SpaceX Starship Test Rocket Was Knocked Over By High Winds (popularmechanics.com)

Strong Texas winds managed to knock over SpaceX's prototype of its next-generation Starship rocket. In a tweet, CEO Elon Musk tweeted yesterday: "50 mph winds broke the mooring blocks late last night & fairing was blown over. Will take a few weeks to repair." He added: "Actual [fuel] tanks are fine." Popular Mechanics reports: The hopper, based out of the company's launch site in Boca Chica, Texas, is not meant for the stars: It is a test machine meant to show that the Starship's fundamentals can work in terms of launching and landing. SpaceX wants the rocket to go 16,400 feet into the air (a hop, so to speak) and land again. The wind, sadly, had other plans and knocked the hopper's nosecone around.

The accident appears to have first reached the public through eagle-eyed SpaceX aficionados on a message board which updates with even the smallest changes in anything related to the company's plans. Their methods include everything from drone flyovers to driving by the site. It's hard to tell what damage has precisely happened to the hopper in its fall, but it appears to be more complex than simply righting back up again.

Comments

Let's be clear about this: it's half-assed

[Bruce Perens]

I am a big fan of Elon Musk, Tesla, and SpaceX. That said, this is the most half-assed project I've seen them do, and that includes the Monty-Python-esque brick tower constructed for Boring company for which they advertised a position for someone to be at the top and yell abuse in an outrageous french accent. I assume this person was in the Tesla lay-offs.

Its construction was like that of a film set, and like a film set it got blown over in the first high wind. Inside there is a triangular truss structure like that on one of those overhead signs that spans a wide highway. This is the only structural component. Hung off of that is crinkly thin stainless steel skin attached to a structure made out of rebar. I kid you not. So, the skin has the approximate wind profile that it should (oops!) and most importantly, it looks cool!

Well, not as cool as a real space rocket.

Now, I know the job of this other than looking cool is to allow them to test the landing guidance software with the approximately right sized object, and these things tend to blow up and crash so it's OK to make it to be disposable. But they have now learned that you need a hurricane-proof building if you are going to do this on the extreme south coast of Texas right on the water! Or at least guy wires.

I'm sure they'll have another one in less than two months. It'll be interesting seeing it "hop".