On the evening of April 20, Beijing time, at around 21:30, the SpaceX starship, the largest rocket in human history, made its maiden flight at the self-built launch site in Boca Chica, Texas, USA. However, after the rocket took off, it was discovered that three of the first-stage engines seemed to have failed to ignite successfully, and then three more engines seemed to have stalled. After 2 minutes and 30 seconds of lift-off, the rocket’s attitude became unstable and began to rotate. After 4 minutes, it finally disintegrated and exploded. “Failure” ended.
Musk once boasted: “The earth is not worthy of my death, if I die, I will die on Mars!”, and this staged failure is also part of the starting point of Musk’s dream of Mars.
Since the SpaceX starship was proposed, it has become the focus of global technology enthusiasts because of its super dreamy sense of technology and the dual binding of Musk, a topical character.
To put it mildly, this matter is just a product test of a private company.
But on a bigger scale, there has never been a shortage of fans and supporters for things like exploring the stars and the sea. Whether it was the first satellite launch of the Soviet Union, the first manned voyage, or the US Saturn V moon landing and the launch of the space shuttle , will attract the attention of countless people around the world.
And the progress of my country’s manned spaceflight and space station will become big news every time without accident. It can be said that the milestone events in the history of spaceflight must go out of the circle, and it has become the inertia of history!
But in recent years, whether it is my country’s moon landing fire detection space station or the US SLS’s return to the moon plan, they have made repetitions or micro-innovations on the roads that humans have already explored.
The launch of the SpaceX starship is different, and its design goal is to land a man on Mars! That’s a potential leap forward… so how did Starship get to where it is today? What is the point of this launch? We’re going to talk about that today.
01 Extreme development speed, abnormal cost control
We just said that the biggest difference between the starship and the previous human aerospace industry is that SpaceX is a private enterprise of Musk, a technology madman. So when we observe the development of starships, we will see some characteristics that are different from the previous inertial thinking.
I think there are two main points worth noting here:
1. SpaceX research and development is a strategy of small steps and fast trial and error, which is very different from the thinking that “success rate” is very important in previous national aerospace projects; 2. The goal of the starship is not, or at least not only, the country The scramble to climb the peak of science and technology is very clearly directed to reduce costs in the short term to achieve civilian use, and let human civilization go out of the earth.
I have to say that Musk has great ambitions, and I like it very much.
Let’s talk about the first thing first. If you are an ordinary technology or aerospace enthusiast, but not a SpaceX fan, you will probably have this feeling:
That is, Musk’s rocket news is often that the test fails to fly for a while, it explodes after flying for a while, and the planned recovery fails for a while… In short, most of the news is failure, and success is rare.
But unexpectedly, regardless of whether it was the recovery of the Falcon rocket, the Starlink or the manned spaceflight, it was a success amidst a bunch of failed news! This is very strange, how did SpaceX do it?
Because failure has always been part of his plan, it should be said that he is not afraid of failure at all!
Take this “failure” as an example. In fact, Musk’s tone was very low before the launch: “As long as the launch pad is not blown up, it will be considered a success.” And after the failure of this launch, Ma Yilong’s expression was also very calm, isn’t it just a loss of 10 billion?
The combination of the starship test this time is B7 and SN24, that is, the lower part of the rocket booster is B7, and the key starship in the upper part is SN24, which means that this is the 24th test version of the SpaceX starship. .
The starship was originally in January 2019. Musk exposed the simulation of the starship (Starship) on social media. From an engine “Starworm” to the SN1 prototype test version, it has gone through more than 20 years. Version iterations until it is what it is today.
Therefore, today’s starship SN24 is obtained step by step through continuous failure tests.
The reason why Starship is not afraid of failure is because each test minimizes the cost, starts from the minimum and continuously increases the difficulty and functions. The “Starworm” that was initially tested was a Raptor engine casing, just for a jump test, but the importance of this matter is self-evident…
The following SN1 to SN4 versions are the smallest static tests, mainly testing the working pressure, strength, static ignition, etc. in the low temperature environment, and the process is full of various common failures…
In SN5 and SN6, we started to do jump tests again. We saw that the starships tested at this time only had necks, not even heads, so they were also the smallest units.
