Why SpaceX’s Starship launch was hailed as both a great success and a colossal mess

Last week, SpaceX showed that the 120-meter-tall Starship could clear the launch pad – something the company and many rocket enthusiasts consider a sign of success, including. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk himself.

But remove the pad. The rocket cleared the launch tower … and then cleared a lot of concrete around it, with pieces of the launchpad being pushed up, out, everywhere – some even took out some remote cameras and the rear end of the unmanned vehicle belongs to NASASpaceflight YouTube.

As the rocket lifted off, SpaceX employees and people on nearby beaches cheered. However, when the rocket exploded and employees were still seen cheering in the online coverage of the launch, people were confused, and some even speculation was forced to cheer no matter what happens.

The rocket blew up, so why would he keep going after all his work burned? Of course, this is a failure, right?

Not exactly.

How SpaceX works

First, let’s talk about the Starship itself.

Starship is the name of a spaceship that will carry astronauts or cargo. Below is the Super Heavy booster that provides a boost with 33 powerful engines. When the two are stacked together, they are also called Starship.

Once at the correct height, the ship and booster separate and the booster returns to earth, finally caught by a hand called “chopstick” that can be raised and lowered on top of the launch tower.

This is the SpaceX ship that Musk hopes will take humans to Mars. It is also critical for NASA’s Artemis III mission that will return astronauts to the lunar surface sometime in 2025 or 2026.

This latest uncrewed launch is the first test of what SpaceX calls an “integrated” rocket, meaning the booster and Starship are launched together. SpaceX has tested Starship himself many timesand many of them exploded.

Because that’s how SpaceX works.

Musk even had SpaceX produce a YouTube video of the entire fiasco (set to John Philip Sousa’s The Liberty Bell) of the now highly successful Falcon 9 booster.

WATCH | How not to land an orbital rocket booster:

For those who follow the progress of the company, explosions are part of the process, and in fact, there are some who are evil and childish when they see it happen (for a reason. Mythbusters become popular).

“It’s OK to have fun when things don’t bring customers,” said Scott Manley, an astrophysicist and rocket launch enthusiast.

SpaceX tests the hardware by building and launching rockets. This is in stark contrast to NASA, which builds large facilities to test rockets, such as the engine test facility at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

But it takes time and SpaceX prefers to jump into test launches.

Successes and failures

Why was last week’s launch considered a success by SpaceX and other rocket watchers?

“It was partially successful, because he could fly,” Manley said. “They showed control over the beginning of the flight, they showed that all the boosters are working as expected, it shows that they are strong enough to handle a lot.”

“On the other hand, they show that the launch site is poorly designed and needs work.”

The rocket can also reach a height of 39 kilometers without damage. And even if it starts to spin out of control, it still stays together under great pressure. It then exploded after the flight termination system was activated.

Generally, the flight lasts four minutes.

It was not the planned trajectory for the rocket – it had to be separated, with the booster landing in the Gulf of Mexico and the ship landing in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii after 90 minutes – but SpaceX knew from the beginning that this would be the case. long-shot for the first test Starship.

In the end, this launch may not be as successful as SpaceX made it out to be. Not because the rocket exploded, but because it fell — literally and figuratively — to the ground.

Most launch pads have a way to ensure the rocket and pads are not damaged by the intense forces that occur during engine start-up. Sometimes, it takes the form of a large trench that diverts the fire away, sometimes it is a water extinguishing system.

The Starship launch pad is nothing but a heavy duty concrete called Fondag.

During the static test fire back in February – the process where the engine is ignited, but the rocket does not lift off – there was no damage and everything seemed fine, minus a couple of engines not firing.

But during the test, the engine only fired at 50 percent thrust. More recent tests have shown that the pad cannot handle the forces generated by full thrust.

However, the launch left a 25-foot crater in the pad, destroying Fondag’s concrete and damaging nearby tanks. In addition, five engines did not work during the lift, which may have been due to damage from the concrete.

Now, Musk says he has a plan to fix the problem.

The largest fallout will occur with the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) after debris from the launch fell 10 kilometers, including in the city of Port Isabel in Texas.

The FAA has conducted and approved the pre-test assessment, giving SpaceX the green light.

Manley, an astrophysicist, said the FAA needs to see what happens during this test.

“There would have been a lot less if the launch pad hadn’t disintegrated. If the rocket had just flown out of control, it would have been fine,” he said. “But the disintegration of the launch pad will likely cause more problems.”

And because of that, Musk’s claim that the company will make a second launch attempt in “one to two months” is unlikely, despite the fact that SpaceX already has several Starships sitting in the rocket park and two more boosters that are ready.

Manley said another FAA and/or EPA assessment is in order, as the area where the launch took place — Boca Chica, Texas — is a protected wetland. The site has drawn attention from several environmental groups.

And on Wednesday, Bloomberg reported The Texas division of the US Fish and Wildlife Service said debris was scattered over 156 acres at the SpaceX facility and Boca Chica State Park. On top of that, a one and a half hectare fire broke out in the south of the pad.

“I think the EPA needs to look carefully at what it’s doing. The FAA accepts the engineering. Remember, SpaceX is probably the biggest engineering company in the world, they and Tesla,” said the space launch historian and ex-NASA. illustrator Paul Fjeld.

Musk “has this thing that now basically will be a piss-off machine for residents who care about the beach. And I think that the political situation will not be able to resolve the problem very easily,” Fjeld said.

“So my own guess is that the FAA, the EPA is going to back off a little bit. They’re going to have to prove that they can do these engineering assessments that reflect what could happen, because they’re a long way off.”

But that’s how Musk works. Build stuff, blow, rinse, repeat until it’s right.

They have had success with the process so far, based on the reusable Falcon 9 rocket, which has seen 26 launches this year, at the time of publication, and the Falcon Heavy, a smaller heavy-lift rocket. And that’s part of the reason NASA awarded SpaceX the contract to return humans to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years.

But when will we see the company’s next Starship launch? Well, that’s up in the air.