SpaceX has made us so accustomed to a series of uneventful launches with its Falcon 9 rockets that we would almost be surprised to see a Starship explode in flight. Nothing could be more normal, however, for a vehicle still in the development phase which still has a long road to reliability. During its seventh test flight last night, the giant rocket saw its second stage explode after just over eight minutes of flight.
Spectacular images of the Starship 33 explosion
An operation already successful during the fifth test flight which went perfectly for this second attempt. But at the same time, Starship 33, which was operating at an altitude of 141 kilometers, saw its six engines cut off one after the other before the telemetry froze at 8:26, a sign that the connection with the ship was lost.
It was supposed to fly for a little over an hour on a suborbital trajectory before landing smoothly, as during the three previous flights.
SpaceX was quick to confirm the destruction of Starship 33 while videos, taken from the Turks and Caicos Islands, showing the explosion and then the debris of the ship scattering in the sky, were quick to spread on social networks.
Elon Musk reveals cause of explosion
A few days after the flight, Elon Musk posted a message on vessel, which was large enough to create pressure greater than the capacity of the vent. In addition to re-checking for leaks, we will add a fire suppression system to this volume and likely increase the vent area. »
And the billionaire added “ So far, there is no reason to believe that the next launch will take place after next month “. In other words, the fault that caused the Starship explosion would have an origin that does not appear to require significant corrective work. “ We will conduct a thorough investigation, in coordination with the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration, editor's note), and implement corrective measures to improve future Starship flight tests », Announces SpaceX.
A deeply modified Starship V2
Although SpaceX hastened to point out, rightly, that this incident was not abnormal in a development program and that it would fuel future developments, this premature explosion is still a hard blow for the engineers. . Indeed, this seventh flight released a Starship V2, an evolution of the vehicle with many new features.
It carries an additional 300 tonnes of propellant, with a payload increasing from 1,200 to 1,500 tonnes. The front flaps which are used to steer the ship during atmospheric reentry are smaller and placed higher and more forward on the fuselage to better protect them from high temperatures during atmospheric reentry. In addition, the Starship has grown by two meters (52.1 versus 50.3 meters), it uses new 2.7 megawatt batteries and its avionics have been completely revised.
Starship's eighth flight could change profile
This seventh flight was also to test for the first time the deployment of 10 fictitious Starlink satellites. In other words, this failure of the Starship V2 flight did not make it possible to validate all of these developments. This risks affecting the next flight which was to see an attempt at orbital flight as well as a catch-up of the Starship by the launch tower. It is not certain that this program can be maintained.
We will learn more in the coming weeks because SpaceX will probably seek to move forward as quickly as possible to continue and maintain the pace of 25 Starship flights this year.
With an unwavering passion for local news, Christopher leads our editorial team with integrity and dedication. With over 20 years’ experience, he is the backbone of Wouldsayso, ensuring that we stay true to our mission to inform.