In the next series of tests, let’s simply say that in SN8, the starship achieved its first high-altitude test flight, and was able to fly to an altitude of 12.5 kilometers, and landed under control. Of course, the result was also a failure…but SN15 is the famous work of the starship , has achieved a successful controlled landing!
When SN22 left the factory, we saw that the starship equipped with heat-insulating tiles was almost the same as the SN24 launched today!
Throughout the testing process of the starship, it is the process of gaining the most experience at the smallest cost each time, and then the next generation is a process of adding hundreds of improvements and adding new content. For example, SN15 had only three engines and no heat shields, because at that time there was no need to fly into space, so these things were not needed.
Therefore, SpaceX is completely different from the previous strategy of not failing as much as possible for the aerospace industry. SpaceX is more flexible, and the R&D personnel are not under so much pressure. The rocket explodes and then applauds. R&D can be a way of continuous trial and error and rapid iteration. , but the iteration speed is faster and the cost is lower.
Of course, the traditional impression of “only success, no failure” in the aerospace industry in history also has its special historical reasons.
Because aerospace technology and strategic missile technology have a lot of overlap, and human beings must rush out of the earth to expand their living space, which was one of the few universal values recognized by both sides of the Cold War at that time.
Being able to gain an advantage in the aerospace industry means that I can fight better than you and that I can represent the interests of all mankind better than you. Its military and political significance is self-evident. This made the aerospace industry during the Cold War a military and even ideological competition between the two major powers, or an arms race!
So both sides of the Cold War were obsessed with success rates. Because the United States lagged behind in artificial satellites, and the Saturn V moon landing and the space shuttle were all watched by the world, the matter was of great importance, so the success rate was extremely important! Saturn V had a 100% success rate, and it was blatantly blared by NASA later on. Due to the characteristics of the Soviet system, the Soviet Union paid more attention to the success rate, and there was even a risk of scientists being convicted because they did not do well…
In SpaceX’s strategy of constant trial and error, the goal is not only to speed up iterations, but also to save money. This is closely related to the second point we just mentioned, the goal of civilianization of SpaceX starships, and the long-term goal of emigrating to Mars.
From the recycling of rockets to the use of various materials and parts in starships, almost all of them are aimed at reducing costs! This is similar to the relationship between military aircraft and civil aviation aircraft in aircraft. Military aircraft can pursue performance regardless of cost, while civil aviation must pay attention to cost. Fuel economy and engine life are especially important.
If you want to immigrate millions of people to Mars and build a city on Mars, then all the aerospace equipment in the past will be useless, and you must reduce the cost to the level of civilian consumption to make it possible!
SpaceX starship has been pursuing the ultimate in cost reduction, because his goal is that the cost of human beings entering space will be reduced to only 10 dollars per kilogram. You can calculate how much it costs you to enter space. But the way SpaceX saves money is not by cutting corners or reducing processes, but by the ultimate pursuit of technology!
Rocket recycling is of course the most important part of saving money, and in terms of starship design, the upper and lower stages can be recycled. After landing, it only needs to go through basic maintenance and refueling, and then it can be launched again. Compared with the space shuttle, it has lower maintenance costs and a shorter go-around time. After maturity, it only takes a day or two, or even a few hours, to repeat the flight.
The SLS rocket, which inherited the mantle of the Space Shuttle, costs US$4.1 billion per launch, while Starship plans to cost US$10 million or less per launch in the future, which is 1/400 of that.
In terms of the shell, the starship uses stainless steel, which greatly saves costs. Carbon fiber composite materials were more widely used in the aerospace field before. The cost of this material reached 130,000 US dollars per ton, but the 30X stainless steel used in the starship The price is 2500 US dollars / ton, only 2% of the carbon fiber composite material. The Raptor engine uses 3D printing technology to reduce costs, and an engine only costs 500,000 US dollars.
Chips are also an extremely expensive part of the aerospace field. We know that aerospace-grade chips have extremely high requirements on the working temperature range and resistance to cosmic radiation, so the corresponding aerospace chips are also extremely expensive! The RAD750 chip used by NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars costs as much as $200,000 a piece!
