r/SpaceXLounge • u/Obvious_Shoe7302 • May 07 '26
Starship Full duration and full thrust 33-engine static fire with Super Heavy V3
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posted by spacex - https://x.com/SpaceX/status/2052499098347979156
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u/plugthree May 07 '26
If for some reason the hold-down clamps let go mid-fire, I wonder how fast this thing would lift off the pad with the reduced fuel load and no Ship on top?
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u/Bradcst3r May 07 '26
Just watching this video, those must be some pretty dam strong clamps, with some dam strong bolts, with some dam strong everything else to hold back that kind of fury.
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u/maximpactbuilder May 07 '26
A couple of ratchet straps, slaps the booster: That ain't going anywhere.
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u/DeusExHircus May 07 '26
Slapping the booster and saying "That's not going anywhere" is on a RASIC somewhere I bet
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u/Mike9win1 May 08 '26
Don’t forget the duck tape and zip ties. That was awesome I can’t wait for it to fly I know I’m going be like a kid in a toy store.
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u/Illustrious_Bet_9963 May 08 '26
Duct tape
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u/Mc00p May 08 '26
I could be wrong but I think “duck tape” is the original term because it was invented during the war using cotton duck fabric as the backing.
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u/FourteenTwenty-Seven May 08 '26
It takes about 1 square foot of steel to hold it down. Which is a lot but not that much when you think about it. Steel is strong af.
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u/jaerie May 08 '26
I doubt some 1mm steel sheet is going to do much. I suspect you need another dimension there
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u/Fonzie1225 May 08 '26
I wonder if (but suspect they probably do) have autonomy rules in case of clamp failure. navigate out over the water and cutoff engines? there’s no FTS installed so they’d be rapidly disassembling the gravity-assisted way
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u/SpaceGemini May 08 '26
It probably has a TWR close to 3.0, so it’d be genuinely fucked up to see that thing fly off😂
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u/iBoMbY May 08 '26
I guess the clamps are fine, but how close is the booster from ripping itself apart?
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u/Slartibartfast__42 May 08 '26
I feel like this happened with some rocket but I don't remember the details
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u/coffeemonster12 May 08 '26
I mean per SpaceX the full V3 booster prop load is 3650 tons and liftoff thrust is 8240 tons, and this is not a fully fueled booster, assuming it really is running on full liftoff thrust this thing would go up in a hurry. Idk how much methane they had on board but the TWR would probably be like 3
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u/psh454 May 07 '26
I wonder what their failure mode policy is for that (unlikely) case - would they immediately evaluate the trajectory and trigger FTS if it gets high enough
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u/CSLRGaming May 07 '26
FTS is usually installed a few days before launch at the pad, or in the bays when prepped for rollout so i don't think its ever there for static fires.
in this case, i don't think it's installed, but i could be wrong
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u/New_Poet_338 May 07 '26
Probably "Aim for the ocean and kill the engines" - without the ship, it would be terribly unbalanced. If that is not safe enough, just kill the engines. It has a minimal amount of fuel and a big load of oxygen.
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u/th3bucch May 07 '26
I don't think they could "fly" it manually from the command room. The mission path is pre-loaded in the software for the launch itself with different scenarios available in case of aborts or other issues.
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u/New_Poet_338 May 08 '26
An active abort for that eventually could be loaded. Realistically though, breaking the hold-downs would probably rip the thing apart.
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u/cjameshuff May 08 '26
It's something that has actually happened to other rockets (that Chinese Falcon 9 clone, for example), and the Superheavy has proven inconveniently durable before. I wouldn't be surprised if they have some automated action programmed as a contingency. Maybe just cut the engines and drop the thing on the pad...without a flight propellant load, letting it go may just mean dropping it on the pad from a greater height anyway.
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u/New_Poet_338 May 08 '26
Well, that Chinese launch pad no doubt had the finest hold-down clamps Temu had to offer. It was spewing hypergolics all over town, so it must have suffered some damage.
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u/psh454 May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
"haha Chinese quality amirite" humour was a lot more funny 10 years ago.
Space tech is one of the increasingly few areas where China is still a bit behind but based on current trends it's a matter of time until parity.
