Starship Flight 7
290 comments
·January 16, 2025terramex
dpifke
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.
Cu3PO42
What a strangely beautiful sight. While I was excited to see ship land, I'm also happy I get to see videos of this!
Molitor5901
I felt.. bad watching that breakup, it reminded me of Columbia.
dpifke
Which coincidentally launched 22 years ago today: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-107
birdman3131
I remember being woken up by the thunder from Columbia.
Lost it over the years but I used to have a photo of about 20 vans of people parked on our property doing the search for debris. Don't think they found any on our land but there was a 3 ft chunk about 5 miles down the road.
xattt
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted, but I thought this too.
afavour
As long as the debris has no effect wherever it lands, I agree with you
verzali
A lot of flights seem to be diverting to avoid it...
https://bsky.app/profile/flightradar24.com/post/3lfvhpgmqqc2...
ijidak
Looks like something out of a sci-fi movie.
olex
Inadvertently perfect timing for this footage. Glowing and backlit by the setting sun, against clear and already darkening evening sky... couldn't plan the shot any better if you tried.
Let's hope no debris came down on anyone or anything apart from open water.
andrewinardeer
I take it if SpaceX debris hit and destroyed a boat the owner can claim damages from SpaceX?
Does international space law allow for this?
ceejayoz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Liability_Convention
Only used once, when the Soviets dropped a nuclear reactor on Canada.
> States (countries) bear international responsibility for all space objects that are launched within their territory. This means that regardless of who launches the space object, if it was launched from State A's territory, or from State A's facility, or if State A caused the launch to happen, then State A is fully liable for damages that result from that space object.
HPsquared
It's probably similar to if a US ship crashed into your yacht.
delichon
Musk said that part of the launch licensing was a requirement to estimate the potential damage to whales in the ocean. He said that the odds turned out to be so low that in his opinion if a whale gets hit it had it coming.
https://jabberwocking.com/did-elon-musk-really-have-to-study...
9cb14c1ec0
Given that the engine telemetry shown on the broadcast showed the engines going out one by one over a period of some seconds, I could easily imagine some sort of catastrophic failure on a single engine that cascaded.
s1artibartfast
It could be many things, plumbing to the engines, tank leak, ect. You could see fire on the control flap actuators, so the ship interior was engulfed in fire at the same time the first engine was out.
consumer451
Given the huge spread of the debris, it must have been a decent sized boom, no? I mean that's got to be 10's of miles wide in this video.
m4rtink
Yeah, most likely engine bay fire taking out systems one by one. Would be interesting to compare the telemetry cutoff with the video of explosion if possible. That could indicate if the fire even triggered an explosion, flight termination being activated or just reentry heating making the tanks explode.
jiggawatts
I noticed that the CH4 tank level was much lower than the O2 tank level. That suggests a leak.
idlewords
There's a flickering flame briefly visible on the flap hinge of the second stage in the last footage it sent down.
s1artibartfast
Most Sci-Fi real footage I have ever seen.
Edit: Reminds me of "The Eye" from star wars Andor
JumpCrisscross
Wow. It reminds me of the comet scene from Andor. I wonder if suborbital pyrotechnics will become a thing one day.
ralusek
> one day
today!
october8140
Congratulations to the 14,000 SpaceX employees for their accomplishments.
charles_f
That "landing" (is it still considered a landing if it's chopsticked a few meters before it touches the ground?) is so unnatural it almost looks fake. So big and unimaginable that it feels like watching fx on a movie!
The close-up camera right after was interesting, I thought it captured on the grid fins, but it looks like there are two small purpose-built knobs for that.
The times we live in!
yreg
You have perfectly described the feeling I had regarding the first belly flop demo (at least I think it was the first one?)
https://youtu.be/gA6ppby3JC8?si=wY7TQsbR_wxoud75&t=70 (ten seconds from the timestamp)
sneak
Yeah, that shot is so clean and smooth it feels like a render. Absolutely iconic even after a dozen rewatchings. The iris flares and the framerate… gotta hand it to whoever planned that shot and placed that camera. A+ videography.
dzhiurgis
It the high dynamic range (HDR) that makes it look "unnatural" because we are so used to seeing over-compressed photos and videos.
