On today's episode, we are getting into the latest space news, including Starship's
first flight reveals a major design problem, Japan's Hakudo our commercial lander runs out
of fuel and slams into the Moon, and Rocket Lab finds plans for a
test flight with a preflown engine. This is the space Race. It's been
just about two weeks since SpaceX made their first Starship test launch on April twentieth.
Data and debris are still being sifted through in order to get an accurate
picture of both what went wrong and the changes that will be needed to move
forward with the Starship project. But one thing at least is clear. Starship
has a big problem. The launch itself went relatively well for a first test.
The world's most powerful rocket was able to lift off and power to an
altitude of about thirty nine kilometers before losing control, pulling a couple flips in
an attempt to right itself, and then exploding when the flight termination system kicked
in. This sort of performs, while being somewhat disappointing, is much more
in line with the average test of a new rocket. The goal of a
test launch is to get as much data as possible, and failing to reach
orbit and then exploding certainly gets a lot of data, but it was the
damage to the launch area at the company's Bocachika test facility that was a real
cause for concern. The site was torn to shreds by the forces of the
super heavy booster and the chunks of concrete blasted out of the pad beneath the
orbital launch mount. Damage from the launch was reported as far away as Port
Isabel, Texas, where broken windows, ash and even what appears to be
sand affected the community. According to CEO Elon Musk, the design solution for
starship launch pads, a water cooled steel plate, was not ready in time
for the FAA launch license, and SpaceX engineers believed, based on the data
gathered at the static fire test on February ninth, that the special heat resistant
fond egg concrete pad would stand up to the force and temperature of a full
launch. If that's true, then they miss the mark by quite a bit.
Engineering calculations are complicated and rely on many factors that aren't always a case
of simple numbers. A lot of the variables have to be estimated based on
the data and engineer has available to them, so it's understandable that they could
have been mistaken, but this is a huge mistake. The crater directly under
the orbital launch mount shows us that lesson, but it also reveals the biggest
challenge SpaceX now faces, how are they going to get this monster under control.
In a Twitter spaces event held last week, Elon reported that the damage
to Starbase wasn't as bad as initially thought. The dented orbital tank farm and
the shredded draw works on the Mecazilla tower were easily the most gnarly looking,
but the Mecazilla chopsticks were lowered for repairs recently, so the draw works is
fine, and the tanks in the fuel storage farm are actually just some exterior
shielding and can be easily replaced. It's the crater that is the real issue,
because whether this was a mistake with the math or just a resurgence of
that classic SpaceX recklessness doesn't really matter. That damage isn't just inconvenient. It's
very possible that the reason Starship lost control is because it damaged itself on the
launchpad. The engine housings of a rocket are built to withstand the force generated
by their engines. That's a given but otherwise they're filled with very delicate machinery.
The pumps, engine bells, and the gimbling mechanisms that allow the engines
to steer the rocket are all finely tuned and easily disrupted. So when Starships
thirty three, raptor V two engines wash the pad with over seven thousand,
five hundred and ninety tons of force and blew it to pieces, some of
those chunks likely got shot into the engine cavity of the first stage booster.
This is because on Earth, air pressure and gravity keep engine plumes more concentrated.
If you've ever seen a rocket reach higher altitudes and wondered why the engine
flames suddenly spread wider, that's why the air pressure and gravity are decreasing,
and so it spreads out. This is also why NASA doesn't worry so much
about landing vehicles on the Moon or Mars without a pad. On Earth,
a concentrated plume would cause ejecta material from a newly formed crater to possibly lodge
itself in the engines. But on places like Mars and the Moon, engine
plumes wouldn't make much of a crater and the debris wouldn't get pushed around as
much back at Boca Chica. However, that super heavy booster tunneled into the
concrete. All that amount of force needed was to make a crack in the
pad. Once concrete is cracked, it begins to lose its strength, and
after that the engine plume likely created a pressure pocket and blasted pieces upwards like
a geyser. Now SpaceX's plan to use a liquid cooled steel plate is a
good one. Scientist like doctor Phil Metzker of NASA kac Swamp Works uses a
similar solution when testing landing vehicles designed or other planets. That plate, especially
when combined with a delue system that's already installed in the OM at PoCA Chica,
would pretty much solve the crater problem. The issue is that it's a
little too late for that. The FAA is not happy with the results of
the April twentieth test flight, and it's hard to blame them. SpaceX didn't
have to take this risk, and now they are not only going to have
to take a lot of time to make extensive repairs before attempting to install this
new steel plate system, but they are going to have to jump through a
lot of hoops before the FAA grants them another launch license. Elon predicted that
the damage should be fixed in as little as two months, and said that
there are still four or five Starship launches planned for this year, but the
repairs to the OLM alone look like they're going to take a while. Then
they have to finish that delue system they installed back in September last year,
install and test the water cooled steel plate system, and of course fill in
that crater. That is a lot of work on top of trying to convince
the FAA that they can handle another launch. I don't think anyone is worried
about if SpaceX will be allowed to launch again, but we will likely have
to wait a little longer to make sure that the next launch nails it safety
first. This time. Japanese company I Space has lost their Hakudo our lander
after losing communication during its descent to the lunar surface on April twenty fifth.
