Hacker Neue

Preferences
riffraff parent
I think you're extrapolating too much.

This could be a "simple" production error (think "cracked pipe") which can be fixed with more effective monitoring of the construction, and not a major design flaw.

It might be someone forgot a wrench somewhere for what we know.

fabian2k
A simple error like that should be caught before you fill the rocket with methane and liquid oxygen. If a simple error gets through to this point your procedures are bad, which is a big problem for a complex rocket with many parts that could have simple errors.
riffraff OP
that's why I put "simple" in quotes.

Obviously it's not trivial, since they already flew a few spaceships and rockets, but it could be an edge case not considered until now which can still be fixed, rather than a "well, it turned out to be impossible to fly a rocket with this design".

radu_floricica
The error itself is probably easily fixed. Usually the bigger the effects, easier to fix.

The real problem is the damaged infrastructure. They don't have several launch towers in the pipeline like they have Starships. This is a "pause and rebuild" scenario, with the wait time much harder to parallelize with something else. Whatever time they spend until they have the second launch tower functional, I'd bet about half of it will be an overall addition to the whole project.

peterfirefly
> They don't have several launch towers in the pipeline like they have Starships.

They didn't lose a launch tower. It happened at a site only used for static fire tests.

(And they kinda do have several launch towers in the pipeline...)

jmaestrooper
The test site is severely damaged, and they don't have another one. It took what ,6 months to rebuild the launch tower after IFT-1? And it wasn't destroyed, just damaged, on the test site the tanks and pipes and all the rest are right near the vehicle so I see a lot of destruction.

So what, 6 to 9 months while they repair/build new test site(s)?

Might as well cut the losses and scrap Block 2 altogether, and move on to Block 3.

sam_bristow
Beyond whatever design or production issues caused this particular anomaly there will also be the delays due to the fact they just blew up a lot of ground support equipment.
XorNot
I worry that the current "favorable" FAA environment is leading to a regression in their engineering quality honestly.

There's a simple fault, and then there's the question of why did it happen anyway?

KaiserPro
> This could be a "simple" production error (think "cracked pipe") which can be fixed with more effective monitoring of the construction, and not a major design flaw.

Good luck trying to get launch insurance for that without a full root cause and proof in double triplicate that this has been fixed.

Are you going to put you payload on one of those, a payload that will take 3 years to rebuild, and might end the company?

mr_toad
Starship has never carried a real payload, so insurance is irrelevant. Nobody will be putting billion dollar satellites on it until (if) it has been flight proven.
aredox
If your space program has "simple" errors, then you are incompetent. These have to be stomped out beforehand. Is this amateur hour?
mulmen
Starship is not yet operational. It is in development. This is “before hand”.
madaxe_again
Falcon 9 seems pretty competently run.
Balgair
So then we'd have to assume that the error was not a 'simple' one. Which is a lot harder to find and fix, almost by definition.

I mean, look, this isn't a good sign for spacex. Whatever problem there is, clearly it's hard to find and fix. Could be some alloy, could be some pressure sensor, could be the whole management chain. Who knows yet.

But we very much do know this isn't a good sign.

mulmen
> So then we'd have to assume that the error was not a 'simple' one.

Why?

tsimionescu
Scenario 1 is Starship is run as competently as Falcon 9. If this is true, then basic errors won't have escaped the QA process, just as they don't for Falcon 9, the safest rocket ever flown. So, we would conclude that the issue must have been a complex one that eluded the competent QA process.

Second scenario, Starship is not run as competently as Falcon 9. That is also a huge problem, because it's very hard to fix people and procesa problems in general.

mulmen
I see, thanks for explaining!

This item has no comments currently.