Elon Musk spoke for about 1 hour on a private Twitter Space on Saturday at about 4:15pm PT to an audience of over 7900 listeners. Tim Dodd, Everyday Astronaut was co-host. The Twitter Space was recorded and can be listened to by anyone who subscribes to Elon Musk.
“It was good to fly this vehicle so we can move on to more advanced designs. Booster 9 is more advanced.” – Elon Musk
Starship Test Flight 1 was an amazing success and the SpaceX team did a great job and there was a tremendous amount of valuable information learned. Elon explained, “We live on a planet with strong gravity and it takes a lot to leave our planet to get to Mars and Starship is a real path to get us to Mars, and that is mind-boggling. We need reasons to wake up in the morning and feel excited about the future.”
HIGHLIGHTS
- Starship Test Flight 1 went better than expected
- There was minimal launch pad damage
- SpaceX will be ready in 6-8 weeks for Starship Test Flight 2
Some detailed notables as mentioned by Elon were,
“Three engines were chosen by the SpaceX system not to start, so the lift-off was with 30 engines as they were shut down due to not being healthy enough.”
“At T + 62 seconds there was some damage but Starship ran okay.”
“At T + 85 steering was lost on Starship.”
A big change is that Booster 9, which will be used in the next flight in 6-8 weeks will use electric motors instead of hydraulics. The electric motors will be more isolated and less likely to fail, “the engines will start faster, throttle up faster and leave the pad faster,” explained Elon.
“The goal for the next flight is to make it to staging, succeed in staging and go into orbit!” – Elon Musk
SOVIET N1 ROCKET
Elon also highlighted the Soviet Union’s N1 program. “The Soviets were onto their A-Game, they were fantastic and their motivation was maximized. Still, the N1 failed and never reached orbit. N1 is the closest to Starship of any Rocket that has ever flown. The cryogenic fuel is actually more risky than kerosene used by N1 and by Falcon 9. It was too expensive to continue, and was probably embarrassing on a national level (so they stopped the program).”
The Soviet N1 used kerosene-based rocket fuel in all three of its main stages. Falcon 9’s first stage incorporates nine Merlin engines and aluminum-lithium alloy tanks containing liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene (RP-1) propellant. In contrast, Starship Super heavy booster is powered by 33 Raptor engines using sub-cooled liquid methane (CH4) and liquid oxygen (LOX).
Elon also explained a robust design as having isolated engines. The next launch will utilize Booster 9, which is exceptional as it has isolated engines.
“My expectation for the next flight is its more likely to reach orbit than not.” – Elon Musk
SPEAKERS
Asking some technical questions were @csi_starbase, John Krause, Mary Liz Bender, Zach Golden Joey Roulette, @Free_Space (Irene Klotz). So check them out!
Thanks to Elon Musk for hosting the Space! This article by Gail Alfar and was first published by Gail Alfar (me) on Twitter.
whatsuptesla.com 