There is a "Debris Hotline". Actually, two, it seems:
https://www.cameroncounty.us/spacex-debris-hotline/https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacex/2015/06/29/spacex-debris-recovery-hotline/
The latter is from 2015 (CRS-7 mission).
Reinhard
There is a "Debris Hotline". Actually, two, it seems:
https://www.cameroncounty.us/spacex-debris-hotline/https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacex/2015/06/29/spacex-debris-recovery-hotline/
I wonder if they wished they had waited for the fog to lift, so they could get better images of the flight?
I took some screen grabs from the video, it sure looks like it was a burn through or fuel line maybe.Currently rumors point towards SN11 being unable to land safely on the pad due to engine failure, leading to activation of flight termination system.
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=53270.msg2213291#msg2213291https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=53270.msg2213559#msg2213559
So far, some kind of engine issue - wether internal or triggered by fuel supply issues - seems to be the main issue with the current state of the Starship test campaign. That's not limited to flights. It's a regular occurrence, that SpaceX swaps at least one engine between the first static fire and flight.
Reinhard
I took some screen grabs from the video, it sure looks like it was a burn through or fuel line maybe.View attachment 457650View attachment 457651View attachment 457652
I was wondering the same thing. It seemed too localised, not like some of the flash-fires that happen when a pocket of gas catches fire momentarily.I took some screen grabs from the video, it sure looks like it was a burn through or fuel line maybe.
Seriously? I'm willing to bet a lot of money that in no way was he suggesting that the explosion was what he was hoping for, or that he was glad it exploded instead of landing.Sorry, I got really "ticked" when within a couple of minutes of the explosion, one of the "expert commentators" on NASAspacelfight talked about the "awesome" explosion.
Hopefully, the flight termination uplink is extremely well encrypted.Currently rumors point towards SN11 being unable to land safely on the pad due to engine failure, leading to activation of flight termination system.
Scott Manley's take on the SN-11 explosion. Bottom line, he has some theories but nothing seems to quite fit or make enough sense. But he is pretty sure it was not an automated self-destruct, as some had claimed elsewhere.
Well, I heard the part where he related that SpaceX said it was not a self destruct. I was playing the video as I was making dinner so apparently missed him concluding that it had to be a self destruct.Odd, that's not what I understood him to say. From my viewing, Manley repeated that the SpaceX folks are quite insistent that it wasn't an automated self-destruct, but Manley himself didn't seem quite so convinced. He left open the possibility that the self-destruct might have, somehow, happened without telemetry that told SpaceX that it was happening and he did suggest that an automated self-destruct would fit well with what we know of the debris disbursement and the condition of fuel tanks, etc. Given the visible evidence, Manley seemed surprised that SpaceX was insisting that it *wasn't* a self-destruct.
My understanding is that the term "Hard Start" as it is used in regards to rocket engines, is an over-pressurization at start up. This may or may not be enough to cause the engine to "Blow up".The big piece of new info is that it includes a tweet by Elon Musk that when engine #2 was re-ignited for landing, it exploded (well, he wrote “hard start”. ... ).
So, unless Elon Musk was being misleading or obtuse*, engine 2 blew up, causing SN-11 to blow up .
My understanding is that the term "Hard Start" as it is used in regards to rocket engines, is an over-pressurization at start up. This may or may not be enough to cause the engine to "Blow up".
During NRO launches, they didn't broadcast their usual on-board videos and I hope they weren't stupid enough to send THAT telemetry unencrypted, but if they have always HAD an encryption option in their downlink hardware and firmware, why would they not encrypt even for unclassified launches if the capability was already there? To not allow adversaries to obtain encrypted samples for analysis on a regular basis?Scott Manley's take on the SN-11 explosion. Bottom line, he has some theories but nothing seems to quite fit or make enough sense. But he is pretty sure it was not an automated self-destruct, as some had claimed elsewhere.
Bah! We model rocketeers have been flying reusable rockets for decades.Five years ago - the first barge landing for SpaceX. Article at Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/science/202...-a-boat-five-years-ago-it-changed-everything/
What's the big deal? You pull the fish and seaweed out of the fairing then let it dry."Elon Musk confirms that SpaceX is done trying to catch its rocket components"
https://bgr.com/2021/04/09/spacex-f...rLlVaSdSRGYHKQ1HrwO4H8bl1eWSMZzijQSXe5-oBH5Qs
So, they will still retrieve the fairing halves, just not try ot catch them to keep them dry anymore (They have hired/leased a new ship to do that, to get both faring per trip). SpaceX customers do not want to deal with the potential contamination issues of fairings that have landed in the ocean. But since SpaceX is flying more payloads now than any customers, they will keep on reusing the fairings that landed wet, which also avoided damage.
I still think this woulda worked better.....with a grappling hook.....
"Gerstenmaier said engineers discovered the liquid oxygen discrepancy after bad weather interrupted a test of a Falcon 9 booster in Texas.
“We changed some of the configuration, and that gave us some insight we don’t normally get, and we got to see that the amount of oxidizer that we had loaded into the tank was a little bit different than what we had analyzed it to be,” Gerstenmaier said. “For the first time, we saw a small difference in loaded oxidizer. Because of that difference, we want to investigate that some more and look at the consequences of what that could mean. This is a configuration we’ve flown in for all our flights, so it’s not something new to us.”
Gerstenmaier characterized the issue as small. He said the propellant level in the Falcon 9 liquid oxygen tank was about 3 to 4 inches different than SpaceX expected, but added that engineers were “still studying to see if it’s really real, and the actual magnitude.” the issue was only found on the Falcon 9 first stage, according to Gerstenmaier."
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