New Offical Details On SpaceX’s Starship Stage 0 Upgrade
After a lot of speculation, new information from SpaceX and Elon himself has given us a much better idea of the current state and the future of Stage 0. It’s now been over a week since Starship lifted off for the first time and caused some significant damage to the pad. This being said, the company seems confident that within a short period of time, a few systems will be in place to properly withstand the power of Starship.
Some of the new information includes more details on the steel plate and water deluge system, why they won’t be constructing a flame trench, the state of the tower, and plans for the orbital tank farm, just to name a few. All of which are necessary in order for Starship to continue testing and frequent launches to become a viable future.
The first launch of Starship was as much of a test of the rocket itself as the infrastructure and different systems on the launchpad. With this new information, SpaceX has a lot of work ahead of them as they work to prepare everything for the next attempt. Here I will go more in-depth into new pad details, Elon’s thoughts on the initial launch, what to expect in the coming weeks, and more.
Pad Changes
By now many of us have seen the aftermath at Stage 0. Starship lifted off and destroyed the special heat resistant fondag concrete below it creating a trench. The exhaust then proceeded to shoot this destroyed concrete and debris 100s of meters in every direction damaging nearby infrastructure such as the propellant tank farm, the orbital launch mount, etc. While images of the pad and Stage 0 don’t look the best, Elon doesn’t seem to be very concerned at all and still has some very ambitious timelines in mind.
Just a few days ago Elon was interviewed by a few different members within the community and spoke a lot about the pad. He started off by saying, “I’m glad to report that the pad damage is actually quite small” and should “be repaired quickly.” From a “pad standpoint, we are probably ready to launch in 6 to 8 weeks” he said. This timeline that Elon is talking about has many people skeptical if the repairs are possible in such a short period of time.
What’s also interesting is that he pointed out Starship “Generated a “rock tornado” under Super Heavy during liftoff, but SpaceX does not “see evidence that the rock tornado actually damaged engines or heat shields in a material way.” May have happened, but “we have not seen evidence of that.” Soon after this, he began talking about the solution and specific pad changes that we can expect in the next few weeks. First, he mentioned, “We’re going to be putting down a lot of steel” under the launch tower before the next Starship flight. Debris was really just basically sand and rock so it’s not toxic at all … it’s just like a sandstorm, essentially … but we don’t want to do that again. We certainly didn’t expect” to destroy the concrete under the launchpad” he said.
He then made comments on how the trench may have formed by highlighting, “Speculating, but one of the more plausible explanations is that … we may have compressed the sand underneath the concrete to such a degree that the concrete effectively bent and then cracked,” which is “a leading theory. When asked about why they want to use steel plates instead of a flame trench he said, “Well, you could do it either way, and there are different schools of thought there. What’s important is that whatever the flame is hitting is regeneratively and evaporatively cooled. So what you’ll see is quite a large steam cloud but not a dust cloud. The reason for going with a steel plate instead of a flame trench is that for payloads in the rocket, the worse acoustic environment doesn’t matter to the payload since it’s about 120m (400 feet) away. It can be done either way but this is one way that we are confident about. We are going to extend the steal just out beyond the rocket to make sure we don’t dig up concrete elsewhere. We will also connect the load of the massive steel sandwich underneath the launchpad into the launch mount legs so it can take that load tension as well as compression. You’ll see it come together in the next month or so.
Musk finished with two final comments saying, the “Tower itself is in good shape. We see no meaningful damage to the tower even though they got hit with some pretty big chunks of concrete. We are also going to be replacing a bunch of the tanks in the tank farm, but these are tanks that we wanted to replace anyway.”
Starship Launch Details
Not only did we learn more about the pad, but Elon also shared some information on what caused the eventual failure of Starship. He first pointed out that “There were 3 engines that we chose not to start,” so that’s why the Super Heavy booster lifted off with 30 engines, “which is the minimum number of engines. The 3 engines “didn’t explode,” but just were not “healthy enough to bring them to full thrust so they were shut down”. He continued by saying, “At T+27 seconds, SpaceX lost communications due to “some kind of energy event.” And “some kind of explosion happened to knock out the heat shields of engines 17, 18, 19, or 20. “Rocket kept going through T+62 seconds” with the engines continuing to run. Lost thrust vector control at T+85 seconds.
One of the biggest problems during the launch that he talked about during the interview was delays with the AFTS system. Specifically, he said, “The longest item on that is probably requalification of the flight termination system … it took way too long to rupture the tanks.” Time for AFTS to kick in “was pretty long,” about “40 seconds-ish.” The AFTS stands for Autonomous Flight Termination System. The AFTS makes decisions using redundant computers that track the launch vehicle using Global Positioning System and Inertial Navigation System, along with configurable software-based rules. If a rocket goes off course, potentially endangering the public, the AFTS would issue a command to terminate the flight. This is what happened on the first launch of Starship but later than the company had hoped.
Elon was quoted saying, “Got pretty close to stage separation … if we had maintained thrust vector control and throttled up, which we should have … then we would have made it to staging. Our goal for the next flight is to make it to staging and hopefully succeed. My expectation for the next flight would be to reach orbit.” The next flight profile will be a “repeat. At the end of the day, “The goal of these missions is just information. Like, we don’t have any payload or anything — it’s just to learn as much as possible.”
He believes that there is “Probably an 80% probability of reaching orbit with Starship this year, and “I think close to 100% chance of reaching orbit within 12 months.” As far as production, we even “Slowed down Raptor engine production “because we’ve got more Raptors than we know what to do with.”
He finished by making a few comments on what to expect for the next flight. First, he pointed out, “For the next flight, “we’re going to start the engines faster and get off the pad faster.” From engine start to moving Starship “was around 5 seconds, which is a really long time to be blasting the pad.” Going to try to cut that time in half. It was actually good to get this vehicle off the ground because we’ve made so many improvements” in Super Heavy Booster 9 “and beyond. Really just needed to fly this vehicle and then move on to the much improved booster. The big thing for next Starship launch is “ensuring that we don’t lose thrust vector control” with Booster 9. SpaceX has yet to make a final decision on which Starship prototype and Super Heavy booster will fly the next launch” he said.
This was the main information provided by Elon during the recent interview. It helps give a lot of insight into what exactly they are planning and some of the specific aspects of the launch that did not go to plan. We can expect another update from him in a few weeks based on what he said. By then according to his timeline, the pad should be well under construction and not extremely far from completion. This being said Elon is known for very ambitious timelines that usually take a bit longer. If the pad and various infrastructure at Stage 0 is completed in only two months that would be very impressive. However, it’s more likely that this will take longer.
On the bright side, it sounds like the tower is in great shape and they shouldn’t have to replace the Orbital Launch Mount. This is a very big deal as a new mount would take a significant amount of time to replace and get ready for the next attempt. The OLM isn’t just a metal tower but a complex system filled to the brim with technology, clamps, plumbing, and other important features. As for the orbital tank farm, as mentioned by Musk, they were planning to replace some of them anyway. In the past there has been a few different issues with this propellant farm that the company has had to deal with. Something to keep an eye on in the coming months.
Conclusion
SpaceX and Elon in particular just gave a bunch of new information on exactly what the plan is at Stage 0. Overall he is very optimistic about the damage and future of the program. In the near future we can expect the trench to be filled and then the installation of a water cooled steel plate that strechtes between each of the Orbital Launch Mount supports. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.