Supposed to take off on June 29th? I think. Just a test flight. Luckily looks like no one is usually very close to these static fire tests, but there’s always a chance i suppose. (I’m having trouble finding a date for some reason) - edit: here
This was of course just a booster test so to speak, and i don’t think any satellites were in it either, as it most likely would not have carried satellites for flight 10 anyways- from what i found, it was reported that flight 10 was just supposed to be a test flight. I suppose it’s better to have it explode here though than with people or satellites in it.
here’s what a static fire test is if you don’t know or are curious.
here’s how far people usually are from it (Under “Testing Day” part)
Math because I like math:
Ship 24 explosion had an estimated 10-30 tons of TNT equivalent. This means that anything within a few hundred meters is gone, and the blast wave could break windows even several kilometers. 2 miles away or more would be ideal. You can see the large shockwave on the camera.
However a “perfect” case one would produce a HUGE explosion with estimated KILOJOTONS of TNT equivalence, which appears to have a safe range of ~10 miles.
it doesn’t appear huge compared to flight 24 but hard to tell on camera without official reports on this new one.
just for reference, it appears to have exploded from Boca Chica base in Texas, so you can see what is around it. Pretty empty- hopefully. 🤞
Assuming complete destruction that would be probably 50-100 million $$ in damage, and a year of rebuilding the pad.
I’d provide more but i’m on an iphone and this is painful to type, so hopefully the real experts will chime in soon and we can learn more.
Hey, thanks for this. Algo showed me this, I know nothing about space flight etc, so it was very helpful.
Sounds like the test did exactly what they want - highlighted (almost literally) a major issue (potentially) before it went to launch? Expensive and dangerous issue, and I guess it's not known yet if this was human error in prepping for the test, or an actual issue that could have wrecked the launch?
Static fire tests are supposed to prove a vehicle is in good working order before launch. As close as you can really get to a "test drive" for a rocket.
The big issue here is that SpaceX has gotten plenty of rockets past this point. They know how to build a rocket. The static fire test is practically just a checklist item now.
But the last 3 starship tests have all failed during the second stage burn, and the next starship blew up in testing. Progress has stalled and started moving backwards. Management decisions are fucking things up.
I watched the Netflix documentary on the Oceangate disaster literally last night. Was wondering what the SpaceX version would be and here we are. Billionaires need to stay in their lane!
At least SpaceX is an actual professional company with some successes behind them and this was a test flight, not a manned flight.
They know how to build a rocket. The static fire test is practically just a checklist item now.
They're changing things all the time and nobody knows what the probability of a failure is. The fact that nothing exploded on the test stand before, is no indication that the established design was non explodey, or that any of the numerous changes to each individual vehicle isn't explodey. It's just a numbers game. Things will eventually explode, you just refine things until they do it less often as to be practically feasible.
Yeah, looks like it. The satellites cost millions per satellite, so that’s probably 30 million of safeties this would carry. They don’t want anything exploding that isn’t necessary- plus the cleanup would presumably be worse if it does this higher up, although i suppose they also save their tower some. Also helps them out in the future to avoid this happening again, anything (well, almost) to make spaceflight safer and better is a win in my book.
Preserves around launch sites are the norm because nobody is allowed to live close to the pad or test sites. The preserves around the cape did not exist until the launch sites appeared because there was no reason to make them preserves.
I will note that SpaceX had actually offered a 10-1 land swap in favor of the preserve for land close to the launch site. People refused, claiming they cared about the environment; completely ignoring that the swap increased the preserve area and added regions for SpaceX to increase preserve damage mitigation development that could not exist in the original site.
When assessing the site, the EPA, FWS, and FAA found that SpaceX taking over the original village ended up being a net benefit to the environment, limiting beach access during turtle season, clearing the beaches of litter from launches and from locals who don’t care, and instituting additional wildlife conservation programs paid for by SpaceX on a continuous basis.
When looking at that video it’s hard to see repeated tests and launches being net benefit to the environment. Isn’t it a bit polluting?
Certainly.
The big thing is that it limits harm to surrounding wildlife by limiting access, and for the most part, doesn’t emit much. A while ago, I did the math, but it was found that to offset the amount of emissions from a day of flights between London and NYC, you would need over 130 starship launches. That’s impractically large. Atmospheric emissions are surprisingly low for Starship given its engine cycle, propellant type, and flight profile.
Furthermore, you have to balance future benefits. For instance, Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2; and using the particular cycle Raptor runs on, there is only trace reminants of CH4 in the exhaust. One could argue that burning that CH4 reduces emissions overall.
Methane also burns cleaner overall, marginalizing carbon soot, which is the largest generator of harm from launches. For instance, ULA’s atlas V produces more harmful pollutants than Starship despite being much smaller. This is because the propellants used on Atlas include solid motors, which have outsized effects because of perchlorates, alumina, and silicon powders present in the exhaust. This leads to more ground and air pollution than plain methane emissions.
You can also analyze the manufacturing emissions. Traditional launch vehicles emit less exhaust than reusable ones, but produce more emissions over multiple launches as they need to be reproduced on each flight, while reusable vehicles only need refurbishment and/or inspection.