Plus maybe something they do with stability and frame-rate.
0_____0
You can hear some sounds in the stream that I think are one of the presenters weeping during the launch and landing sequences. I think I would be similarly awe struck to witness such a thing
ortusdux
IIRC, the grid fins are not strong enough to support the rocket, and reinforcing them would add too much weight to the vehicle.
The plan is to catch the second stage the same way, and the starship in flight now is the first to have mockup pins to test the aerodynamics and see if they cause issues during reentry.
charles_f
I was surprised they were landing them on those fins, makes more sense now.
levocardia
The clearance is amazing -- probably bigger IRL than it looked on the camera, but it looked like only a foot or two between the chopsticks arm and the top of the rocket! The control algorithms on the gimballed engines must be insanely precise.
adolph
Since I’ve never seen an f9 landing, watching ift5 land was kinda mind blowing. Even 6k away you can tell it’s really big but moved with a grace and smoothness like a hippo in water only with crackling flame.
gazchop
I heard someone say it's like trying to land the Statue of Liberty. Turns out the statue is actually shorter.
modeless
Oh no they lost the ship after the booster landed! Seems like they lost an engine, then I saw fire around the rear flap hinges in the last images before they cut out, and then the telemetry showed more engines shutting down until it froze.
During ascent I also noticed a panel near the front fins that seemed to be loose and flapping. Probably not related but who knows.
Edit: Here's a video of the aftermath. Strangely beautiful. https://x.com/deankolson87/status/1880026759133032662
londons_explore
> fire around the rear flap hinges
I believe it's pretty hard to have a fire at that altitude. You need a leak of both methane and oxygen, and an ignition source.
I wonder if perhaps one of the engines split open and the exhaust wasn't going into the engine bell?
pixl97
I mean blowing liquid oxygen on something with a hot heat source beside it typically turns things to fuel you wouldn't expect. Like metal.
modeless
Good point, must have been an O2 leak oxidizing random stuff.
null
inglor_cz
What a celestial bonfire. It indeed has a haunting beauty.
anothertroll456
[dead]
anothertroll123
[dead]
ChuckMcM
Will be interesting to hear the postmortem on the second stage. The booster part seemed to work pretty flawlessly with the exception of a non-firing engine on boost back which then did fire during the landing burn.
If the person doing their on-screen graphics is reading this, I wonder if you have considered showing tank LOX/CH4 remaining as a log graph. I believe it decreases logrithmically when being used (well it would if you keep 'thrust' constant) so that would create a linear sweep to the 'fuel level' status.
yreg
When this comment gets 44 minutes old it's going to be T-0.
clueless
reminds me of the classic joke: a man walking down a street, stops and asks another person if they know what time it is. The person responds: I'm sorry as I don't have a watch on me, but you see that car parked over there? when it explodes, it should be 5pm
cube2222
This comment was very helpful and exactly what I wanted to know opening this discussion, and made me chuckle on top of that, thank you!
null
dingaling
Thank you, I was trying to convert Central Time to something understandable.
All their systems and logging are running in UTC, why can't they just give launch times accordingly.
yreg
Yeah, I prefer this "when this comment is XY old" format the most when communicating internationally. Closely followed by UTC, of course.
I hate having to convert from some time zone which I don't know by heart; with the additional risk of getting daylight savings or something wrong and missing the event.
kristianp
This is version 2 of Starship, with some upgrades, such as longer starship.
"Upgrades include a redesigned upper-stage propulsion system that can carry 25 per cent more propellant, along with slimmer, repositioned forward flaps to reduce exposure to heat during re-entry.
For the first time, Starship will deploy 10 Starlink simulators" [1].
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/heres-what-nasa-would-...
[1] https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/musks-starship-ready-...
mjevans
I miss the time before X broke so many things, like official streams being on Twitch where I've already paid for ad free viewing.
