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‍🚀 OfficialSpaceX on X : "Starship successfully lifted off under the power of all 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy Booster and made it through stage separation" (twitter.com)

submitted by marc0202028x Launch Host

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[–]EJNorth 368 points369 points  (17 children)

The launch was truly awesome

[–]3DHydroPrints 60 points61 points  (15 children)

I really want to know what the launch site looks like now

[–]Plenty-Protection148 127 points128 points  (12 children)

<image>

No giant craters

[–]3DHydroPrints 35 points36 points  (9 children)

Great success. That one tank looks a bit dented though

[–]MapleMagnum 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Didn't those have some cosmetic dings and dents left over from Starship #1?? Or did they get all of that patched up in between?

[–]dfawlt 28 points29 points  (3 children)

That's from IFT-1

[–]Call8m 26 points27 points  (0 children)

Actually it’s from IFT-2. Shockwave damage, RGV did a comparison.

[–]MaksweIlL 3 points4 points  (1 child)

What is IFT1?

[–]Alexthelightnerd 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Integrated Flight Test 1 - the first time Starship and Booster flew together. What launched today was IFT2.

[–]GenFatAss 5 points6 points  (3 children)

hmm so build blast walls or something to protect the tanks?

[–]_Tranquility_ 7 points8 points  (0 children)

They will be converting the vertical tanks for the L-OX and L-CH4 to horizontal ones. So no need for a wall.

[–]strcrssd 10 points11 points  (1 child)

The blast walls would have to take the blast pressure and debris strikes and while doing so have minimal foundation support. This whole area is a swamp. It took years of soil compaction and tons and tons of dirt hauled in to build the pads.

It's possible, but unlikely to be necessary for normal operations and unlikely to survive catastrophic failure. The tanks just aren't that expensive. SpaceX can fabricate replacements fairly quickly.

[–]cjameshuff 5 points6 points  (0 children)

If that's what I think it is, the tank consists of an outer, non-structural shell around an inner tank. A relatively thin fence to deflect and baffle the sound waves and any light debris might be enough to protect them during normal launches.

[–]peterabbit456 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They still have a lot to learn before they can launch multiple times per day.

I'm making a wild guess of 2-3 weeks turnaround for the pad infrastructure. Just a guess.

[–]SasquatchMcGuffin 44 points45 points  (0 children)

RGV Aerial Photography posted a photo earlier on X and it looks a little scorched and damp, as you might expect, but intact.

[–]Plenty-Protection148 9 points10 points  (0 children)

RGV has done a flyover afterwards

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    [–]rustybeancake 285 points286 points  (22 children)

    Eric Berger:

    Hearing that the Starship pad survived and that, on top of the first stage performance, is a huge win for SpaceX and NASA.

    https://x.com/sciguyspace/status/1725891602718036310?s=46&t=u9hd-jMa-pv47GCVD-xH-g

    [–]Plastic-Remote4784 102 points103 points  (0 children)

    It does seems like the landing pad is able to redirect the Shockwave better. Last time you cant really see anything but debris and dust, this time you are able to see the clear shape like the computer sim space x demonstrate previously.

    [–]Green-Circles 73 points74 points  (1 child)

    That is a HUGE step forward, and opens the door to more frequent, iterative testing through 2024 & beyond. No more total pad rebuilds!

    [–]Tuesday2017 23 points24 points  (0 children)

    No more total pad rebuilds!

    Guess that duct tape and bailing wire held up pretty well !

    [–]rfdesigner 21 points22 points  (0 children)

    Last time the cameras (and Nasaspaceflight MPV) took a beating from the debris.. this time it looked like everyone had put out their "cheap" cameras on tiny little shonky tripods, one looking very unstable.. after the launch on the Everyday Astronaught feed they panned pack and showed all the cameras, not one of the had been blown over.

    I think that says a lot.

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      [–]CapObviousHereToHelp 250 points251 points  (24 children)

      Sad, but the booster explosion looked awesome from the area. Almost like a supernova

      [–]DirtFueler 100 points101 points  (0 children)

      Looked awesome from the webcast too. Basically as everything was stable and soon as the camera could pick up the imaging of the booster

      [–]amenhallo 44 points45 points  (5 children)

      If you happen to know of some footage that shows the explosion from the view of people on the ground, please share it. The explosion indeed did look cool on the stream, but I don’t get a sense of the scale. Really curious what it looks like from the ground.

      [–]RiderAnton 75 points76 points  (3 children)

      Everyday Astronaut had a good tracking view of the booster terminating

      https://youtu.be/6na40SqzYnU?t=7h54m22s

      [–]CDefense7 -2 points-1 points  (1 child)

      It's a 9 hour video... Any chance you have some timestamps?

      [–]makked 41 points42 points  (0 children)

      The timestamp is in the link they gave, 7h55m.

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        [–]Shpoople96 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        Seconding this

        [–]grecy 20 points21 points  (7 children)

        Did you hear it?

        [–]CapObviousHereToHelp 26 points27 points  (6 children)

        Yeah! Really loud

        [–]PmadFlyer 21 points22 points  (5 children)

        Wait you heard the explosion? If so that's INSANE! I really hope to make it down for a launch.

        [–]CapObviousHereToHelp 27 points28 points  (3 children)

        You really should.. and its relatively easy here (if you live within driving distance). Many spots have great views from a really close distance. My clothes were shaking

        [–]PmadFlyer 23 points24 points  (2 children)

        I remember seeing the shuttle launch as a kid on TV and the people getting shaken. What will be really wild is the first in-orbit refueling test for NASA. I believe it is required for the Artemis program to prove the lunar starship can be refueled. That means two launches and two starships on orbit meeting up.