This mission was attempting to become the very first privately funded moon landing, but
just before the automated probe was scheduled to begin its touchdown procedures, the I
Space mission control lost communication with the vehicle. Telemetry was still being sent back,
but the team could no longer issue orders, and just before the final
landing was confirmed, I Space stopped receiving anything from their probe. Not long
afterwards, I Space CEO to Keshi Hakamata reported that we have to assume that
we could not complete the landing on the lunar surface. A rough call to
make, but the last bits of telemetry sent by the doomed Hakudo and the
data blackout supports the guests that the vehicle made a hard landing, meaning it
likely slammed into the lunar surface way too fast and was destroyed. The last
reports from the probe indicated that it was just ninety kilometers above its intended landing
site Atlas Crater and falling at a rate of thirty three kilometers per hour,
and that would have been fine, But another reading at the same time showed
that the Hakudo's fuel reserves were lower than it needed to land, so the
unfortunate probe ran out of fuel part way down and just fell the rest of
the way. Unsurprisingly, fuel calculations for a lunar landing are complicated. Usually
missions to Space over budget for fuel just in case, but as this was
a privately funded endeavor, I Space was likely trying to be efficient with their
propellant reserves. Everything about this mission was designed with efficiency in mind. They
launched in December twenty twenty two and took a long gravity propelled orbit to ensure
they didn't have to waste fuel burning directly for the Moon. This orbit took
the probe over eight hundred and fifty five thousand kilometers from Earth, the furthest
that any commercially operated spacecraft has ever flown. The Hakudo art itself is a
legacy project from the two thousand and seven Google Lunar X Prize competitions that challenged
privately funded teams to develop and launch a new lander for the Moon by twenty
eighteen. The Hakudo, which means white rabbit in Japanese, was meant to
be a hireable landing system that would ferry customer payloads to the Moon. None
of the X Prize teams were able to meet the deadline, but Team Hakudo,
run by Takeshi Hakamada, was one of the five finalists not to be
defeated. Hakamato, who founded I Space in twenty ten, would continue development
of his lander. The vehicle's solid design drew partners like Ariane Group, who
supplied the main engine for the probe, and SpaceX, who launched the Hakudo
aboard a Falcon nine back in December. The mission was also supported by several
customers who paid to have their payload brought to the Moon, including the United
Arab Emirates and their tiny ten kilogram rover Rashid. Rashid was meant to be
the UAE's first foray into lunar operations and was intended to study the Moon's surface
and aspects of lunar regolith and dust. It's never easy to lose emission,
especially so close to the finish line, but the Hakudo r got very close
and it seems that the only issue was the amount of fuel they calculated for
was a bit off. Hakomeda and I Space have diligently worked on this landing
system for almost two decades now and they have no intentions on giving up,
so good luck on the next flight. I Space Rocket Lab is continuing their
march towards reusability with the announcement that the company would be attempting to launch one
of their Electron rockets with one flight tested or previously flown engine mixed into the
rockets. Usual array of nine three D printed Rutherford engines. There's been no
word on an exact date, but unless there are major issues with refitting this
preflown engine, the test launch will likely happen sometime this year. The April
nineteenth announcement comes a little over a month after CEO Peterbeck suggested that the company
would abandon attempts to catch their electron rockets first stage with a helicopter, a
maneuver that they very nearly succeeded at last year. However, after some testing
on engines recovered from the ocean, BEC said that they were surprised to find
that the Rutherfords held up remarkably well, and with some slight modifications see recovery
of the boosters would likely save the company some money while they worked towards their
new Neutron rocket, which is designed to land in much the same way that
these SpaceX Falcon nine does. Adding to this, on April seventeenth, Rocket
Lab announced HASTE the Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron. This version of their Electron
rocket is focused on helping develop hypersonic suborbital flights and the technology needed to make
those more reliable. Their first launch of this system is planned for the first
half of twenty twenty three for a confidential customer, likely the US Department of
Defense. Hypersonic suborbital flights have been discussed for quite some time as a way
to quickly get people and supplies around the world without a plane, in fact
way faster than a plane could manage. The idea is that a rocket would
launch, but instead of pushing into orbit, it uses the fuel normally meant
for orbiting to control where the rocket comes down. This plus some landing hardware,
allows for some very fast movement around the globe, with some early experiments
suggesting that a suborbital vehicle could get passengers from Australia to Europe in just ninety
minutes. SpaceX has even toyed with this idea for their Starship, using the
Big Lander version of their vehicle to deliver emergency goods faster than current disaster response
would be able to. So this haste announcement gives rocket Lab two ways to
reuse preflown equipment. Refurbishing engines and hole boosters for more orbital missions is the
goal, and would lower the cost of operating electron in the same way that
SpaceX has with its out Can nine, but being able to make use of
refurbished engines for some less strenuous suborbital equipment testing seems like a pretty smart way
to get even more out of Electron, so rocket Lab can focus on getting
Neutron up and running.