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SpaceX sets date for next Starship flight, explains what went wrong the last time (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As for the Starship upper stage, the vehicle began losing the ability to control its attitude during its coast phase in space. This was found to be due to clogged valves used by reaction control thrusters on the upper stage. The company's update notes that "SpaceX has since added additional roll control thrusters on upcoming Starships." But it is not clear that they will be available for Flight 4.

This seems like a slightly strange conclusion. Since the main goal for IFT-4 is to survive reentry, why wouldn't they upgrade the RCS system to address issues found during IFT-3? Or if it's too late to upgrade, skip S29 entirely?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Goal is to get data on reentry, if it can be achieved with small modification on already build SS, than why not. I'm bit surprised by number of clogging problems in test flight 2 and 3.