And the Starship had to be blown up because it got out of control.
Much was expected from the first flight test of the Starship rocket (according to plans, it should send people first to the Moon and then to Mars), but it turned out to be only 4 minutes of flight – then the Starship exploded. SpaceX later explained that the rocket was destroyed on purpose, and now Elon Musk spoke about the chain of events that led to this.
During a Twitter audio chat that lasted nearly an hour, Musk provided a detailed timeline of what happened during the Starship test flight.
It all started with three of the 33 Raptor engines shutting down before launch. “ The system deemed them not “healthy” enough to operate at full capacity, so they shut down ,” Musk said. As a result of this, a roll appeared during takeoff. “ Normally we don’t expect tilt. It really has to go straight up ,” Musk said.
Twenty-seven seconds after launch, something went wrong with another engine: it apparently collapsed and damaged several neighboring ones. “ However, the rocket kept moving ,” Musk said. According to the head of SpaceX, ” the real trouble came ” when the rocket lost the ability to control itself, deflecting the nozzles of the engines in one direction or another. It happened at 85 seconds into the flight.
From that moment on, Starship went out of control – she continued to fly even after the command to stop. “ It took too long to rupture the fuel tanks, ” Musk said, referring to the in-flight abort system, which is designed to destroy an out-of-control missile.
At the same time, this is also evidence of the high strength of the rocket. “ The structural safety margin of the spacecraft seems to be better than we expected ,” Musk said.
Elon Musk told how they blew up the largest rocket in the history of mankind.
Elon Musk suggests that more explosives will be planted in Starship during the next launch to ensure that ” the rocket will explode immediately if it becomes necessary to stop the flight .”
Another surprise for SpaceX was that the concrete of the launch pad could not stand it. Elon Musk said that everything was fine during the firing tests, but he himself noted that these tests were carried out only at half the power of the Raptor engines.
The full thrust of 30 engines shattered the concrete base and set off a “rock tornado” that scattered debris hundreds of meters and created a huge dust cloud. “ Basically, this is a man-made dust storm, but we don’t want to do it again ,” Musk said. There were suggestions that pieces of concrete could damage the Raptor engines, but the head of SpaceX denied them.
And now what? Elon Musk does not guarantee that the second attempt to launch Starship will be more successful. According to his estimates, another 4-5 test flights may take place this year. “ We may have an 80 percent chance of going into orbit this year. I think the probability of getting into orbit within 12 months is close to 100% ,” Elon Musk summed up.
