Explosion's Lessons: 4 Notable Alterations in SpaceX's Starship Rocket System 🚀📚🌟

Since the last rocket explosion, SpaceX has made significant improvements to its Starship launch system, and it is poised to put them to the test.

 

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The latest additions, some of which are enormous facilities that can be seen in images, may aid in the world's biggest and most potent rocket's eventual insertion into orbit.

 

The odds are against us. Elon Musk, the CEO, is depending on Starship to bring people to Mars. NASA has also given the business billions of dollars to return people to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years.

 

Prior to its next flight, the business has been working quickly to fix the problems in its flagship rocket. Three minutes after launch, Starship's first attempt ended in midair explosion. It blew a hole through its launchpad, spewing debris all around, some of which is said to have fallen on a nearby small hamlet.

 

Since then, the rocket has undergone more than a thousand modifications, and as of late, Musk declared it to be "ready to launch" once more.

 

1. To test a dangerous new manoeuvre, SpaceX installed a vent between the rocket and the booster.
 

 

Between the two stages of their rocket, SpaceX installed a vent. This demonstrates a risky adjustment for its upcoming flight: hot staging.

 

The Starship spaceship and its booster, the Super Heavy booster, make comprise SpaceX's massive Starship mega-rocket.

 

The system is lifted off the ground and through the densest portions of Earth's atmosphere by the booster, which produces an enormous amount of thrust. Miles above the earth, the spacecraft finally detaches from the launcher and takes off on its own.

 

According to Abhi Tripathi, a former mission director for SpaceX's Dragon spaceship, "the main engines on the booster stage come to a stop, then the second stage lights up after it has been separated" on conventional rockets.

 

But Tripathi, who is currently the Director of Mission Operations at the University of California Berkeley's Space Sciences Laboratory, said that during Starship's subsequent launch, the spacecraft will begin lighting its engines "while still essentially connected" to its rocket.

 

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In order to let the flames to escape and prevent the rocket from "just blowing itself up," Starship attached vents and robust heat shields to the top of the booster, according to Musk, who explained this in a live chat with journalist Ashlee Vance on X in June.

 

The benefit of this strategy, according to Musk, is that it gives the spaceship a modest but significant boost and raises the rocket's payload by around 10%.

 

Hot staging may increase the chance of the booster being damaged by flames, which is a trade-off for a business that wants to reuse its booster, according to Tripathi.

 

 

 

Why then did SpaceX choose to assume the possible risk? Tripathi speculated that their rocket had likely grown to be excessively heavy.

 

2. Improved safeguards against booster damage

 

The first Starship test flight appeared to be going exceptionally well to the untrained eye until the rocket unexpectedly caught fire. But before to the explosion, there were indications that something was off.

 

 

 

A graphic of the rocket's 33 raptor engines was shown during the live feed of the flight. This revealed that two engines died mid-flight, a third flickered intermittently, and three engines were already off when the flight began.

 

The fact that Starship is so strong that it could still reach orbit with less than full effort makes a few engine failures during a trip not a major deal, according to Tripathi.

 

However, that was a sign that something wasn't right with the booster. A fuel leak inside the booster, according to a statement later made public by SpaceX, was what started the flames. According to the statement, as a result, SpaceX lost contact with the rocket's main flight computer "and, ultimately, control of the vehicle."

 

Tripathi replied, "That's not good if something cascades from the engine to knock out the brains of your rocket."

 

The wider story here, according to Tripathi, is that SpaceX likely overestimated the shielding required to protect its rocket from the force of its own engines.

 

According to Tripathi, SpaceX probably had to strengthen the booster's component shielding in order to handle this. More technologies to manage flames onboard, according to the business, are being added.

 

According to Tripathi, all of this adds weight, which is probably why SpaceX had to switch to hot staging.

 

 

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3. An improved self-destruct mechanism?

 

Around 2 minutes 45 into the test flight, SpaceX engineers' raucous cheers were replaced by tense murmurs.

 

The rocket should have disengaged from its booster, but it was obvious that it had failed. It lost control for roughly a minute before exploding into a massive fireball.

 

But the fact that the explosion did not occur instantly is a significant issue.

 

 

 

A self-destruct device on the Starship can be configured to trigger automatically if something goes wrong. The rocket's explosives were set off by that system, known as the Autonomous Flight Safety System (AFSS), but only after a "unexpected delay," according to a statement released by SpaceX on September 8.

 

This indicates that the AFSS system did not function as it should have, which is a problem that the FAA would have regarded extremely seriously.

 

For security concerns, SpaceX is not permitted to disclose much about the upgrades, according to Tripathi. The business, however, has acknowledged that it has "enhanced and requalified the AFSS to improve system reliability."

 

4. On the launchpad, a "giant upside-down shower head"

 

 

Concrete and other debris were scattered over the launch site in Boca Chica, Texas, when the rocket ruptured its launchpad during its April launch.

 

According to an earlier Bloomberg article, the debris covered 385 acres, including some state park territory, and the launch also started a 3.5-acre fire in a state park to the south.

 

Local environmental organisations were outraged by this and sued the FAA for their monitoring of the launch.

 

 

 

The issue, according to Tripathi, is that SpaceX didn't construct a flame diverter at Boca Chica. In order to send flames hundreds of yards away, a flame diverter is composed of a number of enormous tunnels that are often erected beneath launchpads.

 

It's not immediately evident why this hasn't been done, but Tripathi speculated that it might have something to do with the fact that Starbase sits close to a natural reserve.

 

Instead, SpaceX chose to test whether they could contain the fires with just a thick concrete launchpad for Starship's first test flight.

 

As everyone could see, Tripathi stated, "That calculation did not go right."

 

SpaceX has chosen to modify its strategy ahead of the subsequent launch by including what Musk referred to as a "water-cooled steel sandwich" on the launch pad, he told Vance in June.

 

 

 

The pad has now been equipped with two substantial steel plates and a water deluge system, which Musk described as a "giant upside-down shower head."

 

He explained to Vance that the device would essentially blow water upwards while the rocket was above the launch pad to combat the intense heat from the booster.

 

—SpaceX on July 28, 2023 (@SpaceX)
35,300 cubic feet of high-strength concrete have also been used to fortify the launchpad.

 

This strategy has generated worries of its own because, according to a recent report from CNBC, the water used to cool the pad may qualify as "industrial process water" in the US, which is subject to strict regulation.

 

In a statement to CNBC, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) stated that SpaceX had not requested licences to manage that water and that "no determination" had been reached as to whether the conduct violated environmental regulations.

 

 

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Will Starship fly despite the FAA's green light?

 

The FAA has stated that it is prepared to permit SpaceX to fly once more, more than four months after the initial launch.

 

As is customary when a mission doesn't go as planned, a mishap inquiry was opened following the test flight that was cancelled in April. Now that the investigation is through, SpaceX has probably already implemented the improvements the government requested, according to Tripathi.

 

Acting Administrator Polly Trottenberg told reporters on Wednesday that the FAA is "optimistic" that a launch licence will be granted "sometime next month," according to Reuters.

 

Starship hasn't yet reached orbit, though.

 

Before issuing a new licence, the FAA must still examine the modifications made to the Starship launch system. The administration wrote to Insider in an email that this includes an evaluation of the new launchpad system's environmental impact.

 

Delays might also result from the lawsuit brought up against how the FAA handled the environmental review of Starship. For the Centre for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against the FAA, this case "has the potential to delay launches, but only if we bring a motion for an injunction, which we have not done yet," Jared M. Margolis, a Senior Attorney, told Insider.