Against all odds, SpaceX finally tugs Starship into port after 24 days at sea
Against all odds, SpaceX finally tugs Starship into port after 24 days at sea
历经重重困难，SpaceX 终于在海上漂流 24 天后将星舰拖回港口
SpaceX’s most recent Starship test flight may have ended July 24, but its mission isn’t over yet. The spacecraft splashed down in the Indian Ocean intact after flying halfway around the world from SpaceX’s launch base in South Texas.
SpaceX 最近一次星舰（Starship）试飞虽然已于 7 月 24 日结束，但其任务尚未完成。这艘航天器在从德克萨斯州南部的 SpaceX 发射基地飞行了半个地球后，完好无损地溅落在印度洋中。
Engineers expected the ship’s life to end with a fiery disintegration after toppling over, just as past Starships have done following splashdown. Numerous onboard sensors and cameras, along with buoys and drones in position at the splashdown zone, have provided important data for SpaceX to assess the performance of the ship’s heat shield after each test flight, so officials accepted the post-flight conflagrations. That day, Starship tipped over and remained intact, surprising just about everyone.
工程师们原本预计该飞船在溅落后会像以往的星舰一样，在倾覆后发生剧烈解体。由于溅落区部署了大量机载传感器、摄像头以及浮标和无人机，为 SpaceX 评估每次试飞后隔热罩的性能提供了重要数据，因此官方此前一直接受这种飞行后的损毁。然而那天，星舰在倾覆后竟然保持了完整，这让几乎所有人都感到惊讶。
Engineers have reams of data from all 13 test flights of Starship and its giant booster rocket, known as the Super Heavy. But there’s no match for inspecting hardware after returning from space. SpaceX routinely recovers and reuses Falcon 9 booster stages with near-flawless performance. The handful of minor failures with the Falcon 9 have centered on the rocket’s single-use upper stage. Hardware-rich, so getting Starship back in one piece is a boon.
工程师们已经从星舰及其巨大的“超重型”（Super Heavy）助推火箭的所有 13 次试飞中获得了海量数据。但实物检查永远是无可替代的。SpaceX 经常回收并重复使用猎鹰 9 号（Falcon 9）助推级，其表现近乎完美。猎鹰 9 号仅有的几次小故障都集中在一次性使用的上面级上。由于硬件资源宝贵，能将星舰完整地回收回来是一项巨大的利好。
A recovery ship towed the spacecraft engine-first several hundred miles across the Indian Ocean to Christmas Island, an Australian territory. SpaceX announced the ship’s arrival just off the coast of Christmas Island on Tuesday. “A team of SpaceX engineers is on their way to conduct additional analysis on the vehicle in calmer waters before attempting to return it to Starbase,” SpaceX wrote on X.
一艘回收船将这艘航天器以引擎朝前的姿态，在印度洋上拖行了数百英里，抵达了澳大利亚领地圣诞岛。SpaceX 周二宣布，该船已抵达圣诞岛近海。“一支 SpaceX 工程师团队正在赶往现场，以便在更平静的水域对航天器进行进一步分析，然后再尝试将其运回星际基地（Starbase），”SpaceX 在 X 上写道。
SpaceX hasn’t said how exactly it might get the spacecraft back to Starbase, the company’s Starship development site and launch base in South Texas, more than 10,000 miles from Christmas Island. It would have to travel by sea. Starship, more than 170 feet (52 meters) long and 30 feet (9 meters) in diameter, is too large to fit into any aircraft in one piece.
SpaceX 尚未说明将如何把这艘航天器运回位于德克萨斯州南部的星际基地——距离圣诞岛超过 10,000 英里。它必须通过海运。星舰全长超过 170 英尺（52 米），直径 30 英尺（9 米），体积太大，无法完整装入任何飞机。
The company intends to recover future Starships directly at the launch site, using mechanical arms on the launch tower to catch the vehicle during final descent. That will help SpaceX expedite reuse of the vehicle. This one won’t be reused. Splashing down in the ocean exposes the spacecraft’s engines, stainless steel structure, and sensitive electronics to the corrosive effects of salt water. The vehicle also sustained damage during the tip-over after splashdown.
该公司计划在未来直接在发射场回收星舰，利用发射塔上的机械臂在航天器最后降落时将其“捕获”。这将有助于 SpaceX 加快航天器的重复使用。但这一艘将不会被重复使用。溅落在海洋中会使航天器的引擎、不锈钢结构和敏感电子设备暴露在海水的腐蚀性影响下。此外，该航天器在溅落后的倾覆过程中也受到了损坏。
Successfully bringing Starship to Christmas Island was perhaps just as unexpected as the vehicle ending its test flight intact. At one point last week, Elon Musk, SpaceX’s CEO, said that recovering the ship was “not looking good.” He said teams in the Indian Ocean were able to obtain close-up photos of the heat shield and engines “for future upgrades.” The recovery crew kept Starship afloat in rough seas by attaching air-filled Yokohama fenders around the vehicle.
成功将星舰拖至圣诞岛，其出人意料的程度或许不亚于它在试飞后保持完整。上周，SpaceX 首席执行官埃隆·马斯克曾一度表示，回收工作“看起来不太乐观”。他表示，印度洋上的团队成功获取了隔热罩和引擎的近距离照片，“以供未来升级使用”。回收人员通过在航天器周围安装充气的横滨护舷（Yokohama fenders），使其在波涛汹涌的海面上保持漂浮。
Starship’s heat shield, made of approximately 18,000 ceramic tiles, is key to SpaceX’s goal of making the vehicle fully and rapidly reusable. NASA’s Space Shuttles used similar tiles for protection during atmospheric reentry, but they required replacement and extensive touch-ups between every flight. SpaceX would like to eliminate tile replacements, and even detailed inspections, to turn around its future fleet of Starships multiple times per day.
星舰的隔热罩由大约 18,000 块陶瓷瓦组成，这是 SpaceX 实现航天器完全且快速重复使用目标的关键。NASA 的航天飞机在重返大气层时也使用类似的瓦片进行保护，但它们在每次飞行后都需要更换并进行大量的修补。SpaceX 希望消除瓦片更换，甚至免除详细检查，从而实现未来星舰机队每天多次往返的目标。
Musk has long identified the heat shield as the company’s most pressing unsolved problem with Starship. During SpaceX’s first quarterly earnings call on August 4, Musk said he considered the heat shield problem “solved.” Other industry experts are not so sure. It is true that the vehicle’s heat shield seemed to be in better condition after last month’s flight than it was following previous reentries. The tiles are clearly good enough to bring Starship back to Earth safely, but can they withstand the high flight rate SpaceX foresees to build and maintain bases on the Moon and Mars or large constellations of orbital data centers?
马斯克长期以来一直认为隔热罩是星舰项目中最紧迫且未解决的问题。在 8 月 4 日 SpaceX 的首次季度财报电话会议上，马斯克表示他认为隔热罩问题已经“解决”。但其他行业专家对此并不确定。诚然，上个月飞行后，该航天器的隔热罩状况似乎比以往重返大气层时要好。这些瓦片显然足以让星舰安全返回地球，但它们能否承受 SpaceX 预想中为了建设和维护月球及火星基地，或部署大型轨道数据中心星座所需的高频飞行频率呢？
Getting Starship’s heat shield back, and then putting the recovered tiles through tests in the laboratory or even on future Starship flights, might help answer this question.
将星舰的隔热罩回收，然后将这些回收的瓦片放入实验室进行测试，甚至在未来的星舰飞行中进行验证，或许有助于回答这个问题。