        [–]CapObviousHereToHelp 8 points9 points  (1 child)

        Thats gonna be truly incredible.. amazing that you saw the space shuttle on live tv!

        [–]cryptoengineer 5 points6 points  (0 children)

        Back then, launch events were national news, and huge numbers saw them on TV.

        Heck, I watched the Apollo Saturn V launches on live TV too. Its just a matter of being old enough.

        [–]PDP-8A 4 points5 points  (0 children)

        Nope. There was no discernable sound from the explosion of the booster. Visually? It looked like the crab nebula.

        [–]brutus2230 6 points7 points  (8 children)

        Why was that explosion so big? Wasn't most of the fuel burned up?

        [–]Sethcran 35 points36 points  (0 children)

        There was still fuel. Don't forget there would still normally be a boost back burn plus a landing burn after that point, so a decent bit of fuel left.

        [–]odorous 31 points32 points  (0 children)

        not a lotta pressure up that high.

        [–]RepresentativeCut244 11 points12 points  (1 child)

        it's not an explosion as much as gas just expanding. If you look at the nuclear tests they did in space, it looks pretty similar except much larger

        [–]flshr19Shuttle tile engineer 4 points5 points  (0 children)

        Yes. The propellant load on the Booster is 3400t (metric tons, 3,400,000 kg, 7,497,000 lb) at liftoff.

        At staging 250 to 300t remains in the Booster tanks for the boostback and landing burns.

        [–]BenR-G 7 points8 points  (1 child)

        Also, the altitude was very high; there would have been very little atmospheric pressure to stop the incandescent gas from expanding over a very large area.

        [–]strcrssd 5 points6 points  (0 children)

        The gas may not have combusted. That could be the tank pressure only, the light was sunlight.

        Don't know for sure, but I doubt the fuel burned.

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          [–]inanimatus_conjurus 305 points306 points  (46 children)

          I'm glad we can finally stop worrying about the raptor performance issues. On to the next one.

          [–]PlainTrain 159 points160 points  (30 children)

          Possibly. The booster lost multiple engines on relight, and we don’t know what killed Starship.

          [–]belleri7 138 points139 points  (13 children)

          That's likely less the fault of the engines and moreso the fuel header tank not providing enough/consistent fuel from sloshing around during the flip. We'll see though.

          [–]panckage 55 points56 points  (9 children)

          All the engines that failed were adjacent to each other. It looked to be a cascading failure so my hunch is one engine went and then a fire or something killed the others. OTOH this booster had better engine shielding so... It will be interesting to find out!

          [–]Thorusss 72 points73 points  (6 children)

          Local correlation could also come from the pluming with insufficient fuel intake

          [–]Wide_Canary_9617 32 points33 points  (4 children)

          The interesting things was that the centre 3 engines were never shut down yet one of them stopped working, meaning that it was most likely a fuel issue

          [–]friedmators 1 point2 points  (3 children)

          3 booster raptors at 50% maybe couldn’t stop the 6 on starship from inducing some negative g.

          [–]SuperSpy- 4 points5 points  (0 children)

          That's what surprised me during the test, I would have assumed they would do the hot stage separation with minimum possible power until the booster is well clear of the ship. Instead they lit them all in rapid succession within like a second.

          I wonder if one of their adjustments might just to not have the second stage floor it right off the bat. Maybe there's a technical reason they can't spread all the engine lights out significantly though.

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              [–]rfdesigner 2 points3 points  (0 children)

              Yes that's my concern too. On the spaceX feed it seems one engine never relit, then the others near it started failing. To me that isn't a fuelling issue. However, speaking as a research and development engineer, I'd much rather have that sort of problem.. one engine out of 20(?) didn't relight having had 33/33 burn the full 150second launch, than the plethora of problems on OFT1.

              A monumental step forward, I'm sure there will be plenty of scouring of the data.

              [–]peterabbit456 1 point2 points  (0 children)

              One failure mode for Raptor engines is gas bubbles in either the LOX or the methane intakes to the engines.

              If there is a substantial gas bubble on the methane side, the fuel side preburner will be starved of liquid methane. Suddenly its inputs will be closer to a stochiometric ratio. The turbines will race to higher RPMs and the temperature will rise. Most likely the methane turbopump will rapidly disassemble as the turbine blades melt, warp, bend and break.

              If there is a substantial bubble on the LOX side, the oxygen preburner will receive methane and oxygen at closer to the stochiometric ratio. The preburner will run hotter, the turbine will race, and at high temperatures and an almost pure oxygen atmosphere, the metal turbine blades will catch fire, warp, melt, break and the oxygen pump will RUD.

              So if slosh in the tanks brought substantial bubbles to the engines, RUDs are almost inevitable. If the bubbles are big enough to affect several engines, you would expect neighboring engines that use the same intake from the LOX tank, to all go out within seconds of each other.

              [–]Reddit-runner 10 points11 points  (1 child)

              and moreso the fuel header tank

              The header tanks are only for landing. During the booster turn around and boost back the engines get all propellant from the main tanks

              [–]Drachefly 3 points4 points  (0 children)

              Hmm. Wonder if they can momentarily sip from the headers to get things re-settled, then use the main tank for the rest.

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                [–]NiceCunt91 5 points6 points  (0 children)

                Scott Manley has a good theory as to why. When starships engines lit, the booster slowed down quite quickly possibly creating negative g force and introducing air into the fuel system causing the engines to struggle to relight.

                [–]GorzekTheGreat 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                Rapid unscheduled disassembly (RUD).

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                  [–]fencethe900th 12 points13 points  (9 children)

                  Rewatching it it looked like Booster had several engines cutting off after separation. Do you know if that was that intentional or if that whole inner section was supposed to stay lit?

