SpaceX Launches Starship Flight Test | Hacker News Reader

SpaceX Launches Starship Flight Test

youtube.com

5 pointsBenoitP7 comments

Well, RIP that Starship. Does anyone understand/have theories on what failed? All I can find is that it had an RUD between liftoff and first stage separation.

Looks like either it started tumbling before it was intended, or the second stage failed to separate as the booster intentionally flipped for its boostback burn.

With fins up top, the combined Starship and Booster stack is sort of like a dart flying fins-first. In theory controllable with thrust vectoring, but with some inherent instability.

Tank pressure issues is my guess, it was one of the reasons for the hold @t-40

You can see the rocket sliding horizontally early in the flight, then 5 engines out before another few just before the uncontrolled spin, which was likely the result of having too many engines out, being unbalanced, and the controls trying to maintain course.

It looked off to me from the get go, it had more tilt than it should have off the pad and then looked to correct itself slightly, but then only got worse, as you know by now.

Thanks, that makes sense. Didn’t realize how many engines failed but when you look at T+1:22, it looks like 7 engines are already out.

Posting NASASpaceflight's channel as previous thread with the official feed fell off the front-page (maybe too much comments vs upvotes early on?)

Older thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35637882

Apparently it came back on the frontpage

T-80: SpaceX "Fueling of Starship’s upper stage is now underway"

T-86: SpaceX "Fueling of the Super Heavy booster is underway"

T-117: SpaceX "The Starship team is go for prop load; team is keeping an eye on the weather"

T-8h: EM "All systems currently green for launch"

----

Note: Can't edit or delete my previous comment anymore, please disregard it. New info will be on this one

Note #2: Seems like this post has been taken off the HN frontpage. Maybe a comment ratio issue?