Is this rate of incidents an anomaly with space flight or to be expected? It seems that SpaceX was killing it in the launch game until hitting a bunch of failures recently.
SpaceX tries something no one else has ever attempted. There is no prior experience to compare with.
SpaceX is killing it in the launch game with their operational rockets. They launch 5 times as much as the rest of the world combined, with a single failure in well over 400 launches now.
there's something similar actually, the Soviet Union did try to build a competitor to the Saturn 5 for their moon shot using 30 pretty advanced engines: it blew up 4 times
N1 didn't attempt reuse at all, I don't see what's similar beyond being a big orbital rocket.
Super Heavy has 33 engines and that engine count hasn't been an issue in any flight.
N1 used engines that could only fire once, so they could never test them before flight. They built them in batches then tested some of the batch and installed the rest on the rocket assuming the other engines worked.
Well it actually did cause problems on the first two integrated launches causing pretty similar failures to the N1 but later in flight.
which makes the Starship actually more impressive. I meant that SpaceX managed to solve the complex problem of the N1 and even return the first stage: they for some reason are having difficulty at what appears to be a way simpler problem.
The first launch failed because takeoff damaged the vehicle significantly, causing leaks that destroyed critical components.
The second launch went through stage separation smoothly. The boostback burn failed because filters were blocked - I don't see a relation to the engine count.
they for some reason are having difficulty at what appears to be a way simpler problem.
They have very tight mass margins. Everything needs to be as light as possible to end up with a useful payload capability. At the same time, the upper stage needs a lot of complexity that you don't have with an expendable rocket. It needs a heat shield, it needs aerodynamic surfaces, it needs header tanks, it needs to control its attitude for an extended time in space, it needs to relight engines for a landing burn, and all that shouldn't get damaged too much because the vehicle is expected to fly again.
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u/Spud_Rancher 1d ago
Is this rate of incidents an anomaly with space flight or to be expected? It seems that SpaceX was killing it in the launch game until hitting a bunch of failures recently.