                  [–]larry1186 27 points28 points  (1 child)

                  The center 3 engines were to stay lit the whole time. Then the inner/middle ring of 10 would relight for boost back. Likely the one engine that didn’t relight (in the webcast telemetry), had a failure that resulted in cascading failures of other engines.

                  [–]fencethe900th 5 points6 points  (0 children)

                  Thanks. I guess we'll all just have to wait until they share details (as if speculation will stop until then).

                  [–]Full_Plate_9391 12 points13 points  (6 children)

                  Only 3 engines were supposed to stay lit.

                  [–]fencethe900th 14 points15 points  (5 children)

                  I know for the stage separation it was only running three but immediately after the separation the whole inner ring was lit, then they started turning off pretty quick.

                  [–]liamsdomain 2 points3 points  (4 children)

                  Yeah, that was odd. The graphic showed most of the engines from one side so I figured it was doing that to help turn the booster around.

                  [–]PmadFlyer 6 points7 points  (0 children)

                  I thought that too at first but rewatching it, one of the three inner engines on that side went out as well. It looks like we all agree those were meant to stay lit. Still, they had all 33 engines to stage separation, and seeing the shut down sequence was beautiful!

                  [–]fencethe900th 10 points11 points  (2 children)

                  I've seen a few people that made it sound like the thirteen inner engines were all supposed to fire, and they're speculating it might have been a lack of fuel to the engines that killed it. I would think they'd have that figured out after falcon doing so many boost back burns but maybe scaling it has some new challenges, or maybe it was something else entirely.

                  [–]Use-Useful 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                  The prevailing theory at the moment is that the negative acceleration from getting hit during hot staging introduced gas into the fuel intake system. That would never occur on falcon, as it doesnt do hot staging.

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                    [–]Bitmugger 2 points3 points  (1 child)

                    I believe we will learn of Raptor RUDS on re-light so hold that comment :-)

                    [–]peterabbit456 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                    The engines on this booster were pretty old engines.

                    Marcus House confirmed what I thought. The engines on this booster were mounted a year ago. They were much newer and better engines than the very early ones used on the booster in IFT-1, but were over 100 serial numbers lower than the latest Raptor engines.

                    I think the most likely cause of the booster RUD was slosh in the tanks and gas bubbles, most likely in the LOX lines, but possibly in the methane lines also or instead. The cause of the Starship RUD seems to be related to a LOX leak. Scott Manly reported that he noticed the bar graph for LOX remaining started going down faster than the methane bar graph, a few seconds before the RUD. This could have been due to a plumbing failure. A singe engine failure that spread to the others would be a very likely guess, but the "Engines firing" graphic on the SpaceX broadcast did not show any Starship engines failing, until the entire Starship went RUD. The Starship engines might also have been early engines. The second stage burn is a very long one. The chance of something failing due to vibration, or perhaps bearing failing in a turbopump, leading to a cascading series of RUDs was a fairly likely outcome. After all, these were probably fairly early engines.

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                      [–]rustybeancake 65 points66 points  (17 children)

                      Updated Starship reentry estimate 65W 19N (north of British Virgin Is)

                      https://x.com/planet4589/status/1725893505707364397?s=46&t=u9hd-jMa-pv47GCVD-xH-g

                      [–]StagedC0mbustion 33 points34 points  (14 children)

                      Not nearly as far as I thought

                      [–]MauiHawk 126 points127 points  (6 children)

                      My time with Kerbal taught me that last little bit of delta v has a dramatic impact on the downrange distance/orbital trajectory.

                      [–]Tom2Die 32 points33 points  (0 children)

                      One of the few xkcd comics I think I've literally never seen someone disagree with.

                      [–]MassoodT 12 points13 points  (4 children)

                      Exactly! I'm playing KSP 1 right now and it is amazing how little delta-v is required to reach orbit from an "almost orbital" trajectory. Same with the deorbit burn. If I'm not mistaken, the Space Shuttle needed only 90 m/s to deorbit (compared to around 9 km/s to reach orbit).

                      [–]Alexthelightnerd 7 points8 points  (0 children)

                      Yup. And even on the ascent Space Shuttle actually cut off the main engines and jettisoned the external fuel tank while still suborbital - ensuring that the tank would reenter and burn up. Then completed the orbital burn with the OMS engines.

                      [–]Freak80MC 2 points3 points  (2 children)

                      Funny seeing that number again. I haven't played KSP 1 in a while, but I remember I made it so that my refueler ship had 90 m/s of dv left for deorbiting once it refueled my fuel depot in low Kerbin orbit. That was the perfect amount so I wouldn't land with a ton of excess fuel that was never used up.

                      [–]KjellRS 11 points12 points  (0 children)

                      1) Earth has a radius of ~6400km so 150km up is really just skimming the surface

                      2) The last 100km go really fast because of rapidly increasing atmospheric drag

                      So all it takes is a little dip from 6550km -> 6500km and down you go

                      [–]rustybeancake 14 points15 points  (5 children)

                      Yep. I’m thinking underperformance for some reason (eg leak) led to auto FTS, to avoid the ship coming down on populated areas.

                      [–]New_Poet_338 39 points40 points  (2 children)

                      They announced trajectory as nominal until it disappeared.

                      [–]rustybeancake 25 points26 points  (1 child)

                      Maybe it was a late leak? There was a puff of some kind just before FTS.

                      https://x.com/djsnm/status/1725899367465554000?s=46&t=u9hd-jMa-pv47GCVD-xH-g

                      Edit:

                      It sure looks to me like the LOX depletion accelerates at the same time as we see that cloud:

                      https://x.com/djsnm/status/1725904416455397409?s=46&t=u9hd-jMa-pv47GCVD-xH-g

                      [–]New_Poet_338 8 points9 points  (0 children)

                      Something seemed to go about 20 seconds or so before it went dark. There was that swirling cloud then nothing.

