Last Thursday the long-awaited launch of the Starship took place, you know, the largest rocket and ship set of all those created by man. With the capacity to transport more than one hundred people, a large part of the plans to colonize the Moon and to carry out the first manned mission to Mars currently involve making the Starship capable of taking flight, and to take us further in this way than the human being has reached up to now. Much depends on this mammoth project from SpaceX.
As you already know, after four minutes since its launch, and after several problems, the Starship exploded when it was in free fall at an altitude of 29 kilometers. It was a foreseeable end, although the initial aspiration is that the Starship was capable of making a complete orbit around the Earth. In other words, not all the desired objectives were completed, but even so we cannot qualify the proof of failure, since the ship was able to rise up to 39 kilometers, and both from this ascent and from the problems that occurred, the company can extract deep learning to apply to future tests.
The live image of the launch gave us very interesting images and data, such as the fact that three of the Raptor engines did not activate for takeoff, and we can also see, if we look closely, like a storm of fragments from the ground of the launch pad also flew up, hitting everything in its path. This pointed to the ground under the Raptors had been, in some way, affected by the storm of fire and pressure from the engines. What we did not expect is that its level of erosion would have been so high As we have been able to verify later.
Had not seen this image before… Found it on the beechtalk forum… pic.twitter.com/f3SseFAoIX
—Paul Breed (@unrocket) April 21, 2023
Many launch platforms have a flame deflector pit, that is, a conduit on the ground below the initial location of the engines, which receives the flames that the engines expel and redirects it in another direction. However, the SpaceX launch site does not have this facility, something that Elon Musk already advanced a few years ago on Twitter… indicating that they might have to regret it in the future. Now, with many doubts in the air, it does seem that it was a huge mistake.
The failure of the first three engines, as well as the loss of the hydraulic system responsible for modifying the orientation of the engines to adjust the course of the rocket could be caused by the huge fragments of concrete who jumped from the base of the platform in all directions. But in addition, many other fragments fell in all directions, something that represents an enormous danger and that, consequently, could cause, and it is quite probable, that the FAA will not allow another launch to take place in these same conditions.
Elon Musk affirmed, after the explosion, that the next flight would take place in months, and when the information suffered by the platform has been made public, he has affirmed that they planned to use a water-cooled steel plate between the platform and the engines of the Starship, but that this piece was not ready in time for launch. However, we will have to wait to check if the piece really exists, if it offers the necessary security and, consequently, if the company obtains authorization for the launch again. If not, SpaceX will have to make very significant changes to the platform, and the question is whether these are possible on that terrain. Otherwise, the plans could really get complicated.
