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Technology

SpaceX Avoids Explosion in Test of Starship Booster

SpaceX Avoids Explosion in Test of Starship Booster

The static fire test of Booster 7, in which one of the rocket's 33 Raptor engines was ignited.

The static fire test of Booster 7, in which one of the rocket’s 33 Raptor engines was ignited.
photo: SpaceX

Engineers at SpaceX have performed the first static fire test of Booster 7, a prototype of the Super Heavy first stage. The test, in which just one of the booster’s 33 Raptor engines was ignited, moves the company closer to its first orbital test of the revolutionary Starship system.

The test happened on August 8 at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, according to a company tweet. Ground teams completed a single Raptor engine static fire test as the 227-foot-tall (69 meters) booster stood vertically at the “Mechazilla” launch tower. Booster 7 is equipped with 33 Raptor engines, but SpaceX, in a rare moment of caution, chose to ignite just one.

Encouragingly, a pair of spin-prime tests conducted earlier in the day did not result in an burst. SpaceX avoided a repeat of the July 11 incident in which a gaseous mixture of methane and oxygen was accidentally ignited, causing a significant explosion directly beneath the booster.

Spin-prime tests, in which propellants are pumped through the engines without igniting them, are typically done in preparation of static fire tests (static fire tests involve engine burns without an actual launch of the rocket). They’re done to test the plumbing, but the gasses produced during the July 11 spin-prime test got ignited by an unknown source. The resulting explosion damaged the prototype booster, sending it back to the Starbase factory for repairs.

Booster 7 returned to the launch pad on August 6 following the re-installation of 20 of the rocket’s 33 Raptor engines, accordingly to Teslarati. On August 8, “clearly indicative of a much more cautious second attempt at engine testing, SpaceX ‘primed’ just one of those 20 Raptors by flowing high-pressure gas through the engine to spin up its turbopumps without igniting its preburners (used to generate the gas that powers the turbopumps) or main combustion chamber,” as Teslarati reports.

Later that day, SpaceX ignited the lone Raptor engine. The company have you performed a static fire test of a Starship booster prototype before, but this marks the first static fire test of Booster 7, even if limited in scale. The test appeared to go smoothly, with the engine firing and shutting down following a four-second burn. Not content to stop there, SpaceX also performed static fire tests of two Raptors on an upper stage, namely the prototype Starship 24.

It’s a small step for Starship, but a potentially big leap for SpaceX, as it works to develop its revolutionary heavy launch system. The booster is the first stage of the fully reusable two-stage rocket, with the Starship spacecraft serving as the upper stage. SpaceX envisions Starship as a platform for delivering passengers and cargo to deep space, including future missions to Mars. It’s also NASA’s current first choice to serve as the human landing system for Artemis 3, scheduled for no earlier than 2025.

Both Starship stages are powered by Raptor engines, which are more powerful than the Merlin engines used on the company’s Falcon 9 rockets. The Starship upper stage has already completed a series of suborbital tests, including a successful vertical landing on May 5, 2021. A launch of the fully stacked system has yet to take place, but SpaceX expects to perform an orbital test at some point this year. CEO Elon Musk expects this test will fail, saying a successful orbital test could happen at some point within the next 12 months.

The sight of a single Raptor engine burn is impressive, making it hard to imagine what it’ll look like when all 33 Raptor engines are set to go-mode. The successful test on August 8 suggests a full-fledged static fire test of Booster 7 is closely approaching.

More: Gigantic Crowds Expected for Inaugural Launch of NASA’s Mega Rocket.

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Categories
Australia

Space junk identified at Yambuk by Australian Space Agency

Space junk identified at Yambuk by Australian Space Agency

A year-long mystery has been solved after residents of a coastal took it upon themselves to collect a strange black cylinder wedged into a beach waterway.

Yambuk resident Matt King said he found the unidentified object in September 2021 while walking his dogs along the beach.

He had no idea what the “weird bit of stuff” was but knew it was out of the ordinary in a town known for its beautiful estuary, wild beach and tall slide.

two men on a large black container
Harry Sokol and Matt King inspect the object for clues.(Supplied)

“It’s pretty weird. It’s obviously an expensive container. I don’t know if it’s stainless, wrapped in carbon fiber,” he said.

Curiosity and wariness of ocean contamination compelled Mr King to reach out to Colleen Hughson, an ocean plastics campaigner who was awarded Warrnambool citizen of the year for her hands-on environmental work.