                      [–]Adventurous_Use2324 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                      File transfer service?

                      [–]Clean-Direction594 16 points17 points  (0 children)

                      Flight safety Termination System

                      boom.exe

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                        [–]MaybeYesNoPerhaps[🍰] 33 points34 points  (0 children)

                        Truly epic. Seeing all 33 engines lit at once was pure art.

                        [–]Bunslow 156 points157 points  (36 children)

                        Okay I admit that tweet video quality is considerably better than I usually saw on pre-elon twitter video tweets

                        (still think it's a poor choice of livestreaming platform, but the video itself is much higher res than im used to with twitter)

                        [–]H4NN351 62 points63 points  (4 children)

                        I thought that as well, but then I thought spacex might get special treatment and that its maybe not for all users

                        [–]mclumber1 33 points34 points  (1 child)

                        SpaceX certainly wasn't getting special treatment for falcon 9 launches. Potato quality livestreaming up until today's starship launch.

                        [–]LessMonth6089 9 points10 points  (0 children)

                        If they were going to choose a launch to give a quality boost for, I'm glad it was this one.

                        [–]Bunslow 18 points19 points  (0 children)

                        it's certainly possible

                        [–]frigoffdrunkjimlahey 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                        Could be testing higher quality now.

                        It sucks not being able to cast it via the Twitter app.

                        [–]gabo2007 52 points53 points  (5 children)

                        Interesting takeaway. As someone watching it after the fact, my main impression was – why do I have to watch this potato quality video on Twitter instead of the great one they usually post on YouTube?

                        [–]greendra8 16 points17 points  (3 children)

                        yeah stream quality was good for me. just need to add in more options like ability to rewind

                        [–]LimpWibbler_ 20 points21 points  (1 child)

                        It was good, but not YouTube good. I had problems with darks being a bit blotchy.

                        [–]IconicBanksy 12 points13 points  (0 children)

                        Dark, blotchy, weird audio, stutters, very little starship audio, the initial drone shot was blurry for most of it, the stream wasn’t great imo but better than previous F9 launches.

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                          [–]headwaterscarto 3 points4 points  (0 children)

                          What says the most is that Tim Dodd’s livestream had more viewers than SpaceX. I think it was 250k vs 150k

                          [–]phonsely 15 points16 points  (2 children)

                          its a backstab to everyone who has watched spacex launches on their tv since the first falcon 9 launch

                          [–]Bdr1983 3 points4 points  (0 children)

                          I used the NSF stream because of this, had the Xwitter stream open on my phone as they had constant telemetry.

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                            [–]xylopyrography 6 points7 points  (15 children)

                            I'm trying to look at X/Twitter objectively. IDGAF about the nonsense he posts or "free speech" but from my timeline and usage (light lurker) the platform has gotten substantially better.

                            Android app used to not even function for 6+ years and now it works great. No bots in DMs, fewer trolls in the people I follow shown at the top, and a lot of the really angry people left.

                            I'd say it's moved from a 2/10 to a 3/10, lol.

                            [–]Freak80MC 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                            I just don't get why anyone would ever wanna go on that dumpster fire of a website. I left long ago because of the toxicity and negativity that the algorithm seemed to push in your face. It preyed on the human brain's obsession with anger and negativity to drive engagement. Once I took a while to get away and cool off for a bit, I realized it wasn't giving me anything positive in the end. My mental health has been much better without that site (which is to say, it's still not great, but oh my god I can't imagine how much worse I'd be if I was still active there).

                            Sure, I'll click on links and stuff to check out posts, but that's it. I know they stopped you from being able to see posts for a while there if you didn't have an account which was alright with me, but seems like they have relaxed that a bit lol

                            People can scream about "free speech" all they want, (which I find ends up just being an excuse for awful people to be an openly awful human being to anyone who isn't part of "their group", as if they were just itching to let it all out) but in the end, my mental health is the most important thing for me. If a website keeps on insisting to only show me the worst of humanity, I will check out and go find a positive outlet for my time somewhere else.

                            Life is too short to be dealing with all that.

                            [–]vertgo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                            Yes they really got rid of a lot of the volume related issues and cut down on data and user saturation

                            [–]ackermann 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                            Lost a lot of big advertisers in the last few days though, so we’ll see if it continues to improve.
                            I suppose Musk can still afford to bankroll it for a long time, if he wants to, even if it’s not profitable.

                            [–]xylopyrography 3 points4 points  (0 children)

                            Yeah I mean, that's the nonsense posts I'm talking about. Under better management there's a lot more potential.

                            The platform itself seems pretty robust.

                            As far as the ethics of advertisers though, they didn't give a shit about rampant child porn for years on the platform under the old management which was one of the very first things tackled in the first week of the takeover. IMO they're just pandering.

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                              [–]brandude87 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                              I'm fine with it as long as they add 4k support and ability to cast to TV.

                              [–]Bunslow 25 points26 points  (1 child)

                              Man watch the Quick Disconnect arm at the base of the ship move. It doesn't look like it's moving much, but I'm pretty sure the tip is moving as fast as a sprinter, is it not?

                              [–]FinancialReading319 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                              Seems like there were some issues with the QD arm. From post launch photos it’s a little cock-eyed.

                              [–]MauiHawk 19 points20 points  (0 children)

                              Look at those shock waves!