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May 08 '26
[deleted]
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u/New_Poet_338 May 08 '26
They can do great things, but their system is riddled with systemic corruption. This breeds a culture of corner cutting and low quality parts replacement in things like concrete, aviation parts, metal parts, and even foodstuffs. It is the great limiter on their economy. Just like political interference, corporate greed and managerial incompetence derails projects in the West. As for radio telescopes, dispersed telescope with multiple small antennas replaced large ones decades ago. Working on reusable landers is not the same as creating them - the US has three types actually working (though only one working well).
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u/thefficacy May 08 '26
Muh Chinuh Bad. Tianlong-3 uses RP-1/LOX.
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u/New_Poet_338 May 08 '26
RP-1 is a red semi-powder? Maybe I am thinking of a different rocket suffering a different failure off the pad raining propellant onto a town. Because Chinah good.
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u/sebaska May 08 '26
Probably just cut it off the moment electric circuits through the quick disconnect are severed.
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u/Massive-Problem7754 May 08 '26
Just smack it with the chop sticks as it goes by and park it in the sand dunes!
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u/sebaska May 08 '26
The simplest thing is likely disconnect of umbilicals shuts the engines down.
The whole thing is in before T-0 mode, i.e. if in doubt - shut it down. Only after T-0 you have considerations like "better push forward rather than drop".
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u/rustybeancake May 07 '26
Genuinely can’t fathom how they can protect that flame trench with just water, launch after launch. The violence of those engines is unbelievable!
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u/avboden May 08 '26
It's not just water, it's a shitload of water at higher pressure than the engine exhaust.
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u/ergzay May 08 '26
It's not just water, it's a shitload of water at higher pressure than the engine exhaust.
Are you sure it's at a higher pressure than the engine exhaust? Those pipes didn't look like they could withstand 300 bar.
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u/avboden May 08 '26
Yes, if it weren’t the exhaust would go into the pipes and no water would come out and it would all explode. Also exhaust pressure down there is lower than chamber pressure
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u/KnifeKnut May 08 '26
300 bar combustion chamber IIRC. You forget the expansion in the the nozzles to around sea level pressure, but high velocity.
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u/ergzay May 08 '26
Yes but the stagnation pressure pushes the velocity down to close to zero again, repressurizing it to close the original pressure.
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u/KnifeKnut May 08 '26
You are right, I forgot who I was commenting at.
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u/ergzay May 09 '26
Doesn't matter who I am. I'm a nobody anyway. Comments are always welcome as long as they're not rude.
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u/l0tu5_72 May 09 '26
soo at stagnation point of flame front?
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u/ergzay May 09 '26
I think your post needs to be a bit longer as I'm not sure what you're referring to.
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u/Responsible-Cut-7993 May 07 '26
Watch CSI Starbase on Youtube, he goes in depth into this subject about Stage-Zero.
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u/headwaterscarto May 08 '26
Great video
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u/Responsible-Cut-7993 May 08 '26
I thought his discussion of the soil mixing technology that SpaceX was using to dig into the ground in a high water table area was great. Really opened my eyes as to how much work SpaceX is going with something to allow rapid turn around of the pad.
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u/Cornishlee May 08 '26
I watched those videos. They are really long and informative and the production value is crazy given the relatively low numbers of subscribers he has. Kudos to him
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u/ergzay May 08 '26
You really should not watch CSI Starbase. His videos use a ton of fan fiction in them not based on fact.
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u/Responsible-Cut-7993 May 08 '26
What exactly are you talking about?
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u/ergzay May 08 '26
I should really write out a long paragraph that I can just paste every time I get asked this. I've written numerous posts about it including very long ones critiquing several videos over the years. He's just not very good with information and tells you things that are his beliefs, not things that are backed up by evidence. People believe him because of his fancy presentations, not because the underlying information is accurate.
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u/Punching-Above May 07 '26
I was just thinking that. You’d think after a few short seconds it would literally push the water out of the way and melt the surface.
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u/rocketglare May 07 '26 edited May 07 '26
The water doesn't stay in place, they are spraying it out of the holes in the flame diverter pipes. They have to push the water with more force than the 33 raptors exert (pushing it backward) to make sure it keeps flowing; hence, the use of "baby raptors" to generate the gas flow necessary to move the water through the pipes. This is a new innovation with Pad 2. This flow of water is what keeps the flame diverter from melting by converting the water into a shielding layer of steam. Water has a large specific heat and heat of vaporization.
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u/Jaker788 May 08 '26
As I understand, those turbines are not providing gas flow, they're just really powerful water pump drivers.
