A SpaceX spacecraft takes off from the launchpad during a flight test from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, April 20, 2023.
Patrick T Fallon | AFP | Getty Images
Elon Musk expects SpaceX to spend around $2 billion this year on Starship rocket development as the corporate pushes for its first launch earlier this month.
“My next flight expectation could be to succeed in orbit,” Musk said during a Spaces Twitter discussion on Saturday.
While SpaceX holds secondary rounds about twice a year to present the corporate’s employees and other shareholders a likelihood to sell stock, Musk said the corporate “doesn’t anticipate the necessity for fundraising” to further bolster the Starship program and its other ventures.
“So far as I do know, we need not increase funding for SpaceX,” Musk said.
Regarding the dramatic first fully arranged launch of the Starship rocket on April 20,” said the CEO of SpaceX, “The result was roughly consistent with my expectations, and possibly barely beyond my expectations.”
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SpaceX has many more prototypes in various stages of assembly and intends to launch one other attempt to succeed in space with this rocket inside a couple of months.
“The aim of those missions is just information. For instance, we have no payload or anything – we just want to seek out out as much as we will,” Musk said.
He put the probability of a spacecraft reaching orbit this year at “probably” 80%, but believes there’s a “100% likelihood of reaching orbit inside 12 months.”
Run a review
Starship will make its first launch on its Texas-based Super Heavy Booster on April 20, 2023.
SpaceX
The spacecraft got off the launch pad and reached several milestones, but Musk went into more detail about the varied problems the rocket faced.
The rocket took off as only 30 of the Raptor’s 33 engines ignited at the bottom of the super-heavy booster. Musk said SpaceX “chosen to not launch” the three engines because they weren’t “healthy enough to bring them to full thrust. The spacecraft slid sideways off the launch pad because it took off into the sky, which Musk said was “resulting from an engine failure. “
After about 27 seconds into the flight, SpaceX “lost contact” with one other engine – an incident that occurred “with some sort of energy event” that removed the warmth shield around several other engines. “Things really hit the fan” about 85 seconds after launch, when SpaceX lost “thrust vector control” – that’s, the flexibility to steer the rocket.
As well as, Musk reported that the launch of the rocket’s AFTS (Autonomous Flight Termination System, which destroys the vehicle if it veers off track) took about 40 seconds, which SpaceX might want to correct before its next launch attempt.
The strongest a part of a rocket’s performance was how well it held together, including passing the launch milestone called “Max Q,” or the purpose at which atmospheric pressure is at its strongest in a rocket.
“The vehicle’s structural margins look like higher than we expected, as might be seen from the vehicle somersaulting towards the top and still intact,” Musk said.
Looking ahead, Musk said SpaceX has “made so many improvements” to future prototypes. The corporate must make certain that “we do not lose control of the thrust vector” on the following launch.
“Rock Tornado”
Members of the general public walk through the debris field on the launch pad on April 22, 2023, after the SpaceX spacecraft launched on April 20 for a flight test from Starbase Space Base in Boca Chica, Texas.
Patrick T Fallon | AFP | Getty Images
Back on the bottom, Musk said the booster created a “stone tornado” under the rocket because it ascended. While SpaceX saw no “evidence that the rock tornado actually damaged the engines or heat shields in a cloth way,” Musk noted that the corporate “actually didn’t expect” to destroy the concrete of the launch pad and create a crater in its wake.
“Certainly one of the more likely explanations is that … we could have compressed the sand under the concrete to such an extent that the concrete effectively buckled after which cracked,” Musk said.
The priority for the following flight will probably be “faster starting of the Raptor’s 33 engines and faster descent from the landing pad,” Musk said. It took SpaceX about five seconds to ignite the engines and launch the rocket, which Musk noted “is a extremely very long time to explode the pad.” The corporate intends to chop this time in half until the following attempt.
A dust cloud grows beneath a spacecraft as a rocket launches on its super-heavy booster from Texas on April 20, 2023.
SpaceX
Aftermath photos showed the rapid operation of the Super Heavy booster engines. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service report said the launch threw concrete and metal “1000’s of feet away” and created a cloud of dust and concrete dust that fell so far as 10.5 miles from the launch site.
On Saturday, Musk said the “pad damage is definitely quite minor” and may “be fixed quickly.” He estimated that the repairs needed meant SpaceX would “probably be ready for launch in six to eight weeks.” SpaceX will replace some fuel tanks near the launch pad. The five hundred-foot tower “is in good condition”, with “no significant damage” despite being hit by “quite large chunks of concrete”.
Musk believes the largest obstacle to flying again “might be retraining” the AFTS that destroyed the rocket because “the detonation took too long.”
SpaceX is moving ahead with a plan to position steel plates, which will probably be cooled by a water system, under the launch tower for the following Starship rocket.
Environmental activists and researchers raised the alarm over the cloud of powdered concrete and dirt that the launch created. Musk argued that the stays “weren’t toxic in any respect” but said that “we don’t desire to try this again.”
“To one of the best of our knowledge, there was no significant environmental damage that we’re aware of,” Musk said.