WASHINGTON – SpaceX’s superheavy booster landed within a second of an aborted “catch” landing attempt on the latest Starship test flight, according to audio posted online by Elon Musk. It was careless.
On Oct. 25, Musk posted a three-minute video on his social media network, X, of himself playing a video game in action. However, the audio is not from a video game, but rather several people discussing the October 13 test flight of Starship Flight 5. That flight featured the first successful return and capture of a Super Heavy booster using a mermechanical arm attached to the launch tower. Departs from Boca Chica, Texas.
In the audio, one of the anonymous individuals says that a “wrongly configured” parameter meant that the rotational pressure of the presumed Raptor engine in the booster did not increase as expected. I explained the issue of landing burn.
“We stumbled with one second left and told the rocket to abort and crash into the ground next to the tower,” the person said. That scenario would “inadvertently instruct a healthy rocket not to attempt its capture.”
“We tried to reaffirm a ton of new abort and commit criteria very well, and I mean, I think our concerns were well placed, and one of them almost came back to bite us. ” continued the person.
Officials who took part in the audio noted that there had been discussion of delaying the launch of Flight 5 to allow additional time to check these parameters. “We were horrified by the fact that there were 100 abortions, which were not trivial,” one source said.
In the audio, SpaceX officials said they completed a review of data from five flights the previous day and compared it to “plan cancellations and what needs to change about that data.” .
Another issue discussed in the audio while Musk played a video game was the booster’s vertical structure, a cover on the chines that came undone when the vehicle went into transonic speed during its descent. . SpaceX officials said in the audio that they were concerned about the China cover coming off before launch.
“While the exact location could not be predicted, this torn off cover was directly above a number of single point failure valves that were supposed to activate during the landing burn,” the official said. “Fortunately, we didn’t damage them or the harness, but the moment the landing burn started, we ripped this chine cover off over some very important equipment. has a plan to deal with it.”
The person also began talking about the issue of engine smoke during landing burn, but the video stopped at that point.
Discussions appear to include plans for the next Starship test flight, Flight 6. SpaceX is preparing for flight, moving its next super heavy booster to the launch site for testing. “Flight 6 is almost here!” he posted early October 25th.
Unlike previous launches where new or renewed licenses from the Federal Aviation Administration were received shortly before launch, SpaceX has already received FAA approval for six of the license renewals received for five flights. There is. “The FAA has determined that SpaceX’s requested changes to Flight 6 are within the scope of a previous analysis,” the FAA said in issuing the license for Flight 5, but that those changes were He did not say what it was.
In the audio, SpaceX officials said the next flight “will be focused on booster risk mitigation and increasing the circumference.” They were also seeking a balance between risk mitigation and the speed of their next flight without the schedule constraints of an FAA license.
“We don’t spend as much time as we would ideally like to have the luxury of really studying everything,” said one person. “But given that this is our first launch in a while, really our first launch, and we’re not led by the FAA, we’re trying to strike a reasonable balance between speed and risk mitigation, especially for the booster.” I’m about to do it.”
Musk is silent for most of the video, and keeps saying, “Wow!” When I was informed that the landing was almost cancelled.
After posting the video to X, one user asked him if he knew he was sharing audio from Starship’s teleconference. “Yeah, 😂,” Musk replied.
