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Other terms used to describe a "black box" include Flight Data Recorder (FDR), Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), MADS (Modular Auxiliary Data System), and OEX (Orbiter EXperiments) recorder. Other spacecraft have used them. What about Starship?

It should be noted that Elon mentioned during a Starbase Tour video that cameras inside the tanks would be able to observe excessive heating due to a failure of the thermal protection system tile during reentry...

[Elon] So, hopefully, we at least find out where the crack in the armor is...

[Tim] How will you know? What if something just goes... What if the first orbital attempt just goes totally, it doesn't even make it in for reentry and it's just a million pieces of the bottom of the ocean? How will you know where it failed?

[Elon] We have temperature sensors. (long pause) Probably need some thermal images inside the tanks. So, just like IR cameras.

[Tim] So you can see if a certain section's getting real hot.

[Elon] Yeah, IR cameras on the inside will show you what the backside temperature is.

[Tim] Yeah, yeah, it'll let you know if a leak propagated.

[Elon] It's only gonna pop if the backside temperature... Frankly, I'm not sure. In fact, I take that back. If you just have a camera-camera ... if something's glowing white-hot, okay, that's bad. That's the bad part, right there. So, you don't even need a thermal image, frankly. The steel will glow white-hot before it melts.

[Tim] Right, right, right. You'll know.

[Elon] You'll know. It's not subtle.

This conversation suggests to me that a black box of some kind would have been needed.

phil1008
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    I think people put way too much emphasis on things Elon says whilst thinking out loud. That's clearly something he just made up on the spot in the middle of a conversation, he's not describing an extant system. – Darth Pseudonym Mar 18 '24 at 21:22
  • It just shows that the topic came up in a conversation. It would be surprising if they didn't implement a solution that addresses Tim Dodd's question. – phil1008 Mar 18 '24 at 21:44
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    They were probably more relying on maintaining telemetry links than recovering anything from a failed entry, even finding the black box would be a major operation even if you managed to build something that could survive the breakup of the vehicle – Alan Birtles Mar 18 '24 at 21:47
  • I don't think this conversation is very technically accurate, for that matter. Steel loses most of its structural strength long before it starts to incandesce. The ship is likely to break up before the interior surface lights up, or at best only moments before failure. You'd want an IR camera to see the heating when it's just starting instead of waiting until it's actively melting. – Darth Pseudonym Mar 18 '24 at 22:18
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    I read all of Elon's statements as referring to telemetry, I don't think he was implying that getting any of these images required storing data in a black box which would have to be later fished out of the ocean at huge expense. Obviously when telemetry ends only a black box would be able to continue to record data, however normally when telemetry ends that's also a good sign that there probably isn't any more data to gather. Aircraft have black boxes because they are not transmitting data to that level of detail during flight. – Steve Pemberton Mar 18 '24 at 22:42
  • There should be data between the start of the communications blackout period and the breakup of the vehicle that would be worth retrieving. – phil1008 Mar 18 '24 at 23:00
  • This probably doesn't rise to the level of answer, but they expected to lose ship 28. If there was a physical black box they intended to recover, they would've had maritime assets in the area to do that. There's no sign they did. – Erin Anne Mar 18 '24 at 23:23
  • Perhaps a black box that would float with a battery and a Starlink dish installed on it...? – phil1008 Mar 19 '24 at 00:39
  • I think they expected or at least hoped to have telemetry for the duration of reentry, and in fact it did seem to work until the vehicle (apparently) broke up at 65 km. So they probably got some pretty good data out of this test. Yes in theory they could spend time and resources to develop a method to save and retrieve all possible data if the telemetry fails or is temporarily blocked. But the way SpaceX operates they would only do that if the simplest method (telemetry only) can't give them the data they need. – Steve Pemberton Mar 19 '24 at 01:24
  • Whose voice would the cockpit voice recorder record and in which cockpit? – Jörg W Mittag Mar 19 '24 at 09:45
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    If only there was a network of thousands of low-flying satellites that one could use for telemetry … – Jörg W Mittag Mar 19 '24 at 09:47
  • @JörgWMittag - I think he mentioned CVR only as part of a list of how the the term black box is used, not to imply that there will be pilots. A black box on Starship would presumably store a copy of all the telemetry being sent. Not that I think SpaceX would actually do this, as I think they probably get enough data to meet their needs from whatever telemetry is available, which in the case of Starship is expected to be more than other rockets due to its size. It will be interesting if SpaceX reports any details about that. – Steve Pemberton Mar 19 '24 at 17:12
  • @JörgWMittag As a point of interest, the unmanned Orion capsule recorded both video and audio during reentry. I thought the audio was pretty interesting too. – phil1008 Mar 19 '24 at 20:14

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