2023-04-20 20:05:18
Although the expectation was high, the probability that the Starship would not complete its first integrated flight test was very high. Also that it ended up exploding, as it finally happened a few minutes after takeoff this Thursday from Boca Chica (Texas), at the SpaceX launch facilities. Not even the owner of the company, the always controversial Elon Musk, had faith that everything would turn out as expected. “We must not wait for success,” Musk said through his own network. “What is certain is that it will not be boring.”
Minutes before the launch, SpaceX’s main integration engineer, John Insprucker, pointed out that despite the fact that all the systems were ready to go into space, it was necessary to keep in mind that it was a development test. “It is a first Starship test flight and its main purpose is to collect data and test the launch pad. But with this type of test you never know exactly what is going to happen, so the excitement is guaranteed.
Of the twenty tests that SpaceX has carried out on its innovative Starship system, which includes two fully reusable stages (on the one hand, the base called Super Heavy, 70 meters high and made up of 33 Raptor engines; on the other, the Starship ship , 50 meters, with three main Raptors plus three secondary ones), approximately half have ended in explosions, flames or failed landings.
“It was something we expected, really”
“It was something we expected, the truth,” explains César Arza, head of the mission analysis unit of the National Institute of Aerospace Technology (INTA), to ABC. “It is the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, so it is subjected to unprecedented stresses and extreme engineering that needs to be tested. It’s normal”. Because this 120-meter giant and twice the power of NASA’s current ‘number one’ rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), has a total of 39 engines that worked together for the first time this Thursday, since in previous occasions only the upper part of the craft was flight tested.
The first hypotheses of the failed launch of the rocket
As for the possible causes of the failure, we will have to wait for subsequent reports. “This is all speculation, but apparently there has been a problem with the separation of the two stages,” explains Arza. According to the schedule, at 2 minutes and 49 seconds, Starship and Super Heavy were to disassemble and go their separate ways: the first, an almost full circle around Earth in about 90 minutes to end up returning through the atmosphere in an uncontrolled flight. with the Pacific as the end; the second, headed for a soft landing just minutes after launch near the Gulf of Mexico, in the Atlantic (where the two pieces finally ended up).
“This is all speculation, but apparently there has been a problem with the separation of the two stages”
Cesar Arza
Head of INTA’s mission analysis unit
“If the problem has come with the separation, it implies that control of the orientation is lost and you cannot control both stages,” says Arza. That would explain the erratic turns that have been observed at the end of the test, just before the explosion.
It is not the only theory. For some experts such as Javier Atapuerca, head of Mission Analysis and Studies at GMV, the fact that three engines were turned off (or failed) during takeoff did not go unnoticed. “Then two more went out, and one more that went off intermittently. It does not have to be a problem per se, but it does not give a good feeling, “he tells ABC.
A problem with the orientation system of the motors, another of the possible causes
It is also theorized in networks with a possible problem with the orientation system of the motors, which would explain why it ended up out of control; Another theory is that the system that binds both stages, which works ‘by screw’, like the bottle system, has failed. “It’s pure speculation right now. You have to wait for the reports. In these times we are used to immediacy in many things, but in this, the most prudent thing is to wait.
Impact on the new space race
As to whether this failed attempt delays the new US space race, which is in clear rivalry with the nascent Chinese race and Russia’s efforts to stay ‘in orbit’, Arza indicates that “It will not be a delay that they no longer have”. «We have seen it with the Artemis Program, which is very late with respect to the first dates that were given; or with the first flight to Mars, which NASA claims will happen within the next decade, but we all know there will be delays as well. Any failure means delay, but the margins are big,’ he points out.
What is clear is that this “rapid unscheduled disassembly” – the name that SpaceX has given, for the moment, to the fact that Starship has exploded in the air – will not stop Elon Musk’s ambitions to continue investing in the space vehicle more powerful in history. He himself confirmed -again through his social network- that the next test will be “in a few months”. So the excitement continues.
#experts #anticipate