                              [–]rustybeancake 33 points34 points  (3 children)

                              I seem to recall after IFT1 SpaceX/Elon said the vehicle’s pitch away from the tower was due to the engines out, and that normally they’d want the vehicle exhaust going straight through the centre of the launch mount until the exhaust was well clear of the mount. But we saw a pitch away from the tower again this time. Am I remembering wrong?

                              Images showing the early pitch with the launch mount getting blasted:

                              https://x.com/spacex/status/1725890107952218239?s=46&t=u9hd-jMa-pv47GCVD-xH-g

                              https://x.com/djsnm/status/1725891978670575891?s=46&t=u9hd-jMa-pv47GCVD-xH-g

                              [–]gabo2007 25 points26 points  (0 children)

                              I also noticed this and was puzzled because all engines seemed to be firing nominally.

                              [–]Sigmatics 22 points23 points  (0 children)

                              I would guess it's still a safety measure to protect the tower until they're more certain of the engines

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                                [–]BakedCocaine 12 points13 points  (4 children)

                                Everyones talking about the booster, but what happened to the ship?

                                [–]advester 14 points15 points  (0 children)

                                Scott Manly pointed out a sudden drop in LOx, probably leaking, just before RUD.

                                [–]Gravath 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                                💥

                                [–]davidv213 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                                Boom

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                                  [–]rustybeancake 52 points53 points  (1 child)

                                  Scott Manley saying the booster RUD wasn’t necessarily FTS:

                                  People keep pointing out that the booster RUD started in the middle of the tank - therefore FTS must have triggered. That's not necessary, if you've got fluid hammer effects going on at the base then those same forces are being experienced along the downcomer and up to the bulkhead between LOX & CH4 tank. A catastrophic failure like this could happen without FTS being involved.

                                  https://x.com/djsnm/status/1725908871330615379?s=46&t=u9hd-jMa-pv47GCVD-xH-g

                                  [–]Bunslow 3 points4 points  (0 children)

                                  i was judging based on the engine shutdown sequence. it looks like 7 failed, but then it looks like the final 6 were all simultaneously commanded to shutdown, which made me think the computer remained in control and deliberately aborted. but i suppose i could be missing millisecond difference in the final 6 shutdown sequence

                                  [–]Bunslow 51 points52 points  (32 children)

                                  Wow, that's considerably more soot than I would have expected for a methane rocket. But then rocket engines don't run stoichiometric I suppose, so I suppose most of that soot is in fact unburnt methane, as opposed to actual combustion products (which should still be just water and carbon dioxide)?

                                  [–]millijuna 42 points43 points  (1 child)

                                  Rocket propellant equations are never what they teach in chemistry books. In the hell-like conditions of a rocket combustion chamber, you'll get pretty much any and all species you can think of that consist of the inputs, in varying amounts. In theory, a Hydrolox engine should just produce water (H2O) but in reality the exhaust plume will contain (briefly) H2O2, OH-, H+, and other exotics.

                                  For a more in depth explanation, "Ignition!" by John D Clark is worth a read. Plus it's just a really funny memoir about someone who was intimately involved in the early days of liquid rocket propellants.

                                  [–]cv9030n 11 points12 points  (0 children)

                                  I love that book. Warmly recommended

                                  [–]warp99 38 points39 points  (1 child)

                                  It is mainly from film cooling on the Raptors. So methane injected just ahead of the throat which decomposes but does not have a chance to fully burn as there is little free oxygen in the exhaust stream.

                                  [–]Bunslow 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                                  ah, that would certainly help, together with the fuel richness in the chamber proper. but then i wonder why the soot is on one side and the hot stuff on the other side of the plume, that's also weird

                                  [–]kjemi-kar 10 points11 points  (0 children)

                                  Are we sure it is not nitrogendioxide (which is redish brown)? When the flame front comes in contact with the surrounding air that should be able to form. "At elevated temperatures nitrogen combines with oxygen to form nitrogen dioxide" Wikipedia

                                  I haven't looked closely at the footage, but you would expect the effect to be weaker as the rocket gains altitude (less air and N2)

                                  [–]neale87 6 points7 points  (13 children)

                                  I guess you probably don't mean unburnt methane but part-burnt. The reaction would be something like CH4 + O2 = 2 H20 + C. That's a simplification, but, yes it would be a lack of oxygen vs stoichiometric which would be 2O2.
                                  Naturally the mix is more like CH4 + 1.99 O2 giving a small amount of soot.

                                  [–]liamsdomain 5 points6 points  (5 children)

                                  The stoichiometric reaction is CH4 + 2O2 -> H2O + CO2.

                                  It does run fuel rich though. So in raptor it's about CH4 + 1.77O2. The products will be a mix of many chemicals. H2O, CO, CO2, H2.

                                  [–]dondarreb 0 points1 point  (4 children)

                                  you have forgotten N2+2O2=2NO2. The color you see corresponds to NO2

                                  [–]strcrssd 5 points6 points  (2 children)

                                  There's not N2 in the engines. They run Methane Oxygen.

                                  There is N2 in the atmosphere once it leaves the engines, but there isn't an appreciable amount in engine aside from transient on startup, as they may use N2 as tank and line purge and potentially to spin up the turbo pumps.

                                  [–]liamsdomain 4 points5 points  (0 children)

                                  No, I haven't. There is no nitrogen being burned on starship.

                                  [–]Snufflesdog 3 points4 points  (6 children)

                                  Unless I'm misunderstanding you, you're mistaken. The ratio of O2 to CH4 (Edit: in the Raptor engine) is about 3.8:1. There's way more oxygen than absolutely necessary to burn all of the methane.

