from Hacker News

SpaceX's unmatched streak of perfection with the Falcon 9 rocket is over

by makaimc on 7/12/24, 11:28 AM with 65 comments

by JumpCrisscross on 7/12/24, 12:20 PM
Modern rocketry is somewhere between WWI and WWII aviation. We’re beginning to mass manufacture, but the leading edge advances so quickly that learning curves have limited runtime. Alongside new designs, new materials are being invented and deployed across America and China (and to a limited degree Europe.)
Most importantly, we can tune risk and and reward across the production line; the crewed Falcon 9/Dragon launches are far more conservative than their Starlink + rideshare ones.
by trompetenaccoun on 7/12/24, 12:09 PM
Tangentially related: Most journalists - especially in tech these days - seem to be doing practically no original or investigative work and simply rehash what they read on Twitter & co. Are there any decent apps that do the same thing? For example I'd like to say "Follow everything SpaceX-related from these primary sources and give me regular updates/summaries". I don't care to read people's opinions on it, just the aggregated raw info would be nice.
by bell-cot on 7/12/24, 12:05 PM
> A few minutes after liftoff of SpaceX's Starlink 9-3 mission, veteran observers of SpaceX launches noticed an unusual build-up of ice around the top of the Merlin Vacuum engine, which consumes a propellant mixture of super-chilled kerosene and cryogenic liquid oxygen. [...]
> Numerous chunks of ice fell away from the rocket as the upper stage engine powered into orbit, but the Merlin Vacuum, or M-Vac, engine appeared to complete its first burn as planned. A leak in the oxidizer system or a problem with insulation could lead to ice accumulation, although the exact cause, and its possible link to the engine malfunction later in flight, will be the focus of SpaceX's investigation into the failure.
> A second burn with the upper stage engine was supposed to raise the perigee, or low point, of the rocket's orbit well above the atmosphere before releasing 20 Starlink satellites [...].
> "Upper stage restart to raise perigee resulted in an engine RUD for reasons currently unknown," Musk wrote...
For Falcon 9 manned launches, there are a whole series of abort modes and we-didn't-get-to-orbit splashdown locations:
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2020/05/examining-crew-drago...
It'd be interesting to know where in this mission's flight profile, if it had been manned, the launch director would have ordered an abort. That LOX leaks often lead to explosions is Rocket Science 101.
by LorenDB on 7/12/24, 11:35 AM
300+ successful launches in an 8-year span is incredible.
by jtwaleson on 7/12/24, 6:42 PM
I'd argue that going for 0 failures in virtually any domain will lead to inefficiency. You need some failures to get the feedback that you've "under-engineered" something. Without failures, you can guarantee that you've over-engineered it.
In a similar vein, I think proper risk acceptance policies shouldn't say "security/safety is our #1 priority", just like a good SLA doesn't guarantee 100% uptime. When you set a 99.9% uptime SLA, make sure you're actually down sometimes. When you want efficient rockets, you have to see some of them crash.
by zitterbewegung on 7/12/24, 12:15 PM
It doesn’t take rocket science to understand that rockets eventually have a success rate of less than 100% . (Edited changed failure rate to success from child comment)
by jmdeschamps on 7/12/24, 11:53 AM
Still unmatched, even if imperfect...
by patrickwalton on 7/12/24, 12:56 PM
Amazing to me that it's not the reused element that failed. It's as though re-flying hardware that's already proven to work is more reliable!
by m2fkxy on 7/12/24, 11:57 AM
bad week for upper stage engines!
by seydor on 7/12/24, 12:12 PM
well i know ars is not using chatGPT because of the grammatical errors
by sidcool on 7/12/24, 12:15 PM
Such a bad title to a story. "over" means they will never be able to create that streak again.