My Thoughts on the SpaceX Test

This is my first ever blog post, so I'll try to keep this brief. Today, I got to see the SpaceX Starship test, the one that was delayed from yesterday and finally launched after an hour's delay. I'm rather glad it got delayed, because I would've completely missed it if it hadn't. I wasn't even awake by the time it was originally supposed to launch!

So there I was, watching my television in awe, chromebook hooked up to it, waiting for the launch. Let me tell you, my anticipation was GROWING, but so was my anxiety. I was thinking that, maybe, they were going to cancel it again due to another Raptor engine failure, or it might blow up before launch! You never know what could happen with these types of launches, it is a prototype afterall, that's WHY they're testing it. 

Much to my glee though, I saw the holy flame that graced the concrete as it began to lift off from the ground with a tremendous roar! Although my worst fear about it blowing up hadn't come to pass yet, it did fill me with a lot of hope that the Starship serial number 8 decided to take off for the second time in its career. This was the very first landing test, complete with a nosecone, and it looked just as good as any render would make it out to be.

It of course did not take long for my fear of it not blowing up before lift off came to pass, as its mighty triplet engines shoved that grain silo far into roughly the same position as any of the two previous hop tests would do.


It flew for about a minute before anything really happened, and the entire time I was practically dancing in my seat, filled with glee at this stainless steel rocket reaching altitudes never seen before by any of the previous rockets. I had a brief scare with one of the engines cutting off, and especially when there was a mild problem directly after the shut off, but then after the second engine shut off, I realized that the shut offs were intentional. The fire, on the other hand, although unintenional, didn't appear to be a problem. It seemed to have just burnt off some sort of cleaning material, and nothing else.

At around T+5:22, the dive was performed, and it was everything I wanted and more! Seriously, look at it! It's such a ridiculous look that you just HAVE to love it! The fins moved quickly for adjustment, which was really cool to look at. I'm completely impressed. You need to watch it yourself! I've attached a video below of the livestream.

It flipped over just in time to light its engines, and it NEARLY made a landing, but all of a sudden, the flame on one of the engines turned green! What in the world!? Well, according to this tweet from Elon Musk, "fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn..." Now, I'm no rocket engineer, but this almost looks like an engine rich exhaust event. However, given this new information, I have an idea on what this could actually mean for the engine(even though it is now lost). Essentially, when the fuel header tank pressure went low, more oxygen went to one of the engines. The interior of the Raptor engines is unknown, but if I could put two and two together, my guess is that a lot of oxygen went to a copper-rich environment, presenting a new, sickly green flame. I'm essentially suggesting that the engine burnt itself because of extra oxygen. Another potential is, because one of the engines failed to kick on, the engine with a green flame used its innards to try to compensate for the one that failed to turn on, but I believe this to be much less likely.

Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD, but we got all the data we needed! Congrats SpaceX team hell yeah!!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2020

 

Of course, in the end, as the tweet said, there was a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly on the landing pad. Although the explosion was really cool, my hopes were, for a moment, vanquished in the bright orange flames produced from escaping methane. But it soon returned, because by all accounts, that was an AMAZING test! You'll never see something like this from a traditional company, or Blue Origin, because they don't have the balls to do something like this, and it seriously shows in their slow innovation!

So, here we are. Am I disappointed? Yes. Do I think that space travel has no chance thanks to it? Nope! I actually think the failure helps them work out the kinks even more than a successful landing would've! I'm still hyped up for the next launch, and given that Starship serial number 9 is already mostly flight ready, I suspect we'll be seeing another launch, potentially before new years eve! But, there's also the potential that it doesn't happen. Whatever the case, Mars 2024, despite Elon's slight pessimism, is looking more and more realistic by the minute with SpaceX!


Here's the video if you guys want to watch it! I'd highly suggest you do, it's downright inspiring.