Osyris
My big gripe is that X videos don't seem to support Chromecast at all. I used to watch SpaceX launches on my TV :(
agildehaus
Load it in Chrome and cast the tab. Sucks that you have to involve your computer for the duration, but that's the most reliable way to do it IMO.
jryan49
Just watch the everyday astronauts coverage on YouTube! Great commentary, and feed from the official space x stream as well as their own cameras
Cu3PO42
I now use AirPlay to extend a MacBook screen to my TV and play the stream that way. But it's so needlessly complicated compared to before :/
cubefox
There is an Android TV App apparently: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.x.xtv
b8
uBlock Origin blocked any ads if there was any and I didn't have any issues (Ungoogled Chrome). I didn't pay for Twitch and TVV LOL Pro works fine for me.
thepasswordis
Couldn't you make a twitch stream of it? X isn't injecting ads into the video, so just open it on X and stream it to twitch.
mardifoufs
I'm glad it's not on Twitch. I don't like it being on X but twitch is worse since it's extremely hard to get any working Adblock on there.
echoangle
Catch was successful again, very impressive.
ceejayoz
They may have lost the second stage, though.
echoangle
Yes, very much looks like it.
I wonder how much of the second stage flight is autonomous and if they need to continually need to give it a go to continue, or if it aborts automatically after some time of lost telemetry. But maybe it already exploded anyways.
moeadham
Probably self destructs if anything goes wrong
timewizard
The flight control loops are strongly latched. They are constantly checking the state of discretes, control surfaces, and intended guidance. If any critical parameter gets out of range for a period of time or if any group of standard parameters gets out of range the vehicle will simply cease powered flight.
In the Space Shuttle, given that it was human rated, the "Range Safety" system was completely manual. It was controlled by a pair of individuals and they manually made the call to send the ARM/FIRE sequence to the range safety detonators.
baq
Space is hard.
HackerThemAll
That could have been kinda sorta intentional. No big deal.
jmpeax
I wonder if the second stage failure was related to the metal flap seen here on the very left of the image: https://imgur.com/a/VS8IPdv
thehodge
Video of the breakup - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DE52_hVSeQz/
idlewords
Pretty sure that's the flight termination system in action. It did well!
simonswords82
This NASASpaceflight stream is up now: https://www.youtube.com/live/3nM3vGdanpw
consumer451
As is Tim Dodd’s
https://www.youtube.com/live/6Px_b5eSzsA
Aside from coding, this is my favorite use of multiple screens.
lysace
> Aside from coding, this is my favorite use of multiple screens.
Great observation. I also do this. :-)
sneak
...which has nothing to do with NASA the US government organization, or the NSF (FYI). It's just some independent streamers who apparently know you can't get trademark claims against you by the federal government.
ericcumbee
NASA allows them to place cameras as media on nasa property some are even permanent. and are credentialed media for launches. so I am guessing NASA is okay with it.
m4rtink
Yeah, they have been covering space stuff for decades by now. They have literally dozens of remote cameras by now around Starbase and the Cape, funded by merch sales and community contributions. :)
echoangle
I’m not sure about the NASA name itself, but apparently the graphic stuff is protected by a special law:
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/chapter-V/part-1221
So you wouldn’t exactly get a copyright claim when abusing the NASA logo but it’s still illegal.
I couldn’t find anything about the NASA word itself though, just some articles reciting guidelines by NASA not to imply an endorsement by NASA. I don’t know how that’s enforced though.
timewizard
You cannot _misuse_ any official government logo or seal. Which effectively means creating a fake document with a real seal and then publishing it. The concern is fraud not sharing content.
You are allowed to basically reproduce the work without any worries whatsoever.
rigrassm
Spoken like someone who is generating their opinion from their channel name alone.
Those "independent streamers" provide live launch streams with multiple feeds using their own equipment and to top it off they have numerous very knowledgeable hosts for all their streams. At this point I suspect they are covering every US based launch from all the major players. Hell, today they broadcasted both the New Glenn and Starship launches less than 24h apart.
But yeah, let's get hung up on an organization name that originated as an Internet forum for discussing all things....... NASA!
m4rtink
Frankly, their coverage of New Glenn was quite a bit better than the official stream. :P
cubefox
They should rename themselves NSF, short for NSF Space Flight.
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/