@mehcuda67 Starship has two sets of fuel & oxygen tanks, the main for takeoff, and the “header” tanks for horizontal & landing burn. With the ship on it’s side, the main tanks would be providing gas, not liquid, thus the need for a second set of tanks.
Among the many things they proved out in this flight, one of them was switching fueling systems. The cause of the crash was low pressure in the header methane tank. That’s why SpaceX considers this flight a smashing (sorry!) success: they had one thing go wrong, and many, many things go right.
I think a lot of the venting on the way up was due to the sequential engine shutdowns. You see massive motion in the engine gimbals, along with a lot of venting, at each shutdown.
@blaineg@mehcuda67 I feel like the engine that shut down moving out to it’s max limit was intentional to give the remaining engines more “room” to move to compensate… or just to stay out of the way. Cause it was done.
I wonder what their position was at the flip. You would expect they all pull back In for the landing burn once oriented
Another view. Definitely not fanboys.
@blaineg I was… Happy? But hearing those desperate … Whatever. I hope they were just drunk. That was unpleasant.
The green exhaust is a loss of fuel pressure, and excessive oxygen is finding something else to burn - the copper parts of the engine.
@blaineg From: https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/12/starship-rises-high-performs-a-flawless-flip-but-doesnt-quite-stick-the-landing/
Lots of pretty pictures.
@blaineg The last paragraph of the article notes that on the same day Blue Origin rolled out a mockup. The snark is strong with this one.
@blaineg Someone called it an engine-rich burn.
@blaineg Note to self: burn fuel, not engine.
@blaineg Yeah, I was wondering if all that venting on the way up was oxidizer. Still pretty amazing!
@mehcuda67 Starship has two sets of fuel & oxygen tanks, the main for takeoff, and the “header” tanks for horizontal & landing burn. With the ship on it’s side, the main tanks would be providing gas, not liquid, thus the need for a second set of tanks.
Among the many things they proved out in this flight, one of them was switching fueling systems. The cause of the crash was low pressure in the header methane tank. That’s why SpaceX considers this flight a smashing (sorry!) success: they had one thing go wrong, and many, many things go right.
I think a lot of the venting on the way up was due to the sequential engine shutdowns. You see massive motion in the engine gimbals, along with a lot of venting, at each shutdown.
@blaineg @mehcuda67 I feel like the engine that shut down moving out to it’s max limit was intentional to give the remaining engines more “room” to move to compensate… or just to stay out of the way. Cause it was done.
I wonder what their position was at the flip. You would expect they all pull back In for the landing burn once oriented
Apparently “Engine Rich” is Scott Manley’s term, coined when Falcon 9 development had similar problems.