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Starship Flight 7

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649 points chinathrow | 1 comments | 16 Jan 25 21:25 UTC | HN request time: 0s | 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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Alive-in-2025 ◴[17 Jan 25 17:06 UTC] No.42740417[source]▶
This sounds like one of those "and also" things. I'd say you add fire suppression AND ALSO try more to reduce leaks. It's got to be really difficult to build huge massive tanks that hold oxygen and other gases under pressure (liquid methane too will have some vapor of course). Are leaks inherently going to happen?

This is meant to be a human rated ship of course, how will you reduce this danger? I know this stuff is hard, but you can't just iterate and say starship 57 has had 3 flights without leaks, we got it now. Since I have no expertise here, I can imagine all kinds of unlikely workarounds like holding the gas under lower pressure with humans on board or something to reduce the risk.

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1. WalterBright ◴[17 Jan 25 22:25 UTC] No.42743929[source]▶
Lindbergh's Spirit of St Louis had the main fuel tank directly in front of him. This was in spite of his primal fear of being burned alive. In some airplanes you sit on the fuel tank.