Talk:Starship flight test 2: Difference between revisions

Success or Failure

Hear ye, hear ye brave people, the (hopefully not) overly long debate about whether or not the launch was a failure is about to start, have a seat. It's gonna be boring. Different sources are gonna say different things, and honestly my opinion is that we should not even take a side, or describe the fact that the result of the launch was differently regarded by different people/news articles. If more people/articles consider it a failure, also specify it. CodemWiki (talk) 15:06, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

We should probably just say that some stuff were successful (like the pad, hot staging and engines), while others (like SECO and boostback) were not. Stoplookin9 (talk) 15:16, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

"Partial failure" is probably fine. I wouldn't say its fully "successful" until its met every single objective. (even if it did achieve many) Clayel (talk) 17:31, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Partial failure seems like an appropriately concise answer, proportionately to the relative pointlessness of the debate. Fine with me, I'll add it. Was already added. CodemWiki (talk) 18:54, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Flight results speculation

Speculation warning! (until confirmed by SpaceX). I'm going to speculate stuff here, and anything that gets confirmed will be placed in the aftermath section (doesn't exist yet for obvious reasons)

From aerial shots by RGV aerial photography, it looks like the OLM sustained some charring (especially by booster QD hood). This might be from the "power slide", or more formally, the pad avoidance maneuver. Ship QD arm may have sustained some damage (probably a piston that got damaged/sheared off)

Water deluge plate looks intact though, also no rock tornado yay!

I'm pretty sure ship and booster were destroyed by fts due to engine problems. Booster probably due to some engines not relighting and hot staging damage (probably both). We need to wait for more info about ship (early SECO might have contributed to FTS, but that's not confirmed)

Now we just need to wait for official sources to disprove me. Reply when theories get proven/disproven Stoplookin9 (talk) 18:26, 18 November 2023 (UTC)

Upper stage failure

This is best placed here, so that more experience editors can add it in (or not) as is appropriate.

All times are flight times in minutes and seconds from launch as indicated by the flight clock in the video.

My view is that the Starship stage failure began at 7:06. At that time, a plume appears heading off to the left side of the spacecraft. Up until then, the view had been of a tight spec from the rockets firing. At 7:40, there is a flash and a puff going off in all directions. I see the engines getting brighter and then duller after that. At 7:53, I last seeing the engines burning. At 8:04, there is a flash and a plume expanding in all directions. At 8:07, there is a bigger flash and plume. After that, nothing more is visible.

I take this to mean that there was a failure of some sort in Starship at or before 7:06. Certainly at 7:06 material starts spewing out of Starship in an anomalous fashion. I take this as evidence of either an engine breach or a hull breach. I suspect the former based on the available evidence. The 7:40 event is appears to be an explosion. I interpret the changes in the engine brightness afterwards as indicating that Starship has started to tumble. (The engines seem to become visible off to one side of the plume where they had been mostly obscured by it before.) SECO appears to have occurred by 7:53, but this may not have been a controlled cutoff. The 8:04 event is another explosion, which may be the beginning of the FTS sequence. The 8:07 event is certainly the FTS doing its job.

EMS | Talk 19:48, 18 November 2023 (UTC)