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Massive explosion rocks SpaceX Texas facility, Starship engine in flames
(interestingengineering.com)
this post was submitted on 25 May 2024
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Well, which is it? I'm going to trust NASASpaceflight over this article and go with it was a McGregor. No where near Starbase. And that means it will likely have no effect on IFT4 as this article says.
edit: Adding to this, the author of this article has no idea what they are talking about.
So clearly nothing to do with IFT4, as Ship 29 and Booster 11 are already outfitted with their engines, non of which are Raptor 2s.
IFT3 burned up on reentry, maybe parts of it made it to the ocean, but it was not crashing into the ocean that was the problem. IFT4 does not plan on doing a reentry burn. No one does a reentry burn from orbit. Starship uses a heat shield like every other orbital space craft. They are planning to attempt a landing burn, that is probably what they are talking about.
Just to be pedantic:
IFT 3 was a suborbital flight, so... either it did not reach orbital velocity, or the upper stage careened so wildly out of control that it borked it.
Its kind of confusing as in the live stream of it they keep saying the phrase orbital velocity, reached orbit, but also say it was intended to be a suborbital flight.
Edit: Yeah as best I can tell it was not even intended to be an orbital flight. https://x.com/planet4589/status/1765586241934983320
Also, the lower stage crashed into the ocean at around mach 2, so maybe that is what they are referring to? Looked like many of the engines did not relight, in addition to significant instability as it traversed back through the atmosphere.
Also also, the 're entry' burn may be referring to attempting to relight the engines while in space? You are probably correct that they mean the landing burn / belly flop???
Edit 2: If they intend to do a suborbital flight, but also reach orbital velocity, this would entail a trajectory leading to a fairly steep descent path, which could need a ... basically a pre reentry burn, to lessen velocity and/or change the descent path to something more shallow.
Its pretty hard to tell actual info about these Starship flights, partially because SpaceX outright lies during their live feeds, is tight lipped about other things, and many sources of coverage are often confused and/or simping for Musk.
One last thing: Does... Starship, the upper stage... even have monopropellant thrusters, or gyros, or anything for out of atmosphere orientation adjustments?
From the IFT3 vid it seemed like either no, or they malfunctioned.
IFT3 began to tumble shortly after launch, at least before they opened the "door" where it was obvious. The tumble may have been caused by a leak, and the "reentry" was simply a chaotic mess where the engine(s) began to burn up in the atmosphere, and it was absolutely 100% out of control.
IFT3 finished most of the goals that had been set for that test flight. It was highly successful and they learned a lot that is being applied to IFT4.