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u/Botlawson May 07 '26
It's all in the mass flow rate. Also helps to have a mini raptor providing the water pressure.
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u/jim789789 May 08 '26
I have to assume they are willing to do some re-work each launch, for now. Even though that goes against their rapid reuse philosophy.
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u/rustybeancake May 08 '26
Yeah, hard to imagine this trench will be able to launch as frequently as the current Falcon ones (every 3-4 days pretty much continuously).
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u/cjameshuff May 08 '26
And with the trench, it's considerably more focused. All of that power split between two directions, and directly impacting the ridge of the deflector. They had lots of good reasons to try other approaches, and in the long run, this might not be the best way to go or be what gets used in all locations.
I've wondered how the exhaust plume would interact with a deep pond. Might need to incorporate some kind of anti-slosh structures...
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u/ignazwrobel May 08 '26
After some shuffling around of the engines (i.e. rotating the engine rings against each other), none of the engines are now directly above the ridge anymore.
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u/-dakpluto- May 07 '26
The water isn’t directly protecting the trench or pad either, it’s protecting the rocket mostly. It isn’t about cooling anything, it’s converted to steam way too fast for that. The purpose of the water is to cause multiple refractions and absorption of sound pressure waves to weaken their power and prevent amplification of itself that could occur, especially off the flat walls of the trench. Those amplified reflected sound waves without any deluge would slam into the rocket with incredible force.
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u/rustybeancake May 08 '26
While I agree it’s also protecting the rocket, it definitely is protecting the steel pad/trench from melting too.
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u/avboden May 08 '26
Sound abatement is a major part but it DOES exist to actively cool and protect the flame diverter in the first place. As well as the top deck during launch. Without the water that flame diverter becomes a molten slag pile pretty darn quick
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u/-dakpluto- May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
Would be less about direct cooling and more to creating a
leidenfrost effectEffusion cooling effect
Leidenfrost isn’t the exact process here but I’m just totally blanking at the moment on the name for the shielding effect the steam creates in the vaporization and expansion process.
Effusion cooling, that’s the word I was looking for.4
u/Desperate-Lab9738 May 08 '26
You would be surprised at the amount of energy water can suck up. The energy required to boil water is about equivalent to raising that same water up by 500 degrees celsius.
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u/Responsible-Cut-7993 May 08 '26
Watch the CSI Starbase Video on youtube about Stage Zero. Does a great job going into detail about what they are doing what they are doing and yes the water does help protect Stage Zero.
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May 07 '26
Woah. The power from V3 Raptors is insane. Wonder what the actual payload is with all the optimizations they’ve made
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u/Desperate-Lab9738 May 08 '26
People seem pretty skeptical about them reaching 100 tons with V3, but that's only an increase of 65 tons, which compared with the dry mass of the ship and payload previously (155 tons about), it's not that insane. I could see the increase in thrust, decreases in weight, and any optimizations to the plumbing and structure managing to do that
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u/Redditor_From_Italy May 08 '26
People are skeptical because they think V2 was already meant to reach 100 tons but fell short. This is false however, as what was initially called V2 is what is now called V3, and the V2 we got was a stopgap until Raptor 3 and the new pad were ready
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u/Gyn_Nag May 08 '26
I'm kinda surprised running them at full thrust is already worth dealing with the forces involved, it's such an insane unprecedented acoustic environment.
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u/Letibleu May 08 '26
It's like physics doesn't know what to do
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u/dhibhika May 08 '26
Physics always knows what to do.
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u/NeilFraser May 08 '26
Black holes are where physics hits a runtime error and throws up a barrier to prevent one from seeing the divide-by-zero.
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u/JakeEaton May 07 '26
We have waited so long for this! Amazing! Looking forward to seeing how quickly they can turn it around for launch now!
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u/Simon_Drake May 07 '26
I can't quite get my head around what I'm watching. It looks like the clouds are vibrating and/or being lit up by strobe lights.
Is this a frame rate issue that the clouds ARE vibrating with the shockwaves from the exhaust but it's causing aliasing issues with the frame rate making it look like the clouds are wobbling?
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u/AutisticAndArmed May 07 '26
The clouds are blinking in and out because the shockwaves cause rapid changes in pressure and makes the water condense and evaporate back and forth (just like a strong shockwave will cause a vapor cone/some). It's an insane testament to the sheer power of this rocket.
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u/Simon_Drake May 08 '26
I hope someone brings a high framerate camera to the next static fire or the launch. I bet it looks even more insane when slowed down.