And Musk’s SpaceX rocket does not use aerospace-grade chips at all, but directly uses X86 civilian-grade chips! In order to prevent chip failure, the strategy he adopts is redundant design. Every place that needs to use chips uses 3 chips, and a rocket uses dozens of civilian chips.
When performing computing tasks, SpaceX splits the dual-core of a chip into two single-cores, and calculates the same data separately. Each system is configured with 3 chips for redundancy, that is, 6 cores for computing. If the data of one of the cores is different from that of the other five cores, the main control system will tell the core to restart, and then copy the data of the other five cores to the restarted core, so that the data is always synchronized. Repeatedly, no core will be left behind.
Taking the Dragon spacecraft as an example, according to John Muratore, former SpaceX rocket chief engineer, the Dragon spacecraft has a total of 18 systems, each system is equipped with 3 X86 chips, and the Dragon spacecraft has a total of 54. Therefore, the total price of the main control chip of the Dragon spacecraft is about 26,000 RMB, or 3,600 US dollars!
For another example, the SpaceX starship does not have escape chambers and parachutes, because these will occupy the space for transportation and the overall cost.
An interesting technology is that after the starship re-enters the atmosphere from space, it falls down lying down. This is why the starship’s heat shield is only installed on one side, because the other side does not heat due to friction! But there is no parachute to help slow down from the beginning to the end. When it restarts the engine and is controlled, it can be safely vertically erected and landed for recovery. This is very particular.
Obviously, the later the starship flips, the lower the altitude, and the more fuel it can save. If the starship flips at about 500 meters, compared with a higher altitude of about 2000 meters, it will save 20 tons of fuel, 20 tons The payload is no joke, it is higher than the payload of the entire Falcon 9!
But the problem is, the later you turn over, the less space you have to control your posture, and the sooner you control it, the sooner it will be stable! Therefore, it is necessary to rely on the ultimate critical technology to adjust the attitude in order to save fuel and increase the load. The goal of everything is to save money, save money, save money.
Since this launch is the first orbital flight of the starship, falling back into the atmosphere was originally one of the important test points. I am personally very interested in how it lays back, but unfortunately we did not see that scene because the starship was separating. This link has not been completed, so there will be no follow-up, and we can only look forward to the next launch… So besides this, what are the key points?
02Ultimate goal: Immigrate to Mars
The ultimate goal of the SpaceX starship is to emigrate to Mars. This is very clear, but what is the overall logic of this? We still have to smooth it out a little bit.
The overall rhythm of this matter should be to land on the moon first, then establish a permanent base on the moon, and after a period of preparation, land on Mars.
When humans are able to colonize Mars, and wait for some key technologies such as nuclear fusion engines to mature, they will be able to prepare for deeper deep space exploration missions and more distant interstellar immigration…
It’s been 50 years since the last time Americans landed on the moon…
Therefore, the plan of the United States is to “return” to the moon first, which is the famous “Artemis Project”. This plan was signed by Knowing Wang in 2017. Its goal is to safely send astronauts to the moon and return by 2024 (there is a high probability that it will not be completed on time), and establish a normalized residency mechanism for future manned landing missions on Mars. Pave the way.
In other words, this moon landing is different from the previous ones. There are important technical updates. In addition to the permanent base just mentioned, a space station on the moon will also be established. After all, this return to the moon is to prepare for immigration to Mars, which matches the goal of the SpaceX starship!
The problem is that the Artemis program is led by NASA and involves multiple U.S. commercial aerospace companies and international partners. The SpaceX starship is only a small part of it. NASA itself wanted to count on its own son, the SLS rocket, but because the SLS is not very competitive, the participation of the SpaceX starship is gradually increasing.
At present, SpaceX has received NASA’s second “Artemis” moon landing contract as part of NASA’s “Artemis 4” mission, which means that according to the plan, SpaceX will participate in the “Artemis 3″ mission. ” and the “Artemis 4” missions, two manned missions to the moon.
Therefore, this test of the SpaceX starship also has the huge support of NASA behind it.