                                  Of course, chemistry is a sloppy bitch, so just because all the methane could be fully combusted and the carbon reacted with O2 to form CO2, doesn't mean that actually happens. Especially not in the short time between the gasses combusting in the combustion chamber, and the products being shot out the exhaust plane of the rocket nozzle.

                                  [–]cjameshuff 1 point2 points  (5 children)

                                  No, a stoichiometric mix would be 4:1. There is not enough oxygen in Raptor's propellant mix to completely burn the fuel, though there is enough that there is little carbon produced.

                                  [–]Snufflesdog -1 points0 points  (4 children)

                                  From Wikipedia - Stoichiometry:

                                  This is illustrated in the image here, where the balanced equation is:

                                  CH4 + 2 O2 → CO2 + 2 H2O

                                  Here, one molecule of methane reacts with two molecules of oxygen gas to yield one molecule of carbon dioxide and two molecules of water.

                                  The stoichiometric ratio is not between atoms, but molecules. For each CH4, you need 2 O2. Thus, the stoichiometric ratio is 2:1, not 4:1.

                                  Starship carries 3.8 kg of O2 for every kg of CH4, thus its oxidizer:fuel ratio is 3.8:1. This is almost twice the stoichiometric ratio. Which is why I said that there is more than enough O2 to fully combust every CH4 molecule.

                                  [–]cjameshuff 1 point2 points  (3 children)

                                  The stoichiometric ratio is not between atoms, but molecules. For each CH4, you need 2 O2. Thus, the stoichiometric ratio is 2:1, not 4:1.

                                  2 O2 molecules have 4 times the mass of 1 CH4 molecule. That's a 4:1 ratio.

                                  [–]Snufflesdog 0 points1 point  (2 children)

                                  Here is an Introductory Chemistry book that defines the stoichiometric ratio:

                                  stoichiometry: The field of chemistry that is concerned with the relative quantities of reactants and products in chemical reactions and how to calculate those quantities.

                                  stoichiometric ratio: The ratio of the coefficients of the products and reactants in a balanced reaction. This ratio can be used to calculate the amount of products or reactants produced or used in a reaction.

                                  The stoichiometric ratio of O2 to CH4 is 2:1. By definition. It cares about how many molecules of X do I need to balance a chemical equation with Y. It's not about the mass.

                                  [–]cjameshuff 1 point2 points  (1 child)

                                  There is such a concept as molar ratio, but it's not what's being used here. Yes, it is about the mass. From the EA:

                                  "The Raptor engine is powered by liquid oxygen (LOX) and liquid methane (LCH4) in a 3.6:1 mass ratio, respectively."

                                  This should be obvious, because essentially all rockets burn fuel-rich, in part to prevent the oxygen from consuming their components but mostly to reduce mean molecular weight of the exhaust, increasing exhaust velocity.

                                  [–]cybercuzco 5 points6 points  (0 children)

                                  It’s probably NOx (nitrous oxides) the methane flame is entraining air into it and is burning hot enough to combust the nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere. It’s essentially what cars do and us the main component of smog. We fixed it with catalytic converters but I think booster is a bit big for that.

                                  [–]zbertoli 8 points9 points  (4 children)

                                  Where was the soot? The flame near the engines was crystal clear blue. You could see all the engine bells. Are you talking the white water vapor at launch

                                  [–]IndorilMiara 23 points24 points  (2 children)

                                  Whatever it is, it's coming from the rocket, and it's brownish-yellow.

                                  <image>

                                  [–]KTMee -1 points0 points  (1 child)

                                  It looked like there's a vent of sorts along the rocket body on that side. Maybe they're venting some other technological liquid that turns black when passing engine plume?

                                  [–]Steam336 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                                  Soot is visible towards the end of clip off to the left and well below end of exhaust flame.

                                  [–]belleri7 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                                  Was the soot or water vapor? Might be a little fuel rich at this point as well.

                                  [–]Amoesenbaer 10 points11 points  (0 children)

                                  No raptor misfired. This was the most impressive thing to me.

                                  [–]PoliticalCanvas 35 points36 points  (7 children)

                                  Absolute success.

                                  Although no one directly talk about this, until today, there was a probability that Super Heavy, over and over, will continue to lose engines until the moment of load separation. It doesn't matter which one load, as and everything related to the landing, this is all secondary details.

                                  Today Super Heavy proved that the project not just a bold fantasy/attempts, but reality.

                                  [–]DiscordantMuse 16 points17 points  (0 children)

                                  Well, that launch was an improvement. Super happy with the progress today!

                                  [–]Puzzleheaded-Tea4232 12 points13 points  (0 children)

                                  Successful launch by the SpaceX team

                                  [–]KTMee 11 points12 points  (3 children)

                                  I suspect this time they had very strict FTS rules judging by how long FAA took.. Very likely everything was OK with second stage and maybe even first could be salvaged, but they crossed some automated termination thresholds.

                                  [–]cybercuzco 13 points14 points  (2 children)

                                  I think they had a relight issue. The three center engines stayed lit but the first ring of 10 was supposed to relight for the boost back burn. If you look on the livestream it looks like half of them didn’t light, they tried a second time and that was it.

                                  [–]Martianspirit 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                                  They likely had an issue supplying the engines with propellant at the right header pressure. Seems Raptor does not operate well without propellant.

                                  [–]KTMee 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                                  Probably. Might've actually been the hot staging. I imagine with 3 center engines always lit, the booster isn't supposed to tumble freely and be under known thrust the entire time.

                                  Still curious about the second stage. I hope we get onboard videos.

                                  [–]LessMonth6089 3 points4 points  (0 children)

                                  Man, there were a lot of really awesome outcomes of this. Hot staging, stage separation, and reached the boundary of space. The pad didn't fail. So many technical proofs of concept. Awesome stuff.

