SpaceX has completed its investigation into what went incorrect on the seventh check flight of its Starship rocket, which ended with a dramatic explosion.
Flight 7 launched on Jan. 16, sending Starship aloft from SpaceX‘s Starbase web site in South Texas. The mission was partially profitable; SpaceX caught Starship’s large first-stage booster, often called Tremendous Heavy, again at Starbase utilizing the launch tower’s “chopstick” arms as deliberate.
The rocket’s higher stage — often called Starship, or just “Ship” — was purported to deploy 10 dummy satellites right into a suborbital trajectory after which splash down within the Indian Ocean about an hour after liftoff. That did not occur, nevertheless; Ship suffered an anomaly and broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, sending particles raining down over the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Just some hours later, SpaceX had already recognized a possible trigger.
“Preliminary indication is that we had an oxygen/gas leak within the cavity above the ship engine firewall that was giant sufficient to construct strain in extra of the vent capability,” firm founder and CEO Elon Musk mentioned via X, the social media platform he owns, on Jan. 16.
Additional investigation has confirmed and prolonged that preliminary discovering, SpaceX introduced in an replace in the present day (Feb. 24).
“Essentially the most possible root trigger for the lack of ship was recognized as a harmonic response a number of instances stronger in flight than had been seen throughout testing, which led to elevated stress on {hardware} within the propulsion system,” the corporate wrote. “The following propellant leaks exceeded the venting functionality of the ship’s attic space and resulted in sustained fires.”
The attic, SpaceX defined within the submit, is an unpressurized space within the aft part of Ship that lies between the underside of the liquid oxygen tank and the warmth protect. (Ship’s six Raptor engines run on liquid methane and liquid oxygen.)
The fires “ultimately triggered all however certainly one of Starship’s engines to execute managed shutdown sequences and in the end led to a lack of communication with the ship,” SpaceX wrote within the replace.
Lack of contact occurred about 8.5 minutes into Flight 7. Ship’s flight termination system triggered autonomously a couple of minutes later, as it’s designed to do in such conditions, inflicting Ship to interrupt aside.
Associated: SpaceX catches Super Heavy booster on Starship Flight 7 test but loses upper stage (video, photos)
Starship Flight 7 breaking apart and re-entering over Turks and Caicos pic.twitter.com/iuQ0YAy17OJanuary 16, 2025
SpaceX has taken steps to attenuate the probabilities that one thing comparable will occur on future Starship flights, the corporate wrote within the replace.
For instance, it performed a 60-second “static fireplace” engine check with the Ship car that may fly on the eighth Starship flight, which may fly as quickly as this Friday (Feb. 28).
The outcomes of that extra-long firing “knowledgeable {hardware} modifications to the gas feedlines to hoover engines, changes to propellant temperatures, and a brand new working thrust goal that will probably be used on the upcoming flight check,” SpaceX wrote.
“To deal with flammability potential within the attic part on Starship, further vents and a brand new purge system using gaseous nitrogen are being added to the present era of ships to make the realm extra sturdy to propellant leakage,” the corporate added. “Future upgrades to Starship will introduce the Raptor 3 engine, decreasing the attic quantity and eliminating nearly all of joints that may leak into this quantity.”
SpaceX led the Flight 7 anomaly investigation, with oversight by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and participation from NASA, the Nationwide Transportation Security Board and the U.S. Space Force. The corporate is working with the FAA to shut out the investigation and/or obtain a “flight security dedication” in time to launch Flight 8 on Friday.
