |
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| ▲ | TechTechTech a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Where will this debris land? Can it impact airplane routes? |
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| ▲ | mh- a day ago | parent | next [-] | | https://x.com/DJSnM/status/1880032865209184354 >Commercial flights are turning around to avoid potential debris. | | |
| ▲ | ricardobeat a day ago | parent | next [-] | | That sounds... unlikely, to say the least. The ship blew up at 145km altitude over Turks and Caicos. Debris would fall thousands of kilometers to the east, if anything survives re-entry. EDIT: at these speeds, over 20000km/h, the falling debris will travel a very long way before coming down. For satellite re-entry, the usual estimated ground contact point is something like 8000km+ downrange [1]. There is little chance debris would come anywhere near commercial flight altitude in the area around where the videos were made. Apparently the planned splashdown was in the Indian Ocean near Australia, but this being an uncontrolled re-entry it could be far off from that, in either direction. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009457652... | | |
| ▲ | s1artibartfast a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Im not sure what part you are skeptical about. The debris videos filmed at Turks and Caicos are about 800km east of the explosion video in the Bahamas. They appear to be real. Still high but coming down fast. Airspace is big, but I wouldn't want to fly a Jet with hundreds of people near it either. I imagine aviation radar towers would only have the most limited data as the event unfolded. | | | |
| ▲ | Retric a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Arlines are extremely cautious around these kinds of one off events. It’s not about the calculated risks, but the uncertainty around if they have the right information in the first place. Sure it may have broken up at 145km miles, but what if someone messed up and it actually was 14.5km etc. | | |
| ▲ | rvnx a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Main priority to prevent accidents is to migrate away from this imperial system. | | |
| ▲ | mh- a day ago | parent [-] | | You can forget to carry a 1 in metric, too. | | |
| ▲ | rvnx 14 hours ago | parent [-] | | It won't save everything will will reduce at least two possibles routes of mistake (wrong unit, or imprecise conversion). OP wrote "km miles", which would create an incident. SpaceX uses metric system for that exact reason, because in the past, on Mars, accident happened because of imperial measures. | | |
| ▲ | Retric 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yep, the point of saying “km miles” was the hypothetical uncertainty around units even for European airlines who use metric internationally. However, even within metric might be some question around units. |
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| ▲ | dmurray a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | No, airlines do not build in a safety factor sufficient to cover an important measurement being off by a factor of 10. They don't ground flights because the pilot might load 2,000 litres of fuel instead of 20,000 litres. They don't take evasive action in case the other plane is travelling at 5,000 knots instead of 500 knots. They don't insist on a 30-km runway because the runway published as 3 km might only be 300 metres. | | |
| ▲ | Retric a day ago | parent | next [-] | | You misunderstood what I’m saying. Airlines have systems to validate the amount of fuel loaded and currently aboard aircraft that have been battle tested across decades including fixes due to past issues etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236 They don’t have that level of certainty around what altitude a rocket exploded, or other one off event. | | | |
| ▲ | yuliyp 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Unlike fuel gauges, land surveys, and radar, fast-breaking news of explosions carries a significant risk of mistransmission or inaccuracy. They might know when/where the explosion occurred, but not necessarily have much confidence on how fast debris might have been ejected and in which directions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6hIXB62bUE ATC was being extremely cautious and diverting planes over quite a large area for quite some time to avoid the risk of debris hitting airplanes. | |
| ▲ | andrewflnr 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Can you not understand the difference between a stated measurement of a runway or drain fuel requirement, and a stated location of a unique explosion that happened just a few minutes ago? Are you prepared to bet 200 lives that no one fat-fingered the number? | |
| ▲ | Evidlo a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | What if the information comes outside a system they control or organization they have no prior experience with? |
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| ▲ | jjk166 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > at these speeds, over 20000km/h, the falling debris will travel a very long way before coming down. Without air resistance, falling 145 km takes 172 seconds, which would result in the debris falling 956 km east of the explosion point if it were moving horizontal to the ground to begin with. With air resistance, it is substantially shorter as everything is decelerating proportional to the velocity cubed. If we approximate the terminal velocity of the debris as 500 km/h, to a first order approximation it would travel approximately 79 km east. The distance from West Caicos island to Grand Turk island is 138 km, for reference. Satellites are moving much faster and at much higher altitude. Starship was not in orbit. | |