I just said that the starship is assembled in two sections, consisting of the lower part of the rocket booster B7 and the upper part of the starship SN24. The lower part is about 70 meters high, with 33 Raptor 2 engines, a propellant loading capacity of 3,400 tons, and a design thrust of 7,590 tons. The starship spacecraft above is 50 meters high, with 6 Raptor 2 engines, 3 of which are vacuum versions, with a propellant loading capacity of 1,200 tons and a design thrust of 1,500 tons..
The starship has a total weight of about 5,000 tons, a total height of 120 meters, a diameter of 9 meters, and a capacity of 100 to 150 tons. Therefore, it will be the largest and most powerful rocket in history, 20 meters higher than Block 1 of SLS and 10 meters higher than Saturn V. The takeoff thrust of the Saturn V is more than 3,400 tons, and that of the Starship is 7,590 tons.
But the first flight will not release 100% of the thrust, but 90%. Then multiply 7590 tons by 90%, and after extremely complicated calculations, the result is 6831 tons, which is basically twice that of the Saturn V. That said, it’s the largest rocket humanity has ever built.
Alright, now that we’ve finished talking about the overall situation of the starship, let’s introduce the planning process for this launch.
The reason why this flight test has attracted public attention is because it is the first orbital test of the starship. According to the plan, the starship assembly will be launched at the self-built launch site in Boca Chica, Texas, USA. After the assembly reaches a certain altitude, it will be separated. The orbit continues to fly eastward for about 90 minutes, passing through the Gulf of Mexico and the Strait of Florida, half a circle around the earth, and finally reaching the waters near Hawaii.
While both the booster and starship are designed to be reusable, neither will be recovered during this flight plan. They will splash down on the surface of the ocean, rather than landing vertically on a landing pad or offshore recovery platform like the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.
According to the plan, the starship as a whole will be refueled about one and a half hours after launch—liquid oxygen and liquid methane. Because of the low temperature of -183 degrees in liquid oxygen and -162 degrees in liquid methane, everyone saw that the body of the rocket changed obviously and gradually turned white, and it became a big popsicle, which is what it was doing.
Under normal circumstances, the rocket engine starts to ignite at T-8 seconds, and the rocket lifts off after 8 seconds! The working time of the super-heavy booster engine in the second half is 169 seconds, after which the 33 “Raptor” engines of the booster will shut down. 193 seconds after liftoff, the starship separated from the booster, at an altitude of about 63 kilometers.
So in the plan, if the separation is successful, his lower half will be returned under control, but instead of being recovered directly, it will fall into the sea by splashing down! The booster will splash down about 32 kilometers from the coast of the Gulf of Mexico about 8 minutes after launch.
There are two areas, blue and purple. The blue area is the dangerous area where the overweight booster splash lands in the Gulf of Mexico under normal flight conditions. The purple area is the dangerous area where debris will fall if there is a problem in the early stage of launch, that is, in the case of unplanned rapid disintegration.
According to the plan, after the first half of the starship separates, it will continue to fly eastward in space for about an hour and a half, flying more than half the distance of the earth. The flight route is mainly on the sea, passing through Africa and Australia, and then splashing down in the direction of Hawaii.
So during this period of time, it is mainly to see whether it can fall back into the atmosphere perfectly, and then whether the heat insulation tile can hold it under the friction of the atmosphere area.
From the entire launch process, we can see that the link of this starship launch plan test is combined with previous historical tests to form a complete launch path of the largest human rocket! And it is completed under the most economical plan with the smallest cost.
Because the recovery of the second half is no longer a problem, the recovery of the first half has also been tested before. This time it is combined to launch to the orbital level, then fly, and then return to the atmosphere. It is enough to succeed in all these points.
So here comes the question, where is the “failure” in the actual occurrence of this time?
At present, the reason for the failure of the starship launch has been announced. SpaceX reported that shortly after the starship was launched, it was actively self-destructed due to engine failure and loss of altitude. This is more in line with the actual situation of the live broadcast!
1. Engine failure; 2. Lost altitude.
The engine problem is: 33 Raptor engines are not fully working, 3 engines failed to start at the beginning of the launch, and then 3-6 engines failed to light up in turn. In theory, the 33 Raptor engines are designed to be redundant. However, this test flight was originally planned to only release 90% of the engine power, and several non-working engines were all leaning to one side, so it would be more troublesome if the power was weak and it would still run off.
