The failure of SpaceX’s Starship on its most recent test flight had a different root cause than the previous failure, SpaceX said May 23.

The timing of the Flight 8 failure was similar to Flight 7 in January, which also featured several engine shutdowns and a loss of communications about eight and a half minutes after liftoff. However, SpaceX says the two failures had different causes.

“While the failure manifested at a similar point in the flight timeline as Starship’s seventh flight test, it is worth noting that the failures are distinctly different,” the company stated.

In the case of Flight 8, SpaceX said one of the center Raptor engines in Starship suffered a hardware failure, details of which the company did not disclose. That failure enabled “inadvertent propellant mixing and ignition” that caused the loss of the Raptor. Immediately thereafter, the other two center Raptor engines shut down, along with one of the three outer vacuum-optimized engines with larger nozzles. The vehicle then lost control authority.

The company said it made changes to the Raptors in the Starship upper stage, with “additional preload” on key joints and a new nitrogen purge system as well as improvements to the propellant drain system. A future version of Raptor in development will also have reliability improvements to address the problem seen on Flight 8.

On Flight 7 in January, SpaceX, said the vehicle suffered a harmonic response several times stronger than expected, creating additional stress on the vehicle’s propulsion system. That caused leaks that triggered a fire in the engine bay.

“The mitigations put in place after Starship’s seventh flight test to address harmonic response and flammability of the ship’s attic section worked as designed prior to the failure on Flight 8,” SpaceX said.

  • ptfrd@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    33·
    10 hours ago

    but their goals seem easy in comparison, especially if you consider the tech we have now vs the 60’s

    I’d say their goals seem much harder in an absolute sense, but perhaps roughly the same in comparison to the technology level.

    They really do seem to be trying to create a Mars colonisation ship. Capable of transporting large amounts of mass for less money than it costs to transport small amounts of mass with existing rockets.

    My response to Destin is that Starship is clearly not optimal for another ‘flags and footprints’ mission to the Moon, but is such a paradigm shift that even if doing such a mission as a ‘side project’, it could still very easily be better than all the alternatives. And if, like me, you care more about a permanent presence on the Moon, the case for Starship becomes even stronger.