Estimated time to fire at 3pm CST.

Per the press release: The 120–meter-high Super Heavy has a thrust of 7,700 tons, more than twice the thrust of the Saturn V rocket that carried astronauts to the Moon, and significantly more than the 4,400 tons thrust offered by NASA’s next generation SLS – a rocket that can also make its first orbital flight in July.

That's a pretty impressive machine.

Confirmed 31 engine fire. Enough for orbit. Cool beans

Firing is at about 6:41:20 for impatient folks like me.

I wonder what the numbers between this and NASA’s SLS look like from a cost perspective. NASA’s website about the SLS specifically mentions that none of their system is reusable to save weight and maximize the amount of payload delivered to space. But, even though it makes more maximum thrust, 8,800 tons, than the Super Heavy Booster, its projected payload is much lower than Starship’s.

The number of engines is interesting. I suspect small engines are easier to manufacture and the has to be some economies of scale to streamline production and lower costs.

quote:

Originally posted by trapper189:
I wonder what the numbers between this and NASA’s SLS look like from a cost perspective. NASA’s website about the SLS specifically mentions that none of their system is reusable to save weight and maximize the amount of payload delivered to space. But, even though it makes more maximum thrust, 8,800 tons, than the Super Heavy Booster, its projected payload is much lower than Starship’s.

The number of engines is interesting. I suspect small engines are easier to manufacture and the has to be some economies of scale to streamline production and lower costs.

I am reminded of the failed Soviet N-1 moon rocket. It had 30 main engines, compared to the Saturn 5's five big ones. The Sovs didn't have a good heavy lift engine like we did, so they needed to cluster many smaller engines together to get the required thrust. In the end, this was a mistake. They had a complex (for the time) engine control system that regulated power output. For example, if an engine at the 12 o'clock position quit, the system would shut down the engine at 6 o'clock to maintain balance and symmetry of thrust. Well, on one of the 3 unsuccessful launches, the system shut down ALL 30 engines at once.

On at least one other occasion, an engine exploded, shredding the entire first stage.

The rocket's main problem is that the Sovs never built a full-scale test stand to test the first stage like we did with Saturn (and they are doing here). We worked out a LOT of bugs before ever committing to flight, whereas the Sovs YOLO'd it and launched the entire stack without testing. All three rockets exploded during the first stage burn, so we will never know what problems they may have encountered with the 2nd/3rd stages.

Remembering history, it bothered me the first time I heard they are using 33 engines on this beast, but of course, this is not the 1960s and this isn't the USSR involved. Still, having 30+ small engines instead of 5 big ones does increase the risk, in that engine failure is now 6 times as likely (and failure of a single engine can destroy the entire rocket). . .

Knowing the Soviets, they probably had all the scientists and engineers on the N-1 project shot like how the Sokol project in Jack Ryan was portrayed.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
Knowing the Soviets, they probably had all the scientists and engineers on the N-1 project shot like how the Sokol project in Jack Ryan was portrayed.

Actually, the ONE MAN mostly responsible for the Soviet rocket successes, Sergei Korolev, died while undergoing routine surgery. He was almost single-handedly responsible for the Soyuz rocket, the Vostok capsule, Sputnik, and countless other successes. Once he died, the Soviet rocket program (which was already WAYYY behind the US) foundered and could never catch up.

The N-1 was his baby, and in the end, his failure. But, with his death, the Sovs could never recover and fix its many problems.

The Sovs were never going to make a successful moon landing and return (they MAY have gotten there, but there would likely be a dead cosmonaut or two on the moon even IF they made a landing. . . ).