SpaceX wraps up investigation of Starship Flight 7 explosion (video)

[Admin]

SpaceX has finished its investigation into what went wrong on the seventh test flight of its Starship rocket, which ended with a dramatic explosion.

SpaceX wraps up investigation of Starship Flight 7 explosion (video) : Read more

 

[danR]

Curious how much of this is informed guesswork given the loss of telemetry, and that both methane and lox leaked simultaneously from fractures stoichiometrically enough to be flammable, and that there was an ignition source in the attic, isolated as it is from the engine bay proper, and that they think reducing the attic volume and beefing up the joints won't create a structural sliding-block problem where the excessive harmonic regime might reappear in a different incarnation, or be replaced by another problem.

Among others, I question the wisdom of FTS timing: is it better to reduce the entire ship to a spray of shrapnel over partially populated areas that early in the flight-profile, or let the thing come down holus bolus (or FTS-ed) mid Atlantic? Another question: in later, true orbital, flights, will they FTS the ship into fragments at orbital injection point and add to the inventory of Kessler Syndrome potential threats? It may RUD on its own anyway, but that is far less likely given a beefed-up fire suppression system plus the absence of aerodynamic and gravitational stresses. Just let the thing orbit until it can be later be de-orbited

 

[Unclear Engineer]

The FTS actuation that broke up the Ship is said to have been "autonomous". So, it was not the choice of SpaceX to have it do exactly what it did. But, arguing that it should not be allowed to be autonomous opens other risk issues, particularly communication failures, as well as "judgement" issues. The FAA seems to be committed to the "autonomous" actuation process, which still does not preclude human flight controller activation before the autonomous activation occurs.