One of the new graphics that showed up on the dashboard was that of the engines lit. There were at least 2 on the outer ring that were fed from TO, and a few more winked out during the flight.
I’m curious how many off engines the system tolerates. How many do they anticipate regularly? I’ve never noticed if Falcon 9s periodically run as a Falcon 8 or 7?
All and all, ‘‘twas an awesome sight. Kudos to all those cheering excited people.
The envelop is designed with safety in mind. If it leaves the envelop it has a certified self destruct system on board that will trigger and destroy the rocket.
How many engines can be of depends heavily on when the go off. Even 10s of flight can make a huge difference.
Generally Merlin engines on the Falcon 9 are incredibly reliable. In over 200 flights there were only a couple of engine failures. Some worked nominally on accent but had some failure during landing.
> How many do they anticipate regularly?
The vast majority flights should never have an engine out. This is something that should generally never happen. I think SpaceX would hope that far less then 1% of flights have an engine out issue. Anything else I don't think they would consider acceptable.
SpaceX will redesign the Raptor engine as often as they have to to get the reliability to Merlin levels.
I recall a few Falcon 9 launches that ended up with 8 engines. It is definitely designed to handle that (although maybe not for the extreme performance cases? Not sure)
At least once they lost the booster when they were planning on recovering it because they had to run the ascent phase on only 8 engines and burned enough extra fuel the booster didn't have enough fuel to complete the boost back and landing.
I’m curious how many off engines the system tolerates. How many do they anticipate regularly? I’ve never noticed if Falcon 9s periodically run as a Falcon 8 or 7?
All and all, ‘‘twas an awesome sight. Kudos to all those cheering excited people.