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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.
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.
came down and smited thee.
IDK. Maybe because he can land a rocket when the rest of us can't even do a water bottle flip.
Well, duh, it wasn't built to withstand winds - there's no air in space! :-O
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I went inside of the Rotron one day in Mojave about 10 years ago. It was standing on display next to a video kiosk, and they put the PC controlling the kiosk in the rotron, and that day the PC guy had left the door on the bottom of the Rotron unlocked. Of course some things could have been removed from the Rotron by then, but the inside was hollow. A few small tanks, and the control cab way up where I couldn't reach it. Birds were nesting in it.
Bruce Perens.
So far, SpaceX are the only folks we can trust to even have manned flights. Orion is an albatross about NASA's neck and needs to be cancelled ASAP. NASA should no longer make its own rockets. Takes 10 times as long and 100 times as expensive, and they killed their share of astronauts with really stupid stuff. Every time was "go fever" and acceptance of known problems with the craft that should have stopped flight. Did you know the tank stirrer that blew up the SM in Apollo 13 was already scheduled to be removed from future vehicles? Boeing may get their stuff together eventually with CST-100. Blue Origin is still suborbital-only for years. Sierra Nevada is going really slowly. I don't think you can judge SpaceX's preparation for mann
Bruce Perens.
Oops. That should say: I don't think you can judge SpaceX's preparation for manned flights by this sort of demo.
Bruce Perens.
It wasn't attached to the bottom of the rocket, though, which is bolted to concrete. I'm not sure it was even standing, it might have been already on its side for installation of the tank bulkheads, which had been seen there recently. That would have been a really weak position to be in the wind.
Bruce Perens.
Are you for real? This is a test article. The sort of thing you normally paint in yellow-and-black crosshatched crash testing paint. It'll be a miracle if this thing survives to the end of the testing period, by design. Its only purpose is to be something quickly and cheaply built to collect data for the actual rocket.
And what was destroyed was simply the fairing (read: nosecone), not the actual rocket part (tankage, plumbing, engines, etc). The fairing is far lighter (just very thin sheet steel tacked onto a lightweight frame), and thus vulnerable to winds. The base, while it has the same sheet steel tacked on, is built around a heavy steel framework designed for holding liquids. They may look aesthetically similar, but they're very different.
Remember that everything you're seeing here only started being built in December. This is not some sort of two-year setback.
"Are you hungry? I haven't eaten since later this afternoon." -- Primer
On purpose. The reentry system being tested for Starship is very different from any other ever used. Normally the goal is to radiate heat, so you want a high emissivity (generally black) material. Starship (the actual vehicle, not this test hopper) on the other hand is designed to never get excessively hot in the first place - a double-layer skin with liquid between the layers and the outer layer perforated by tiny holes, through which heated coolant can vaporize out (creating a protective boundary layer while simultaneously removing heat). So the goal is to reject heat rather than absorb-then-radiate it. This means a low emissivity material, which generally means "shiny". :)
It's still going to get tremendously hot, of course - the craft is being designed for direct aerocapture from MTO. So alumium is right out. But stainless is such a great material for so many reasons... most of which is its resilience. Something which carbon fibre isn't, and a big reason I was very apprehensive about SpaceX's original BFR design. It's also 1/50th the cost, comparably easy to work with, and people who know how to do so are a dime a dozen. It's strong, very inert (even in hostile environments), and with the right alloy retains its resilience even at cryogenic temperatures, while its tensile strength only grows. I'm very happy with the switch. Heck, it's even higher-Z, meaning it'll be more effective at blocking solar radiation (won't do much against GCR except kick off secondary radiation, but GCR is a far lower flux).
"Are you hungry? I haven't eaten since later this afternoon." -- Primer