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Starship - Test Flight ( 4:45pm CST)


Neonmoon

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I have a neurosurgery conference to race to, but I'll indulge my other area of expertise, rocket design.

I feel like the size of the explosion indicates unused fuel was present which could be related to the nozzles shutting down prematurely. Earlier someone noted that there was a compression problem in the middle of the spacecraft. I noted condensation forming in that area during the ascent and wondered if it was worrisome.

It appeared a second nozzles shut down. I was impressed that the rocket could be controlled to return to the designated spot for landing and execute everything perfectly execept for the speed of descent. The rocket seemed to be correcting for the imbalance of thrust, as well.

I would have been proud to get blowed up on that test. 

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Lastly, it was a fun watch. Nobody got hurt and something blew up after doing something I wasn't expecting. Now off to operate on brains!!

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Talking heads on nerd sites say they were expecting to land on 2 engines. ... Unfortunately one of the 2 engines used was one that cut out 1:56 into the flight. Nobody is sure if that was expected or not....

The belly flop landing approach actually looked more controlled than the high speed landing the Falcon 9 does. 

 

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25 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Is that a green flame?  What’s the fuel?

fuel rich combustion. low pressure in the tank. 

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In some sense of the word perfect, this was a perfect mission. Because they lost it to a crash and explosion (early in the process = less expensive), they will make huge advances in safety technology to solve the problem. Musk was worried about the data from the crash and explosion, first. 

 I am interested to see how the place (where humans would have been) survived the crash plus explosion. Have to think the tanks were heavier than expected at landing with the rich fuel burn. But that's within the realm of possibilities for this craft. 

Time is speeding up. That was nice step forward.

Edited by washparkhorn
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24 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

Is that a green flame?  What’s the fuel?

The green flame is from their hypergolic igniter system for the engine, you see it with the falcon 9 landings as well. 

From the amateur footage, an engine cut out and the vehicle attempted to relight before its rapid unplanned disassembly

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