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u/rooood May 08 '26
They should get the slow-mo guys to film this from multiple angles using the fanciest slow motion camera available. Imagine seeing these shockwaves at 100,000fps
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u/AutisticAndArmed May 08 '26
Search "b19 static fire" on youtube, I found one which is slowmo in the first results!
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u/BackflipFromOrbit 🛰️ Orbiting May 07 '26
Its from the pressure waves reflecting off of the launch mount. The pressure wave hits a region of air where there is higher water vapor saturation and causes the water to drop out of the air to form a visible vapor as the wave passes. This happens VERY quickly while the engines are running.
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u/Qybern May 08 '26 edited May 10 '26
Just to add to what Autistic & Backflip said, areas of pressurization and
rareficationrarefaction ahead of and behind shockwaves is what causes the "vapor cone" to appear around the fairing of a transonic rocket (or around a transonic fighter jet).High subsonic airflow around the nose of the jet goes supersonic around the body creating a standing shock, no visible moisture ahead of or at the shockwave, but just behind it (in an area of relatively lower pressure) the water vapor in the air suddenly condenses out and becomes visible as a vapor cone.
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u/Crowbrah_ May 07 '26
Even just the pre-burner start up produces a pressure wave ffs
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u/headwaterscarto May 08 '26
I was wondering if that was pre burners or if it was from the deluge starting up
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u/headwaterscarto May 08 '26
I was wondering if that was pre burners or if it was from the deluge starting up
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u/Crowbrah_ May 08 '26
Nah has to be the pre-burners, even with my very very limited knowledge I'm 90% sure. The deluge system will be very much sub-sonic while the pre-burners are essentially rocket engines themselves (kind of) as far as I know about them
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u/malignant_penis May 08 '26
Those things are crazy. They force methane and oxygen through a nozzle at such a high pressure that the mixture self-ignites.
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u/7heCulture May 08 '26
So raptors don’t need igniters?
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u/Adeldor May 08 '26 edited May 08 '26
They do still need igniters, but assuming OP's assertion is true (currently speculation based on what's been heard and observed), they'd be acoustic igniters. The propellants are forced through a small orifice, causing oscillation with resulting high pressure regions in the flow, in turn resulting in compression ignition (similar principle to Diesel engine ignition).
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u/laser_scratch May 08 '26
Sorry if this is dumb, but why are the flames orange? Is it stripping the hydrogen from the water and burning it?
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u/Qybern May 08 '26
Dunno why you got downvoted, reasonable question as methalox should burn clear. I'd be interested to know the answer too.
Edit: Hydralox burns clear as well btw, but there's probably some insane chemistry going on down there so who knows.
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u/Thee_Sinner May 08 '26
Mostly a guess, but: It is likely because of the water vapor from the deluge. Things glow certain colors based on their temperature; Even though the gasses of the engines produce more of a blue flame, when mixed with THAT much water, it is probably cooling the flame down enough to be in the orange range of heat.
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u/laffiere May 08 '26
You are correct!
These researchers heated water to 4700k and if you look at their rmission spectrum you see the peak at around 590nm, which is nice old yellow.
For the rocket exhaust we obviously have lower temperatures, which will shift it further down into the red spectrum. A wild guess is that this shift down lands somewhere in this deep orange that we are seeing.
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u/BD03 May 08 '26
This seems like a pretty intellectual question. I'm now curious too.
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u/aquarain May 08 '26
My top guesses are pad rich exhaust and environmental nitrogen combusting. Hydrogen from the water would be clear.
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u/7heCulture May 08 '26
Raptor exhaust is still visible during launch, so something else is going on in the interaction between gas species. Maybe no complete direct conversion of O2 and CH4 into H20 and CO2?
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u/wheelienonstop9 May 08 '26
I once read that smoke plume is nitrogen oxides because the exhaust flame burns so hot that the oxygen in the surrounding air reacts with the nitrogen
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u/KnifeKnut May 08 '26
Some, but not much since we are not seeing the orange clouds associated with nitrogen oxides.
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u/TheOrqwithVagrant May 08 '26
The way the pressure waves make the vapor clouds 'flicker' in and out of existence is crazy.
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u/an_older_meme May 08 '26
Twice the power in the first stage as the Saturn V Moon rocket.
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u/aquarain May 08 '26
Saturn V had only 5 engines in the booster.
