It has been learned that SpaceX will make numerous upgrades in the second launch of its full-scale Starship mega rocket. The first flight test of Starship, the world’s most powerful launch system ever developed, was carried out on 20 April. The rocket, which took off successfully, exploded after a while. So what innovations did SpaceX bring to Starship to prevent this?
Numerous upgrades from SpaceX to Starship
Upgrades include a major change to how the two stages of the rocket are separated, propulsion system improvements, and a reinforced launch pad in South Texas that should better withstand the explosion from 33 main engines. Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, said: “There’s been a really huge number of changes between the last Starship flight and this one, over a thousand.” said.
That’s why Musk stated that he thinks the probability of the next flight entering orbit is much higher than the previous one. He even gave a rate. Musk thinks this probability is 60 percent. SpaceX CEO outlined some of the Starship rocket modifications in a Twitter Spaces discussion with journalist Ashlee Vance on Saturday.
The Starship vehicle is designed to be fully reusable, and SpaceX plans to use it to launch satellites into orbit, build refueling tankers and fuel tanks, and eventually transport cargo and crew to the Moon and Mars. In fact, SpaceX’s long-term goal is to replace the powerful Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon crew capsule with the privately funded Starship vehicle.
One of the most significant changes SpaceX made to the Starship design was to separate the booster from the upper stage, an event that occurred about three minutes after takeoff. The Starship test flight in April failed to reach the phase separation milestone. It is said that there has been some sort of final change that is quite important to the way the stage separation fired when starting the ship’s engines for the first time.
Musk said SpaceX will shut off most of the Super Heavy booster engines and then fire up the Starship upper stage engines at the same time. As a result of the change, Starship’s payload capacity, currently more than 100 tonnes, will increase to low Earth orbit. But that means engineers need to add protection to the top of the stainless steel reinforcement that SpaceX wants to save and reuse over and over again.
The billionaire CEO also revealed the riskiest thing for a flight. He said they added an extension to the top of the Super Heavy booster with vents to allow the super-hot gas from the upper stage engines to flow safely out of the rocket’s structure and escape without “blowing itself up.” Several of the 33 Raptor engines in the Super Heavy booster failed in April’s trial.
For Starship’s second test flight, SpaceX crews will replace the manifolds that direct the hot methane-rich gas in the Raptor engines into each engine’s combustion chamber to mix with the oxygen-rich gas. The previous design was susceptible to leaks where hot gas could leak through the bolt holes used to attach the manifold to the engine. There was also the risk of explosion.
Musk stated on Saturday that when the next Starship test launch will take place may not be up to SpaceX and there are many variables beyond their control. We’ll have to wait a little longer to see if SpaceX’s innovations on Starship work.
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