                                  ​

                                  SpaceX is getting so close to having a fully reusable rocket with 2x the payload of Apollo. The space age, the real space age, is tantalizingly close.

                                  [–]0ceans 4 points5 points  (0 children)

                                  Good day for SpaceX.

                                  • The measures taken to protect the pad seem to have worked
                                  • The engines didn’t cook themselves like they did last time; all 33 stayed ignited until separation
                                  • Starship managed to detach and burn its engines for quite a while

                                  It’s a shame neither stage completed their flights, but this was good enough to qualify as a successful test.

                                  [–]ras5003 7 points8 points  (0 children)

                                  Fyi ... I watched the launch on the NASASpaceflight channel on YouTube. Lots of awesome angles of the launch toward the end of the stream. Suggest you start watching at 8hr50m or so (T-00:02:46).

                                  [–]tyler_daniels_ 4 points5 points  (0 children)

                                  Amazing

                                  [–]flattop100 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                                  My favorite thing about SpaceX is that they don't fail the same way twice.

                                  [–]No-Debate-6807 46 points47 points  (36 children)

                                  So is this mission considered a success or failure?

                                  edit: Why the downvotes? Holy crap lol.

                                  [–]Obvious_Parsley3238 54 points55 points  (2 children)

                                  positives: launch pad didn't get annihilated so the deluge system did its job, raptors all stayed ignited until staging, staging didn't immediately blow up the ship/booster

                                  negatives: boostback burn failure, ship failure (causes tbd)

                                  overall a lot to learn from, and hopefully the mishap investigation will be much shorter and the february NET for flight 3 will be achieved

                                  [–]Toivottomoose 45 points46 points  (0 children)

                                  It confirmed that the issues from last time were fixed, it got farther, and it discovered new issues. I'd call that a success, since that's pretty much exactly what you want from a test.

                                  [–]PureSine 12 points13 points  (0 children)

                                  Success.

                                  Brand new very ambitious engine design, and thirty three of them strapped together on a huge rocket.

                                  It wouldn’t have surprised me if it took 4-5 launches to get all the engines on the booster to survive. It happening on the second launch was great.

                                  Getting a successful staging with a new mechanism first try it great, and good data on vacuum engine performance.

                                  Would be super happy. You always wish / hope you had gotten more, but this is a pretty stunning success.

                                  [–]Bristol_man 37 points38 points  (0 children)

                                  Successful. Any mission doing things that haven't been done with the vehicle before is adding new data

                                  [–]MyCoolName_ 7 points8 points  (2 children)

                                  I'd say quite successful. The ship was at 90% of orbital velocity at destruction. 39 engines and their plumbing performed their primary missions nominally. Staging and second-stage ignition was flawless. Launch pad ready to go another round. Reentry data would have been nice but I'm sure they are happy with all of these steps forward.

                                  [–]strcrssd 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                                  39 engines and their plumbing performed their primary missions nominally

                                  Maybe. They fired for longer and more consistently than historical, but the FTS on booster is likely due to it leaving the safety envelope due to engine failures what's cause is unknown. We know very little about Starship, but evidence seems to point to LOX tank rupture. We may find out more later.

                                  [–]s1m0hayha 58 points59 points  (19 children)

                                  It achieved more than the 1st test flight and stage 0 looks (so far) to be undamaged. Anyone or any news outlet that says this is anything other than a success is lying and has an agenda they are trying to push on you.

                                  This test flight was amazing. The turn around time for flight 3 has the potential to be a month or two and not the 1/2 year it took between 1 and 2. Then test 4 could be even quicker. The launch cadence can sky rocket (pun intended) if there is minimal damage to stage 0.

                                  [–]Firecow21 -5 points-4 points  (5 children)

                                  If the FAA and Fish and Wildlife doesn't drag there feet again

                                  [–]POKEBLOX06 36 points37 points  (4 children)

                                  Fish and wildlife shouldn't have anything to do with it this time around because they've already done the work to check the environmental impacts of the stage 0

                                  [–]Lindberg47 -1 points0 points  (12 children)

                                  Stage 0? You mean the launch facility?

                                  [–]s1m0hayha 11 points12 points  (10 children)

                                  Stage 0 refers to the launch tower and the infrastructure around it.

                                  load more comments (1 reply)

                                    [–]Captain_Hadock 12 points13 points  (0 children)

                                    This is a test mission that achieved a lot firsts while not showing any obvious set-back. It's not a complete success, but considering IFT-1, it's a great outcome. The road to a re-usable SH/SS is still very long, but achieving orbit in expendable mode might be around the corner.

                                    [–]PersonalDebater 6 points7 points  (0 children)

                                    This proved its ability to get to space. It might have been nice to get reentry data especially with some of the tiles missing to see what it can tolerate, but I suppose it at least proves its ability if it were an expendable system lol. We don't know right now what caused it to activate the AFTS.

                                    [–]rbrome 7 points8 points  (0 children)

                                    This went much better than IFT-1, proving some fixes made after that flight. The all-new hot-staging was also tested and seemed to work relatively well. They definitely learned a lot and it marks considerable progress, which is what they wanted. All booster engines staying lit until separation was impressive (and I honestly didn't expect that).

                                    It would have been nice to also try booster landing (simulated, over water) and ship re-entry (testing the tiles and aerodynamics). But all in all, a good day.

                                    [–]dondarreb 5 points6 points  (1 child)

                                    It is a success. They didn't talk about coasting, landing booster etc.

                                    They talked about engines cutouts, they talked about separation etc. Complex tests always have major and minor targets of attention.

                                    Do not forget that they exercise iterative design and try to do one thing at the time.

