Elon Musk’s SpaceX made remarkable accomplishments since its inception back in 2002. It is the first privately funded company to launch into orbit and recover the spacecraft as well. It’s also the first privately funded company to send spacecraft to the International Space Station. However, on its way to the top, the company faced several setbacks. One such setback was the explosion of a Starship Rocket last Thursday (20.04.2023).
During the inaugural test flight, the spaceship rocket ended up in a blazing explosion. Four minutes after the rocket was launched, multiple engines went out causing the rocket to lose altitude. The spacecraft had traveled 24 miles before this accident took place. After it went off, the company forced the rocket and the accompanying booster to self-destruct, which didn’t separate properly.
But was this an actual failure? NASA administrator Bill Nelson Tweeted “Every great achievement throughout history has demanded some level of calculated risk”.
Did the launch actually yield any results?
Although the spacecraft was destroyed, the experts say that this launch yielded important lessons for the SpaceX engineers which they can apply in their future launches. The starship’s purpose was to transport astronauts as a part of NASA’s upcoming Lunar mission in 2025. But the main objective of the starship is to bring people to other planets such as Mars. This is the largest rocket ever made and is estimated to carry as many as 100 people.
The test was a “huge success,” according to Scott Bailey, head of Virginia Tech’s Center for Space Science and Engineering Research. If you think back to Apollo, they launched roughly 100 rockets before they felt secure enough to send people to the moon. This is exactly how things are.
“Successful Failure” in Rocket Science
According to experts, a “successful failure” is one where valuable lessons can be learned for subsequent testing and where there is little chance of injury.
Since its inception, SpaceX has adopted a “fail fast, learn faster” philosophy. As an example, this strategy required numerous tests of its now-successful Falcon 9 boosters that ended in explosions. SpaceX can move and learn more swiftly than the government or other traditional aerospace corporations because of its pace and agility, as well as its willingness to publicly accept failure.
“Government programs are not allowed to operate that way… because of the way we have all the stakeholders being able to watch over and tell you no,” Daniel Dumbacher, executive director of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, said to the New York Times. Although experimentation is not exclusive to SpaceX and is a fundamental component of science, Bailey adds that SpaceX is able to work more quickly and without as much fear of taking risks.
Professor of astronautical engineering at USC and SpaceX adviser Garrett Reisman told ABC News Australia that if SpaceX finds a problem, they can repair it quickly and continue. mentioning that the business has other rockets being modified in the hangar for upcoming tests. Additionally, according to Garrett, the business conducts these tests in conditions with minimal risk of injury. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, there have been no complaints of injuries or damage to public property, but it will look into the Starship explosion.
The engine failure and the booster’s improper separation from the rocket are expected to be the main takeaways from this rocket launch. According to Reisman, three of its 33 engines failed to ignite. Additionally, the rocket ran out of six engines once it was in flight. The next version of the rocket will make significant progress by dealing with that problem.
Why the booster did not correctly detach from the rocket as expected also raises questions. According to Reisman, that may have been caused by the rocket passing through denser air and at a lower altitude than anticipated, or by another mechanical malfunction. The booster was scheduled to separate after 2.5 minutes and fall into the ocean, while the rocket would launch into orbit on its own.
Conclusion
Despite the fact that the mission was unsuccessful, SpaceX currently has a lot of information about the rocket launch and its operation. There is a ton of data, according to Bailey. They’ll be studying data for months, I’m sure. There will be a ton of lessons to be learned from this.
In particular, he emphasizes, SpaceX was able to observe how all the rocket’s systems and parts interacted in actual use, which is something that is impossible to anticipate even with extensive computer simulations. “This rocket, but any rocket that big, is a complicated system of systems,” he asserts. “You have to actually do it to test how they all work together.”