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Originally Posted by Hugh
In related news, the Starship launched today underwent Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly eight minutes after launch.
That’s a shame, because the more cost-effective ways we have of getting into space, the better.
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It’s not really a shame - SpaceX’s development model is rapid iteration. If the second launch goes perfectly then great, but if not, no problem - they aren’t NASA and they haven’t spent 100s of billions on cautious R&D in such a way that it absolutely has to go 100% right first (or second) time.
In this instance the primary mission objective was to test the hot staging process they’ve devised in order to successfully get the starship upper stage away from the booster. This process involves firing the ship’s engines while it is still attached to the booster (hence ‘hot’ staging), which was indicated as being necessary from data procured from their first test flight earlier this year. However, the first stage booster was not initially designed with hot staging in mind. They added a hot staging ring to the stack to help vent exhaust from the second stage as it lights up, but what they weren’t able to do - without physically test flying the thing - was to establish where the upper part of the first stage might fail if exposed to a rocket plume.
They now have a better understanding of how to redesign the first stage to cope with hot staging. This will be incorporated into the third flight.