The so-called loss of height is: the launch did not reach the predetermined height, and the attitude of the rocket began to deform. According to the plan, the scheduled separation should be completed 3 minutes before. The separation height should be 63 kilometers above sea level, but the actual flight is only 29 kilometers above sea level, and it is exhausted and unable to push, so it can only self-destruct and disintegrate in about 4 minutes…
So the launch ended here, ended in failure, and the subsequent plan did not exist…
But objectively speaking, if this test can reach this stage, it can already score 60 points. Why do you say that? Because this flight broke through the MAX-Q stage, this is a big breakthrough, and it is reasonable to break through the MAX-Q stage, which is more than half of the success!
What is the MAX-Q stage? That is to say, when the rocket is rising, it will be subjected to air resistance and disturbance. The thrust of the rocket mainly overcomes gravity and air resistance. After the rocket is launched, the speed is getting faster and faster. The air resistance and disturbance It will also become bigger and bigger, but the thinner the air is, the resistance will also decrease. When this equilibrium is broken, the critical point is MAX-Q. Under normal circumstances, if you break through this point, the disturbance to the rocket will be very small. In other words, the back is stable.
So if this launch is successful if it does not blow up the launch pad according to what Musk said, then the result is already good… After the mission failed, Musk tweeted: “Congratulations to the entire team for completing the amazing ‘Starship’ spacecraft Flight test mission! We have learned a lot for a fresh start in a few months time.”
I have to say that Musk’s mentality is really good. Of course, there is still a long way to go if humans are to be sent to Mars.
Because you have to send a lot of goods and people to Mars, it is a complex and large-scale work. In the future, the “starship” system will have multiple versions such as a test version starship (prototype), a moon landing version starship, a moon travel starship, a cargo version starship, a refueling version starship, a satellite platform, and an intercontinental travel starship. .
Of course, the most important thing is the intercontinental travel version for earth transportation, because SpaceX is counting on that thing to replace civil aviation aircraft and use it to make money to feed the starships going to Mars.
After all, the window from Earth to Mars is only once every two years. In the future, the large-scale “starship fleet” cannot be kept on the ground when it is not going to Mars, so making money by transportation is a two-way thing.
Of course, when the plan to emigrate to Mars is really implemented, I am afraid that more versions will be needed. The future plan of the starship spacecraft can transport 100 people for interstellar travel at one time, or transport 100 tons of goods to Mars, and because the fuel group of methane and liquid oxygen can be produced on Mars based on carbon dioxide and water, the starship can complete The round trip between the ground and the fire.
Musk also claimed that the launch cost of the “starship” is quite low. Once the relevant tests are successful, large-scale production will be launched, and a space fleet composed of 1,000 “starships” will be built at a rate of 100 ships per year. The long-term goal of transporting people and related materials to Mars is to build a city of 1 million people on Mars, and finally realize the goal of leaping human beings into a “multi-planet species”. Ending Innovation and Pioneering Spirit
Although I still think that Musk’s Mars colonization plan is unlikely to succeed, the plan itself is great enough.
The most critical part of this plan, which is also likely to be realized, is the scale and cheapness of rocket transportation services. Chemical rocket technology has basically matured 50 years ago, and it allows us to cover a small area of the solar system including Earth orbit, the moon and Mars, but the problem is that because the rocket launch is too expensive, this small area It has not been fully developed, and it is still very difficult for us to go to space today.
SpaceX’s idea of quick trial and error and extreme cost performance is expected to solve this problem, which is also very worthy of our country’s reference.
In addition, from this plan, I see courage.
Dare to be the first person to eat crabs, dare to find an exit in the darkness, dare to make mistakes, dare to take responsibility, dare to jump out of introversion and seek benefits from unknown fields. This reminds me of Zhang Qian’s mission to the Western Regions and Shackleton’s attempt to cross Antarctica.
This is the most attractive quality of American Westerners, and it is also the quality that we need to pick up in this round of conquering the West.
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