[SRI] SPACE X SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHED STARSHIP FLIGHT TEST 3!
Da: Adriano V. Autino, SRI, Founder <adriano.autino@gmail.com>
Date: sab 16 mar 2024 alle ore 12:08
Subject: [SRI] SPACE X SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHED STARSHIP FLIGHT TEST 3!
To: Space Renaissance International <space-renaissance-initiative@googlegroups.com>
We followed enthusiastically the Starship launch and space operations with our Space Renaissance International community and friends, on the Space Renaissance YouTube channel. This historical Starship team achievement inspires us to engage further in boosting Civilian Space Development, the Space 18th SDG, Space For All, on Earth and Beyond!
On the 14th of March 2024, Space X successfully launched Starship 28 and Booster 10. Starship reached orbital altitude (234 km) and orbital speed (>26200 km/h) for the first time.
Many congratulations to Elon Musk and all of the Space X fantastic team, for the wonderful success of the Starship Flight Test 3, on the 14th of March 2024!
While some incredibly poor journalism keeps on calling the Starship's tests a failure, the development program of the 1st fully reusable space vehicle is proceeding safely and expeditiously.
The first thing many media seem not to understand is the methodology followed by Space X, which is completely different from what the traditional aerospace builders do. While the latter prefer to spend their money on a long project life cycle, including long requirements discussion, and meticulous and detailed test engineering and integration phases, Space X opts for a methodology closer to the experimental scientific method: draw essential requirements, build a prototype, test, fail, learn from failures, build a new improved prototype, and try again. Each reiteration adds quality to the project, up to a point when the prototype is working well, and Falcon 9 (as a sample) becomes the space workhorse with any more competitors in the world. Is that so hard to be understood, for journalists?
When a traditional project fails, many billions are wasted, and many years of work are canceled. When a "normal" failure occurs during Space X's reiterative project development, very less resources are wasted. And, after all, during the expendable rockets' age, all the rockets were always wasted, at every launch! The difference is incomparable. Another advantage of this method is its high flexibility. If a project lasts 10 years, it is difficult to take advantage of the technological advances: switching to new technology in a project initiated many years ago forces heavy requirements reviews and unavoidable delays. In a fail-and-repeat project, new technologies and new ideas can be adopted more easily and more quickly, as demonstrated by the thousands of changes and improvements applied to the different starships, super-heavy boosters, and raptor engine prototypes throughout history. Despite the misfortune bearers and the envious, the methodology works. The success of Space X in the launchers market doesn't lie.
Starship 28 and the Super-Heavy Booster 10 made most of the expected work, and even more than what was expected: while the suborbital altitude was planned, the Starship spacecraft reached 230 km, a low Earth orbit altitude at more than 26,200 km/h. several tests were conducted after the engine cutoff, including a propellant transfer demo and payload dispenser test.
Only two operations have failed. The booster couldn't make it to descend vertically on its engines, since only 3 of them reignited, and splashed in the Mexican Gulf at little more than 1000 km/h. The Starship failed during the re-entry in the atmosphere, in the Indian Ocean. We could observe many insulating tiles flying away from the Starship's body during the first part of the re-entry. At an altitude of 65 km, telemetry from Ship 28 was lost, and the vehicle was destroyed before splashing in the sea.
The failure of the re-entry was expected, by Space X. For sure the designers will learn many from these failures, as they have learned from the previous ones!
Space Renaissance International, together with the National Space Society and more than 70 space advocacy organizations and universities promotes an 18th Sustainable Development Goal, focused on Civilian Space Development to be added to the U.N. 2030 Agenda. Everybody is invited to join the #Space18SDG Coalition!
The quick progress of fully reusable launch vehicles makes space more and more the key factor of the sustainable development of humanity.
We are eager to see the promised other 4 or 5 launches of Starship in 2024.
GO Starship! GO!
Bernard Foing, SRI President
Adriano V. Autino, SRI CEO and Founder
Want to discuss this? You can do it on the SRI Open Forum: https://groups.google.com/g/sri-open-forum/c/PNNfhW_cU6Q
Join the Space 18th SDG Coalition https://spacerenaissance.space/sign-the-18th-sdg/
Sign the Space 18th SDG Petition online https://www.change.org/space18sdg
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Follow the lecture by Armen Papazian "The Monetary Foundations of a Spacefaring Species", on the Space Renaissance YouTube Channel, Monday 18 March: https://www.youtube.com/live/nJMFd098aYo
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