A man wearing green leather gloves stands next to a black cylinder
Matt King first found the object on the beach at Yambuk.(Supplied: Colleen Hughson)

Ms Hughson’s credentials for investigating strange things that wash up on beaches are well established in the region.

She runs several local beach clean-up crews that document and log endless data about the hundreds of kilograms of junk that wash up along the south-west coast of Victoria and has found all kinds of strange objects over the years.

A young woman with a camera in front of a large koala puppet
Colleen Hughson organizes clean-up missions along Victoria’s south-west coast.(Supplied: Rosana Sialong)

Ms Hughson said she reported the cylinder to the local police (in case it was a bomb), notified the Australian Space Agency, shared a photograph of the object on her social media accounts and then waited for the authorities to collect the item.

In the meantime, people began sending her articles about other space junk found around the world.

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“A lady from Tasmania actually sent us an article of a really similar thing that had landed in Washington on someone’s farm,” Ms Hughson said.

“It was this composite pressure vessel that contains the rocket fuel of the rocket ships.”

A large black cylinder wrapped in shredded material on sand
Matt King found the strange cylinder on the sand at Yambuk.(Supplied: Matt King)

The realization that discarded space objects could re-enter the earth without disintegrating sent Ms Hughson down a rabbit hole of information about spacecraft junk that was intentionally directed to an uninhabited zone in the ocean.

Our ocean space graveyard

A graphic showing spacecraft parts scattered across the ocean floor.
An artistic interpretation of the “spacecraft graveyard” at Point Nemo in the South Pacific Ocean.(ABC News: Jarrod Fankhauser)

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Categories
Australia

More Snowy Mountains space junk found amid visit from Australian Space Agency

a piece of space junk sitting in a paddock

A third piece of space junk has been found in the NSW Snowy Mountains, believed to be linked to a SpaceX craft.

Two other pieces of debris were recently found by farmers at neighboring properties in Numbla Vale, after a loud bang was heard in the region on July 9.

The sonic boom was believed to be caused by the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, which was launched in November 2020, re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.

One piece of the junk was embedded deep in the ground and was estimated to be about three meters long.

The third piece of debris was discovered and photographed by a Moonbah resident on July 14.

It was not until the ABC’s coverage of the space junk in late July that the owner came forward.

News of the discoveries also led to a visit from technical experts at the Australian Space Agency and NSW Police on Saturday.

“The agency is actively working to support formal identification of the objects, and is engaging with our counterparts in the US,” an agency spokesperson said.

“If the community spots any further suspected debris they should contact local police in the first instance.”

a man stands next to a piece of space junk
Farmer Mick Miners stumbled across a piece of space junk on July 25.(ABC South East NSW: Adriane Reardon)

Monaro Police District Commander Superintendent John Klepczarek said the objects would remain at the properties while authorities waited for SpaceX to confirm ownership.

“We believe it could be associated with SpaceX but we won’t be confirming it until we actually get acknowledgment from them,” he said.

“It’s early indication from them that there could be attempts to retrieve this space junk.”

a piece of space junk in a paddock
This piece was photographed in the Moonbah region on July 14.(Supplied: Nick Lodge )

Like pieces of a puzzle

Australian National University College of Science astrophysicist Brad Tucker said he was not surprised more fragments had been found.

a man holds space junk
Snowy Mountains resident Jock Wallace with a piece of space junk.(ABC South East NSW: Adriane Reardon)

“You’d expect that there would be more bits of this somewhere,” he said.

“You can probably build up enough pieces and put it together almost if more are found.”

a man leaning against space junk
Dr Tucker believes more pieces of space junk could be found in the NSW Snowy Mountains.(ABC South East NSW: Adriane Reardon)

Dr Tucker said the discovery of the pieces could be the largest space junk found in Australia since parts of NASA’s Skylab space station fell to Earth near the south-western Western Australia town of Balladonia in 1979.

He said there was still a lot to learn about what might be done with the objects.

“Eventually SpaceX, or at least the US, will have to make a declaration about whether they want to keep it or have it returned, or not,” Dr Tucker said.

“This doesn’t happen that often, so it’s not like you pull out this standard ‘space junk landed in my sheep paddock’ form.

“There’s a lot of unique work that has to be done.”

‘Respect and courtesy, please’

The uniqueness of the situation was not lost on the authorities involved.

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