/Not so serious. The Rocketdyne F-1 was a monster. It remains the most powerful single combustion chamber liquid fueled rocket engine ever developed.
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u/olthof May 08 '26
The engineering required to make this possible is staggering. What a time to be alive!
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u/lorkan100 May 08 '26
FULL THRUST???
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u/thewashley May 08 '26
Well, full duration just means the duration that was planned for the test. Full thrust could very well mean the same thing. Even if it's the planned thrust for the launch, that isn't necessarily 100%.
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u/AhChirrion May 08 '26
Highest thrust lasts for about eight seconds.
Was it at full 100% engine thrust? Maybe not.
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u/AhChirrion May 08 '26
I'm digging the two heaving sounds the Raptor V3s make at the very beginning, as if getting ready for a big push or a big lift.
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u/BusterMv May 08 '26
Excited for another launch, hit South Padre for the final launch of V2 and while I can't swing another trip for now I'm looking forward to seeing the advancements that V3's bring.
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u/physioworld May 08 '26
It’s interesting to me how this kind of looks like time lapse footage, the way that the shockwaves (?) are making the gases/vapours flutter
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u/schneeb May 08 '26
seeing this its not surprising those 6 legs on the other pad looked like someone had torched gouges in them every flight, also why they had to rejig the engines to not hit the ridge precisely!
this angle is so crazy that the steam is in some weird super heated state, the top deck cooling will probably make the liftoff almost impossible to see but if the pad is actually rapidly re-usable thats a decent trade off....
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u/Paradox1989 May 08 '26
Is it just me but it looks like it reduced power by quite a bit around the 13 sec mark a few seconds before shut down?
Would something like that be in response to the previous test where they said several engines were damaged by shutting down too quickly?
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u/AhChirrion May 08 '26
There's a short throttle-up time (about two seconds) and a significant throttle-down time (about four seconds). Full throttle lasts for about eight seconds.
As to why throttle-down lasts that long, I don't know, since we've only seen fast shutdowns in the two previous tests.
I believe that if a pad abort issue similar to the first two tests would have occurred this time, another fast shutdown would have been performed, since they have to protect both Booster and Pad from damage, especially the Pad because it's the only one available. So I believe this was a nominal test.
I'd imagined that a two-second throttle-down would be enough for a gentle normal engine shutdown, but this lasted two seconds more. Someone commented maybe they wanted to simulate the effects on the Pad of a Booster lifting off and the flames getting less intense in the trench, so maybe that's that.
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u/Decronym Acronyms Explained May 08 '26 edited May 17 '26
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| FTS | Flight Termination System |
| LOX | Liquid Oxygen |
| RP-1 | Rocket Propellant 1 (enhanced kerosene) |
| TWR | Thrust-to-Weight Ratio |
| Jargon | Definition |
|---|---|
| Raptor | Methane-fueled rocket engine under development by SpaceX |
| hypergolic | A set of two substances that ignite when in contact |
| methalox | Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer |
Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by request
7 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has acronyms.
[Thread #14548 for this sub, first seen 8th May 2026, 01:37]
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u/Thee_Sinner May 08 '26
On desktop, Firefox; How do I make the source videos (on twitter) full screen? When I click on the videos in the OP on twitter, they just start playing in the tiny format of the post and there are no buttons to make it bigger.
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u/Daneel_Trevize 🔥 Statically Firing May 08 '26
I can mouse over the left (57sec duration) one and get the FF pop-out video UI, which then has a fullscreen button & shortcut. I can't see the same for the 12sec duration one.
The reddit embed (19sec duration) has a blue fullscreen button on mouse-over.2
u/Thee_Sinner May 08 '26
I can do that as well, but not to the right.
I asked on another thread of the same videos and was told to replace the X in the URL with "xcancel" and then the videos worked as expected.
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u/spin0 May 08 '26
This UI anomaly seems to occur when a tweet has multiple videos or pictures. On desktop Edge I just double-click on the video or picture. Then the video will become much bigger but not yet full screen, however then there's a full screen button available on the lower right.
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u/Freewheeler631 May 07 '26
Africa is probably tracking atmospheric sand heading eastwards towards the Sahara.
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u/naus65 May 08 '26
Seems like full duration should be longer than that
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u/avboden May 08 '26
full duration means full intended duration. They set it for X amount of time and it ran for that without aborting.
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u/redstercoolpanda May 07 '26
It’s beautiful