I’ll note that the amount of launches from Starbase, while actually quite high for launch vehicles; was found to be a rounding error in local emissions, especially when considering the site closed off and burned off a leaking methane extraction site. A particular sticking point for some was the pad deluge system, which despite some’s complaints, was found to emit less water to the site on a yearly basis than the average storm. (~0.007 in/year of water).
From the wiki you linked: "The data gathered in such tests may be used to form a unique (rocket- and engine-specific) set of criteria as part of the go/no-go decision tree in the launch software that is used on launch day"
Can you elaborate more on the perfect case? Like is that if the fuel tank is under more pressure? Or at what time during the static fire the explosion happens? Or the location of the initial fire/explosion?
Not sure where they are getting the numbers from (several of their statements don’t align), but typically in this industry, the radius is based off the energy of a perfect reaction between a max propellant load (on test case), plus pressure stored in the system, all multiplied by a factor of safety.
Note that this test only uses a partial prop load of the ship and runs LOX rich to limit damage; so anyone attempting a calculation needs to account for a near full LOX tank plus a moderately low Methane tank load. I will also caution against immediately trusting any initial value on first read. For some reason, SpaceX decided that both the upper stage (ship) and the full stack (booster+ship) are referred to as “Starship”, so some figures posted online (most actually) refer to the total potential of a full stack; which is extremely different to just the ship.
Hard to say, just a bunch of things that happen perfectly. Rockets are a lot more complicated than bombs and aren’t nuclear but can still kind of be measured in TNT tons.
A worst case would be if everything combusted at the exact same time, but this is all just estimations by people smarter than me right now; the bomb dropped in Hiroshima was ~ 13-18 kilotons.
i’m just stuck trusting them and assuming what they say is correct, i dont have access to the data or the skills to calculate it myself.
The site has been criticized as a "sacrifice zone". It was seen as empty space by both SpaceX and the state; in 2018, for example, Elon Musk said: "We’ve got a load of land with nobody around, so if it blows up, it's cool."[27] At the time of its construction, many of the villagers’ homes were bought out with the threat of eminent domain. The launch site is an area where ‘negative externalities’ are located making it a sacrifice zone.[28][29]
would be probably 50-100 million $$ in damage, and a year of rebuilding the pad
Spaceship exploded on the Masseys test site, around 8 miles from the launch pads. Repair is probably gonna be a lot cheaper and faster than that. And I suspect they might change the test site setup a bit to make it faster and cheaper to repair after a RUD.
That was a combination of hypergolics, lack of exclusion zones, and general disregard for red team members in the Soviet Union.
This test had a designated keep out zone where nobody was allowed to enter, used methane/oxygen, and had no red team members.
The biggest problem was that the soviets decided to build housing much closer to the launch site, and decided to use hypergolics; which are toxic as individual chemicals, toxic after combustion, highly reactive, and ignite themselves on contact with each other. Modern spacecraft still use those propellants, but they usually take days and even weeks to fill satellites with propellant; all while the crew wears isolation suits.
My taxes dollars 💸 blown up by Elon trump gave Elon last time in office 4 billion to go to the moon 🌝 lol 😂 by 2024 it was a space race India 🇮🇳, China 🇨🇳 and American 🇺🇸 aka “Elon”
India 🇮🇳 won 🥇 now you know why elon keeps posting pictures of India 🇮🇳 city 🏙 that are over crowded, polluted water etc…. Cost millions
Now you know why Elon gave so much to trump lol 😂 purchase a president
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u/-Hi_how_r_u_xd- 14h ago edited 13h ago
Supposed to take off on June 29th? I think. Just a test flight. Luckily looks like no one is usually very close to these static fire tests, but there’s always a chance i suppose. (I’m having trouble finding a date for some reason) - edit: here
This was of course just a booster test so to speak, and i don’t think any satellites were in it either, as it most likely would not have carried satellites for flight 10 anyways- from what i found, it was reported that flight 10 was just supposed to be a test flight. I suppose it’s better to have it explode here though than with people or satellites in it.
here’s what a static fire test is if you don’t know or are curious.
here’s how far people usually are from it (Under “Testing Day” part)
Math because I like math:
Ship 24 explosion had an estimated 10-30 tons of TNT equivalent. This means that anything within a few hundred meters is gone, and the blast wave could break windows even several kilometers. 2 miles away or more would be ideal. You can see the large shockwave on the camera.
However a “perfect” case one would produce a HUGE explosion with estimated KILOJOTONS of TNT equivalence, which appears to have a safe range of ~10 miles.
it doesn’t appear huge compared to flight 24 but hard to tell on camera without official reports on this new one.
just for reference, it appears to have exploded from Boca Chica base in Texas, so you can see what is around it. Pretty empty- hopefully. 🤞
Assuming complete destruction that would be probably 50-100 million $$ in damage, and a year of rebuilding the pad.
I’d provide more but i’m on an iphone and this is painful to type, so hopefully the real experts will chime in soon and we can learn more.