SpaceX applied its latest engines Starship The third prototype was Thursday night (Nov. 12), but the experiment was a bump.
The Starship SN8 vehicle carried out its third short “static fire” – engines ignited during a test, while a rocket crashed to the ground – near the village of Boca Chika on Thursday on the Space Tex’s South Texas facility.
Shortly after webcast testing by several external organizations, the material deviates from the SN8 base. It seemed weird, SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk It was soon confirmed that something nominal had happened.
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“We lost vehicle pneumatics because the cause is now unknown. The liquid oxygen header tank pressure is increasing. It is hoped that the burst disc will activate to reduce the pressure, otherwise it will pop the cork,” Musk said. Said via Twitter Thursday night. (Like valves, burst discs are single-use devices that close various sections or systems of the vehicle. As Musk points out, they relieve pressure when opened.)
The cause of the problem is now unknown, Musk said Another Thursday tweet: “An engine preburner or fuel hot gas manifold may melt. This may cause loss of pneumatics. We need to design this problem.”
That is bad news. The good news is, Burst Disc has done its job, and SN8 is still in one piece.
“The burst disc worked, so the vehicle looks fine. We have to swap out at least one of the engines,” Musk said. Another tweet.
The vehicle looks OK because the burst disc worked. We need to swap out at least one of the engines.November 13, 2020
The SN8 (“Serial No. 8”) has three raptors, the most powerful next-generation engine of the SpaceX that runs on liquid methane and liquid oxygen. The previous StarShip prototype did not have more than one adapter.
Static fires of SN8 – first two October 20th November 10 – Intended to pave the way for a 9-mile (15 km) test flight in the near future. It is much higher than any of its predecessors. The Stubhopper craft and the SN5 and SN6 prototypes reached a maximum altitude of 500 feet (150 m) during their flights, which occurred in the summer of 2019 and last August and September. (SN8 includes a nose angle and fixed flaps.
Thursday night’s setback will delay SN8’s big jump, but how long will it take to wait.
The 165-foot (50 m) vehicle is equipped with a large rocket known as the Starship, a super-rocket, both of which can be fully and quickly reused. The final StarShip craft will have six rafters and the Super Heavy about 30 engines.
The SpaceX Starship sees Mars colonization – Musk’s long-term ambition – as a major transportation system. If all goes according to plan, Starship will handle all other space flight needs of SpaceX, from launching satellites to clearing space junk and boarding passengers on superfast “point-to-point” missions around the world.
Mike Wall “Out there“(Grand Central Publishing, 2018; Illustrated by Carl Tate), a book about the search for aliens. Follow him on Twitter ക്കൽMichaelDwall.
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