| ▲ | seb1204 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Certainly causing delays. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01-17/spacex-launch-to-go-a... | | | |
| ▲ | mh- a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I'm not at all qualified to speculate. So I'll just add that for those unfamiliar with him, the person who posted that tweet is an astrophysicist with a popular YT channel. | |
| ▲ | m4rtink a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yeah, most likely an understandable overreacting givent the fireworks. But better safe than sorry in this case. :-) |
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| ▲ | lysace a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | mh- a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Can we not do this on HN, please? | | |
| ▲ | lysace a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Funny HN design detail: Once a comment has been added to a comment, the original commenter can't delete it's comment. Sometimes this is counterproductive to the goal of HN. | | |
| ▲ | mh- a day ago | parent [-] | | It is unfortunate sometimes. Probably a net gain to the signal-to-noise ratio, though? | | |
| ▲ | lysace a day ago | parent [-] | | I think it's a bad design. There should be a window of a few minutes to override it. I made a rash comment (not a very bad one, but I introduced politics for no reason), very quickly regretted it, but you were faster. Now many people will read this idiotic exchange instead of doing something more productive. |
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| ▲ | a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | s1artibartfast a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | upvoted and flagged. | | |
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| ▲ | s1artibartfast a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | east of Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean. Draw a line from Boca Chia to Turks and keep going | | | |
| ▲ | kylebenzle a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | HN comments is just reading strangers steam of consciousness now? | | |
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| ▲ | hinkley a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It’s crazy how fast that ship is moving and how big the explosion was that it looks like something much, much lower in the air went boom. It was transitting the sky faster than a commercial aircraft does. So it gives an impression more like a private aircraft breaking up at 5-10k feet. |
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| ▲ | teractiveodular a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The last one is stage separation, not an explosion. You can clearly see the "exploded" rocket continuing to fly afterwards. |
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| ▲ | olex a day ago | parent | next [-] | | Separation is much closer to the launch pad in Texas, the booster barely makes it downrange at all before turning around. This being filmed from the Bahamas with this much lateral velocity, gotta be the Ship breaking up. Likely the FTS triggered after enough engines failed that it couldn't make orbit / planned trajectory. | |
| ▲ | s1artibartfast a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I dont think so. I think it is the breakup, with a large mass visible. most of the material will continue on until it parabolically renters and burns up in a visible manner | |
| ▲ | Polizeiposaune a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | No, if that was taken from the Bahamas, that's an explosion connected to the loss of the 2nd stage. Staging happens closer to the Texas coast and I don't believe you'd have line of sight to it from the Bahamas. | | |
| ▲ | pixl97 a day ago | parent [-] | | I'd say it might be after the loss of the craft. It was losing engines for a while then lost telemetry. This would have been a bit later when it started tumbling in the atmosphere on re-entry. Hopefully we'll know for sure in a few days. |
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| ▲ | walrus01 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That's for sure not stage separation, that's an explosion from the FTS rupturing the ship tanks. | | |
| ▲ | ericcumbee a day ago | parent | next [-] | | If it was the FTS wouldn't the flight control systems send a message back to the ground saying "things are going sideways here, FTS Activated" | | |
| ▲ | anothertroll456 a day ago | parent [-] | | Maybe it did, or is it public that it didn't? A possible sequence (very typical in rocket failures) is: fire, engine failure(s), loss of control, rupture due to aero forces or FTS activation, explosion due to propellant mixture. Not all of these have to happen, but it's a typical progression. Before the days of AFTS the FTS activation would be pretty delayed. |
