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On February 28, SpaceX's SN01 Starship prototype imploded and exploded during a pressurization test (Mk1 failed in November). A day later, Eric Berger from Ars Technica visited SpaceX's facilities in Boca Chica, Texas. Some highlights from the story include:
- SN01 was not destined to fly, only to serve as a platform for static fire testing. (Elon Musk had previously tweeted that the wrong settings were used on the welding equipment used to build SN01.)
- SN01's failure has been attributed to bad welding on the thrust puck, which is welded onto the bottom tank dome of Starship and connects the Raptor engines to the rest of the rocket.
- The quality team raised concerns about the thrust puck to an engineer who did not act upon them. They have been instructed to contact Musk directly with design concerns.
- SpaceX went on a hiring spree in February that doubled its workforce in Boca Chica to over 500. The goal is to build a production line for Starships.
- SpaceX aims to build a Starship every week by the end of 2020, with a goal of building one every 72 hours eventually.
- SpaceX engineers have built an in-house x-ray machine to look for imperfections in welds.
- Construction costs for a single Starship could eventually drop to as low as $5 million.
- The Boca Chica site will operate 24/7, with workers alternating between three and four 12-hour shifts per week.
- A 20 km flight is planned for this spring, and an orbital mission could happen before the end of 2020.
In other news:
- SpaceX to Raise Hundreds of Millions of Dollars Through a Funding Round That Will Value It at $36 Billion
- SpaceX Could Earn $30 Billion Annually From Starlink, 10x Of Sending ISS Supplies – Elon Musk
- SpaceX's latest Starship test was uneventful and that's great news for its flight debut
- Astronauts capture SpaceX cargo capsule with robot arm for final time
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Another Starship Prototype Explodes, but SpaceX Isn't Stopping
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(Score: 2) by ledow on Wednesday March 11 2020, @08:14AM (2 children)
I read that as quality control is ineffective, and until something went wrong nobody was listened to. Raising concerns to "an engineer" when it's going to be a very public, very expensive failure at minimum? Yeah, that sounds like the people you want in charge when they are required to spot and report any potentially tiny flaw that could be catastrophic to life.
Doesn't seem to be stopping them hiring even more unknowns, working 12-hour shifts.
The rest is just Muskese.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday March 11 2020, @02:26PM (1 child)
A fraction of the company's resources are currently focused on this project, they are not publicizing or livestreaming most of the tests themselves, and they clear everyone out of there during tests. The failures appear to be very inexpensive and are not threatening any lives. Nobody will be riding a Starship anytime soon, Crew Dragon is another story.
Failures are learning experiences at SpaceX. [youtube.com]
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(Score: 2) by ledow on Thursday March 12 2020, @09:36AM
It's not a case of a particular product - it's the culture.
They reported a safety concern to an engineer. It was ignored. It made things fail catastrophically.
Hence, the system in place from day one has been inadequate. That's a *real* hard thing to change, especially if either of those people got a bollocking en-route, they'll avoid that in the future (it just as likely has the opposite effect as intended as they'll now report everything, and bicker against responsibility, and then everything will be dragged into a discussion.
If you have a culture where safety concerns, even on a test, are given no more than a passing nod to one guy who then says "Nah, nothing to worry about", and nothing else is recorded, verified, approved, etc... that's the worst possible place to start from.
Just watch any NASA documentary about the processes involved. It can take decades to learn that against an established culture if it's not already there.