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#1,614
Yazata Offline Aug 9, 2025 03:12 AM (This post was last modified: Aug 9, 2025 03:15 AM by Yazata.)
The Coast Guard put out this revised NOTMAR today. Note the change in dates, pushed back six days from the one they put out two days ago. (I wouldn't be very surprised if it continues to slip into September.)


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Yazata Offline Aug 16, 2025 01:21 AM
SpaceX has just released a great deal of information on the failures of both Flight 9 and the Ship 36 "energetic event".

https://www.spacex.com/updates#flight-9-report

The Flight 9 booster:

"After completing the boostback burn, Super Heavy flew at a significantly higher angle of attack than previous flights during its descent back to Earth, reaching a peak angle of approximately 17 degrees. This trajectory was a flight experiment to gather data on the limits of the booster’s performance. Once it reached the planned splashdown area, the booster relit 12 of the planned 13 engines for its landing burn. Shortly after the burn started, an energetic event was observed near the aft end of the vehicle followed by loss of telemetry. Final data was received from the booster approximately 382 seconds into flight and at approximately 1 kilometer in altitude over the designated clear zone.

The most probable cause for the failure at landing burn was higher than predicted forces on the booster structure, specifically on the booster’s fuel transfer tube, due to the increased angle of attack experiment. Post-flight analysis showed that vehicle loads exceeded the capabilities of the transfer tube which is believed to have experienced a structural failure..."

The Flight 9 ship:

"Following a successful stage separation, the Starship upper stage lit all six of its Raptor engines and flew along its expected trajectory. Approximately three minutes into the burn, sensors in the nosecone detected a steady increase in methane levels. This continued until approximately five minutes into the burn when pressure began to rapidly decrease in the main fuel tank while pressure simultaneously increased in the nosecone. Starship’s systems were able to compensate for the drop in main tank pressure and completed the ascent burn, achieving the planned velocity and Second Stage Engine Cutoff (SECO).

After engine shutdown, the elevated nosecone pressure combined with planned nosecone venting led to a large amount of attitude error, which continued to build up until the vehicle’s automatic fault systems disabled nosecone venting. The attitude error resulted in the ship automatically skipping the payload deploy objective, which was also unable to be completed as the higher nosecone pressure resulted in adverse loads on the mechanism responsible for opening the payload door.

The vehicle was able to gradually decrease its attitude error using reaction control thrusters until nosecone venting was reenabled as planned. Roughly 40 seconds after nosecone vents were reenabled, onboard cameras showed liquid methane entering the nosecone and temperatures on multiple sensors and controllers started dropping. This eventually triggered automatic passivation commands on the vehicle, resulting in Starship skipping the in-space burn and venting all remaining propellant into space.

Starship reentered Earth’s atmosphere in an off-nominal attitude and communication was lost during entry...

The most probable root cause for the loss of the Starship upper stage was traced to a failure on the main fuel tank pressurization system diffuser. Cameras inside the vehicle showed a visible failure on the fuel diffuser canister, which is located inside the nosecone volume on the forward dome of the main fuel tank. While pre-flight analysis did not show a predicted failure, SpaceX engineers were able to recreate the failure using flight conditions when testing at our facility in McGregor, Texas.

To address the issue on upcoming flights, the fuel diffuser has been redesigned to better direct pressurized gas into the main fuel tank and substantially decrease the strain on the diffuser structure. The new design underwent a more rigorous qualification campaign..."

Ship 36's unfortunate static fire:

"On Wednesday, June 18 at approximately 11:00 p.m. CT, the Starship (Ship 36) preparing for the tenth flight test experienced an anomaly while on a test stand at Starbase. The vehicle was in the process of loading cryogenic propellant for a six-engine static fire when a sudden energetic event resulted in the complete loss of Starship and damage to the immediate area surrounding the stand...

The most probable root cause was identified as undetectable or under screened damage to a composite overwrapped pressure vessel (COPV) in Starship’s payload bay section, which failed and resulted in structural failure of the vehicle causing subsequent propellant mixing and ignition. The COPVs in the payload section store gaseous nitrogen...

To address the issue, COPVs on upcoming flights will operate at a reduced pressure with additional inspections and proof tests added prior to loading reactive propellants onto a vehicle. SpaceX has also updated its COPV acceptance criteria and developed a new non-destructive evaluation method to detect internal COPV damage. New external covers are also being added to COPVs during their integration, adding an additional layer of protection and visual indication of potential damage."
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Yazata Offline Aug 16, 2025 05:48 AM (This post was last modified: Aug 16, 2025 05:52 AM by Yazata.)
Photos by Mauricio of RGV Aerial Photography showing the new pad today and a year ago. It still has a ways to go before it is complete. In the meantime they will continue using the earlier pad with the earlier version.2 ships and boosters, which aren't compatible with the new pad.


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Yazata Offline Aug 19, 2025 06:53 AM
Today (August 19) is two months since the Ship 36 explosion at the Masseys test site (which is still being rebuilt). In honor, here's TobEwobE's video of what SpaceX calls an "energetic event". I think that it's probably the closest view that exists (apart from SpaceX cameras on site that might not have survived) recorded from right outside the safety perimeter. It looks pretty scary, with all of the debris flying through the air, though I don't think anything reached to where they were.


https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/4yEqgh0Kqi0
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