Early analysis suggests that one of the high-pressure nitrogen gas tanks in the cargo bay ruptured. This would be unrelated to the rocketry aspects of Starship, those tanks are pretty plain vanilla technology and if this is actually what happened it’s weird because those tanks are rated for way higher safety margins.
Maybe. Regardless, problem either in design or build.
Designing under-reinforced tanks indicates that the design can’t make payload and they’re cutting too far into structure allocations to make up for it.
Rupture could also be poor materials (sign of Boeing-style disregard for standards and safety) or a bad weld (same plus maybe training issues on the line). Means they’re running bad QA/QC protocols if the faulty material/construction made it to flight.
Chasing performance at the cost of safety sounds right down Musk’s alley.
No, not necessarily a problem in either of those things. As I said, it ruptured way below the pressure the tank was rated for - nothing wrong with the design there. And I don’t know if it’s been explicitly confirmed or not, but those tanks get tested above that pressure before they get installed. The ship had already done a single-engine test firing so it must have actually been pressured up to that already when it did that previously.
It sounds to me like something happened that damaged the tank after it was already in place. That would be my guess. Something banged into it and nobody noticed.
Early analysis suggests that one of the high-pressure nitrogen gas tanks in the cargo bay ruptured. This would be unrelated to the rocketry aspects of Starship, those tanks are pretty plain vanilla technology and if this is actually what happened it’s weird because those tanks are rated for way higher safety margins.
Maybe. Regardless, problem either in design or build.
Designing under-reinforced tanks indicates that the design can’t make payload and they’re cutting too far into structure allocations to make up for it.
Rupture could also be poor materials (sign of Boeing-style disregard for standards and safety) or a bad weld (same plus maybe training issues on the line). Means they’re running bad QA/QC protocols if the faulty material/construction made it to flight.
Chasing performance at the cost of safety sounds right down Musk’s alley.
No, not necessarily a problem in either of those things. As I said, it ruptured way below the pressure the tank was rated for - nothing wrong with the design there. And I don’t know if it’s been explicitly confirmed or not, but those tanks get tested above that pressure before they get installed. The ship had already done a single-engine test firing so it must have actually been pressured up to that already when it did that previously.
It sounds to me like something happened that damaged the tank after it was already in place. That would be my guess. Something banged into it and nobody noticed.