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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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.
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