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| ▲ | pixl97 a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Eh I'm thinking more it was a reentry explosion from pressurized tanks. Engines had failed a while before then. | | |
| ▲ | s1artibartfast a day ago | parent [-] | | This is over the Bahamas. Re-entry was much further east, near Turks and Caicos Islands. Also, if a pressurized tank is reentering, that means the FTS failed to detonate. |
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| ▲ | anothertroll456 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Nope. That's definitely an explosion (source: I'm in the rocket business). However it may not be an explosion of the whole stage. Probably of the engine section. | | | |
| ▲ | oo2312 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [dead] | |
| ▲ | oo2312 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [dead] | |
| ▲ | oo2312 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [dead] | |
| ▲ | xjiaw23 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [dead] | |
| ▲ | oo2312 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [dead] | |
| ▲ | oo2312 a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | oceanadventures a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I have a boat and want to pick up floating heat tiles in the ocean, do you think we can find the parts by Puerto Rico? |
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| ▲ | raincole a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Does anyone know where the debris landed? In the ocean? Or just burnt out in the atmosphere? |
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| ▲ | tjpnz 17 hours ago | parent [-] | | Wasn't going fast enough to fully burn up. There'll be small pieces of debris scattered over quite a large area. |
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| ▲ | oceanadventures a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Where can I find the heat tiles? Will they be landing near Puerto Rico? |
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| ▲ | cubefox a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| More views: https://youtube.com/watch?v=-S8CK6LgnD4 https://x.com/DavidCaroe/status/1880036195985682710 |
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| ▲ | RecycledEle a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I think this was the first test of StarShip v2. I'd be surprised if everything worked after they redesigned the whole StarShip. That would be like refactoring Microsoft Windows by hand-typing new code and expecting it to run without errors on the first try. |
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| ▲ | rkagerer 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| What a show |
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| ▲ | ijidak a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE54iL7xbZL/?igsh=dTNtZ2Q4aHl... It's beautiful. Looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. |
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| ▲ | inglor_cz a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Looks like work of the Flight Termination System. Something measurable had to go very wrong. |
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| ▲ | olex a day ago | parent | next [-] | | While the telemetry was still going, you could see Ship engines going out one by one. Earlier when there was video there was what looked like flames visible inside one of the flap hinges, definitely shouldn't be there on ascent. Presumably something failed internally and caused the Ship to shut down before reaching target trajectory, at which point either FTS or the failure itself caused it to blow up, as seen on the Insta reel. | | |
| ▲ | enraged_camel a day ago | parent [-] | | On the NSF youtube channel they pointed out that at some point the methane indicator started decreasing much faster than the LOX indicator, which points to some sort of leak. It would explain why the engines started to shut down. |
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| ▲ | JumpCrisscross a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Something measurable had to go very wrong Or slightly wrong. An FTS is programmed to be conservative. Particularly on unmanned flights. Doubly particularly on reëntry. Triply so on experiments bits. | | | |
| ▲ | enragedcacti a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | It wasn't FTS, it just blew up: https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1880033318936199643 | | |
| ▲ | anothertroll456 a day ago | parent [-] | | That doesn't negate FTS. | | |
| ▲ | enragedcacti a day ago | parent [-] | | Imo if SpaceX thought it was possibly FTS they wouldn't say RUD. They still had telemetry for multiple seconds as it pitched wildly and engines failed, if FTS didn't trigger then it probably didn't at all. | | |
| ▲ | anothertroll456 a day ago | parent [-] | | Yeah I thought about that some more and at that altitude and speed the FTS is usually already deactivated. |
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| ▲ | a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | tsimionescu 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Another failure, another few months of figuring out why this isn't working and can't stick to its flight path. They caused chaos for many commercial planes, so they'll definitely need some full reports to the FTA to know what they're doing about this, why the debris is falling over flight paths, and so on. |
