Starship Super Heavy booster came within one second of aborting first “catch” landing

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In the audio, one person, not identified, described an issue with the Super Heavy landing burn where a “misconfigured” parameter meant that spin pressure, presuming in the Raptor engines in the booster, did not increase as expected.

“We were one second away from that tripping and telling the rocket to abort and try to crash into the ground next to the tower,” that person said. That scenario would “erroneously tell a healthy rocket to not try that catch.”

 

https://spacenews.com/starship-super-heavy-booster-came-within-one-second-of-aborting-first-catch-landing/

[DocM]

Part of a test flight is determining if the operational limits for each monitored function has a proper minimum and maximum value. Sometimes these need to be adjusted after the flight, which is the case here. 

There were also unplanned effects due to one of the chines, long raised sections along the lower end of the booster, sustaining some damage during reentry. Chines have an aerodynamic function, somewhat like the vanes on an arrow, but they also supply extra storage space for compressed gas containers, their controls, wiring and plumbing runs, etc. 

File under: this is why they test

Edited October 27, 2024 by DocM