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Starship Flight 7

(www.spacex.com)
649 points chinathrow | 1 comments | 16 Jan 25 21:25 UTC | HN request time: 0.208s | source
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terramex ◴[16 Jan 25 23:04 UTC] No.42732041[source]▶
Looks like second stage broke up over Caribbean, videos of the debris (as seen from ground):

https://x.com/deankolson87/status/1880026759133032662?t=HdHF...

https://x.com/realcamtem/status/1880026604472266800

https://x.com/adavenport354/status/1880026262254809115

Moment of the breakup:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE52_hVSeQz/

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dpifke ◴[17 Jan 25 01:58 UTC] No.42733260[source]▶
Preliminary indication is that we had an oxygen/fuel leak in the cavity above the ship engine firewall that was large enough to build pressure in excess of the vent capacity.

Apart from obviously double-checking for leaks, we will add fire suppression to that volume and probably increase vent area. Nothing so far suggests pushing next launch past next month.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1880060983734858130

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raverbashing ◴[17 Jan 25 05:49 UTC] No.42734474[source]▶
I'm not sure there's fire suppression effective enough for this type of leak (especially given rocket constraints)
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varjag ◴[17 Jan 25 08:40 UTC] No.42735333[source]▶
If you can displace the oxidizer/air remaining in the volume why not.
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littlestymaar ◴[17 Jan 25 13:03 UTC] No.42737092[source]▶
The initial tweet says:

> we had an oxygen/fuel leak

If that's correct, then you can't just remove air. The only option would be to cool things down so it stops burning.

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shellfishgene ◴[17 Jan 25 14:22 UTC] No.42737765[source]▶
If it was really an oxygen/fuel mix burning I don't think you can do much of anything to stop that.
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littlestymaar ◴[17 Jan 25 14:47 UTC] No.42738033[source]▶
If you cooled the mixture at low enough temperature, you'd stop it from burning (like when you pour water on top of a camp fire), but it's not clear how you're supposed to do that in a spaceship where you can't carry a few tons of water for your sprinklers.
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varjag ◴[17 Jan 25 17:01 UTC] No.42740322[source]▶
There are other methods too, e.g. fire inhibitors (like Halon or whatever is allowed now) or shockwave to disrupt fire boundary. But I doubt they are very practical on a spaceship.
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m4rtink ◴[17 Jan 25 17:27 UTC] No.42740776[source]▶
First stage (Super Heavy) is flushing the engine bay with massive ammounts of CO2.
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1. littlestymaar ◴[17 Jan 25 21:29 UTC] No.42743472[source]▶
Unless I'm misunderstanding you, it's not the same thing at all: in the case you're talking about you're shielding against nominal heat, which is not the same thing as contingency planning to extinguish a fire that shouldn't be there in the first place.