                                    ​

                                    <wild speculation>It is possible that they will revert to the old staging design. Hot staging seems to improve fuel slashing not issue enough. Same problems, different angles i.e. they need to solve fuel slashing generally. Or they will need to ration hot-staging quite differently.

                                    [–]Green-Circles 4 points5 points  (0 children)

                                    The most unheralded win out of this test is one that many people missed - apparently pad damage was minimal.

                                    That would mean turn-around for more test flights will be shorter & easier - and enables a lot more of the iterative testing that SpaceX loves to do.

                                    load more comments (2 replies)

                                      [–]Badass_Abbas0 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                                      ❤️

                                      [–]Adventurous_Use2324 1 point2 points  (3 children)

                                      What happened after staging?

                                      [–]estroop 4 points5 points  (2 children)

                                      It is speculated that the booster experienced negative G's, which led to fuel delivery issues.

                                      [–]Plenty-Protection148 1 point2 points  (4 children)

                                      Anyone know why there wasn’t any onboard camera footage from either the booster or ship?

                                      [–]jacket_with_sleeves 2 points3 points  (1 child)

                                      Video streams take up a huge amount of the limited bandwidth from the vehicles to the ground stations that could otherwise be used for larger volumes of telemetry.

                                      Even on Falcon flights you'll see SpaceX sacrifice video feeds for telemetry

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                                        [–]catsRawesome123 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                                        Would be sick to see HD vid of the RUD haha, and the pad after!

                                        [–]Leenixu5 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                                        You can tell Clarkson's on the wheel and he's yelling: POWAAAAAAAAH

                                        [–]DecronymAcronyms Explained 0 points1 point  (0 children)

                                        Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

                                        Fewer Letters More Letters
                                        AFSS Automated Flight Safety System
                                        AFTS Autonomous Flight Termination System, see FTS
                                        CoG Center of Gravity (see CoM)
                                        CoM Center of Mass
                                        EA Environmental Assessment
                                        FAA Federal Aviation Administration
                                        FFSC Full-Flow Staged Combustion
                                        FTS Flight Termination System
                                        GSE Ground Support Equipment
                                        H2 Molecular hydrogen
                                        Second half of the year/month
                                        HLS Human Landing System (Artemis)
                                        HUD Head(s)-Up Display, often implemented as a projection
                                        KSP Kerbal Space Program, the rocketry simulator
                                        LCH4 Liquid Methane
                                        LEO Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)
                                        Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)
                                        LOX Liquid Oxygen
                                        MECO Main Engine Cut-Off
                                        MainEngineCutOff podcast
                                        NET No Earlier Than
                                        NSF NasaSpaceFlight forum
                                        National Science Foundation
                                        OMS Orbital Maneuvering System
                                        QD Quick-Disconnect
                                        RUD Rapid Unplanned Disassembly
                                        Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly
                                        Rapid Unintended Disassembly
                                        SLS Space Launch System heavy-lift
                                        SN (Raptor/Starship) Serial Number
                                        SRB Solid Rocket Booster
                                        Jargon Definition
                                        Raptor Methane-fueled rocket engine under development by SpaceX
                                        Starlink SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation
                                        engine-rich Fuel mixture that includes engine parts on fire
                                        hydrolox Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer
                                        methalox Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer
                                        turbopump High-pressure turbine-driven propellant pump connected to a rocket combustion chamber; raises chamber pressure, and thrust

                                        NOTE: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.

                                        Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by request
                                        30 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 80 acronyms.
                                        [Thread #8183 for this sub, first seen 18th Nov 2023, 15:56] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

                                        [–]redplanetlover 0 points1 point  (3 children)

                                        Am I the only one who wonders about the exhaust? Methane is supposed to burn clean so why was there black exhaust on the one side and you can see the difference in the still photo of the launch tower afterward. One side is noticeable darker than the other

                                        [–]estroop 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                                        Could be the result of film cooling.

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                                          [–]Kev980 0 points1 point  (1 child)

                                          For me the worst scenario here, and I hope is not the case, is that hot staging damaged both the booster and ship. The booster immediately had structural damage and triggered the FTS and the ship took a little longer for the effects to manifest.

                                          In this case this takes some away from the “success” of the hot staging here as significant redesigns have to be done to both booster and ship. But still all that data would be enough for them to do it 100% next time

                                          [–]CardBoardBoxProcessr 1 point2 points  (0 children)

                                          No the hot staging Went fine. You can rest assure that the structural damage that you're thinking of did not happen because of it did it would have exploded at the moment of hot staging. Any structural flaw would have quickly been exploited and be visible leaking at the very least. The booster exploding is most likely due to fuel slash and all of the engines which you can see going out which is likely due to ingesting gas. The engines were starting up as it was flipping still and the fluid would be sloshed which allowed this.

                                          [–]Sorcerer001 0 points1 point  (7 children)

                                          Do we know if starship was fully loaded with dummy weight to simulate cargo?

                                          [–]dodgerblue1212 2 points3 points  (0 children)

                                          Not a single politician was on board

                                          [–]peterabbit456 1 point2 points  (5 children)

                                          Probably they launched empty of payload.

                                          In the future, refueling launches will go without payload. Launches without payload have the worst aerodynamics at launch. Testing launch without payload from liftoff to Max-Q was probably a necessary test. It was accomplished with complete success on this launch.

                                          [–]Sorcerer001 1 point2 points  (4 children)

                                          If they launched empty idk how they are supposed to reach LEO with cargo. Unless it wasnt full fuel load this time, but we know it will have better performance with 9 raptors instead 6 in future. Hopefully we will find out soon enough.

                                          load more comments (22 replies)