eli5 why didn’t spacex super heavy booster lift off from the static fire? was it somehow tethered to the ground?
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It was held in place.
The purpose of the test was largely to verify that nearly all of the engines could ignite consistently and that ground support equipment could handle the demands of such a rocket.
No flight was intended to be part of that test.
In addition to the hold down clamps that are mechanically holding the booster down, you have to also think about the immense weight of the booster and it’s full load of fuel and oxidizer. Rocket engineering is incredibly difficult because they have to be designed to just barely have enough power to get off the pad in order to get the most stuff into orbit – otherwise any extra thrust not going to payload is just wasted.
So if you run the engines at 50% power, there likely isn’t enough thrust being produced to put much strain at all onto the hold down clamps even without having a fully loaded starship stacked on top.
It was held in place.
The purpose of the test was largely to verify that nearly all of the engines could ignite consistently and that ground support equipment could handle the demands of such a rocket.
No flight was intended to be part of that test.
Big clamps
There are large clamps on the launch structure that clamp onto the base of the rocket, generally the place where the engines are mounted (thrust puck), that hold it onto the launch pad
These work for static test fires, but are also used for each and every launch. It takes a bit for liquid rocket engines to come up to full thrust so the clamps hold the rocket firmly in place while that happens in case there’s some thrust imbalance or one of the engines doesn’t do its thing and they need to abort then the rocket won’t hop off the pad or fall over or anything bad
In addition to the hold down clamps that are mechanically holding the booster down, you have to also think about the immense weight of the booster and it’s full load of fuel and oxidizer. Rocket engineering is incredibly difficult because they have to be designed to just barely have enough power to get off the pad in order to get the most stuff into orbit – otherwise any extra thrust not going to payload is just wasted.
So if you run the engines at 50% power, there likely isn’t enough thrust being produced to put much strain at all onto the hold down clamps even without having a fully loaded starship stacked on top.
Big clamps
There are large clamps on the launch structure that clamp onto the base of the rocket, generally the place where the engines are mounted (thrust puck), that hold it onto the launch pad
These work for static test fires, but are also used for each and every launch. It takes a bit for liquid rocket engines to come up to full thrust so the clamps hold the rocket firmly in place while that happens in case there’s some thrust imbalance or one of the engines doesn’t do its thing and they need to abort then the rocket won’t hop off the pad or fall over or anything bad
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