Wednesday, May 17, 2023

A Super-Detailed Look at the Starship Launch

It's been about three weeks since the spectacular launch and explosion of SpaceX's Super Heavy booster and Starship. I've seen quite a few videos of the launch and the launch pad facilities, with much speculation about the cause of the damage and future prospects for the launch site.

This video from CSI Starbase is the best I've seen so far. It's mostly about the launch site, what Musk calls Stage 0, and not the booster. 
In this episode we will be reviewing the historic Starship Integrated Flight Test. This will be an extremely in depth look into the design flaw that caused the failure of the pad under the Orbital Launch Mount.

We will also explain the water cooled blast surface that SpaceX is in the process of installing and examine all of the other protective measures that will work together to enable rapid reusability in the future. 

I found it completely fascinating and was impressed by the quality of the production, including some cool video animations of the various mechanisms used to fuel and launch the booster. 

 

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