Fundstück. Anonym ("SpaceSheep GLOB 2 🚀 🗿@Starship_block2"), die Analyse deckt sich aber punktgenau mit meinem Befund zu sowohl Flug 7 wie Flug 8.
Zitat The methane downcomers when fully submerged in LOX is dampening the vibrations and preventing serious damage. However, once the LOX level becomes low enough as the flight goes on, the methane downcomers start to vibrate since not enough LOX is surrounding them to absrob the destructive vibrations. This causes the methane downcomer to rupture, starting a leak and pumping the attic full of flammable gas. Not only that, the Raptor engines NEED methane for regenerative cooling of the engine bells. If not enough methane is feeding the engine, it looses thrust AND the engine bell starts to overheat, causing burnthrough that we seeen in the RVac in the video. The lack of thrust also causes Starship to pitch into the side of the failing RVac engine (we see a small pitchover prior to failure). Now the attic and its vents/nitrogen purge is overhwlemd by a massive methane leak that then ignites, knocking out all 3 SL Raptors + the already failing RVac. And you end up with S34.
Zur Erläuterung: der Methantank befindet sich im Starship über dem Tank für flüssigen Sauerstoff. Bei Flug 7 ist die Zuleitung von O² durch eine einzige Leitung zu den Antrieben erfolgt, die sich auf Einlaufhöhe in mehrere horizontal kleinere Zuleitungen verzweigte; für Schiff 34 ist das durch einzelne Zuleitungen für jeden Raptor ersetzt worden. Die erwähnten Probleme ergeben sich zwar bei der zweiten Stufe des Falcon 9 auch, ebenso wie bei der ersten Version des Ship, das Flug 3 bis 6 anstandslos überstanden hat. Das Problem dürfte sein, daß v.2 gut 30% mehr Schub erzeugt als das Vorgängermodell. Das Ausmaß der Vibrationen kann nur errechnet, nicht aber im Voraus getestet werden; beim Wet Dress Rehearsal für Flug 8 hat der Antrieb 60 Sekunden lang unter Vollschub gelaufen; die Probleme traten aber, wie oben erwähnt, erst nach 6 Minuten Brenndauer ein; also mit einem um mindestens die Hälfte bis zwei Dritteln geleerten Sauerstofftank.
"Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande." - Voltaire
Noch zum Obigen. Weiteres Fundstück. Teil 1 deckt sich, wie oben angemerkt, mit meinem Befund.
Zitat Hypnotic@HalcyonHypnotic Now, I don’t know the validity of this message, it’s sent by the same guy who leaked the s34 aft section after the explosion picture, take it as you will.
First-hand: Starship S34 crash details.
Yesterday's post in the channel about the preliminary causes of the Flight 8 crash is confirmed for now. What else we managed to find out:
- Data indicates that the problem like on S33 during Flight 7 has repeated. - Again, harmonic oscillations in the distribution of vacuum-insulated fuel lines for RVac (one of the innovations of V2 and the distribution for S34). - This crash was more destructive than during Flight 7, the corrections to the distribution for S34 did not work or turned out to be almost worse. - Another source leaked a frame from the engine bay after the TPA and RVac nozzle rupture, and one central Raptor engine. - Problems with the rupture of methane lines in the oxygen tank only appear as the tank empties. - When filled, liquid oxygen dampens the oscillations of the distributed lines, when the tank is empty, they increase. - Harmonics cause a break in the lines in the lower part, where the main wiring for the RVac is located. - Leaks also caused the engines and regenerative cooling to malfunction, which led to the explosion during the fire in the compartment. - The updated nitrogen suppression and compartment purge system would not have been able to cope with such a volume of leakage.
The information below may change, but for now: - Hot separation also aggravates the situation in the compartment. - Not related to the flames from the Super Heavy during the booster turn. - This is a fundamental miscalculation in the design of the Starship V2 and the engine section. - The fuel lines, wiring for the engines and the power unit will be urgently redone. - The fate of S35 and S36 is still unclear. Either revision or scrap. - For the next ships, some processes may be paused in production until a decision on the design is made. - The team was rushed with fixes for S34, hence the nervous start. There was no need to rush. - The fixes will take much longer than 4-6 weeks. - Comprehensive ground testing with long-term fire tests is needed. 6:58 AM · Mar 8, 2025
Wobei die Nachrichtenlage unklar ist. Die hier wissen noch nichts davon. Ich stelle das also erst einmal unter Vorbehalt. Wenn man sich die beiden oben eingebetteten Videos anschaut, dann sieht das zwischen Sek. 31 und 20 (der Timer läuft rückwärts) allerdings nach "ungeplant" aus.
Zitat The company performed a "static fire" test with the Flight 9 upper stage this week at its Starbase site in South Texas.
SpaceX ignited one of the 171-foot-tall (52 meters) vehicle's six Raptor engines during the trial, "demonstrating an in-space burn," the company wrote via X on Thursday (May 1), in a post that shared a photo and a short video of the burn.
SpaceX also performed a six-engine static fire with the Flight 9 upper stage on Thursday, according to NASASpaceflight.com. The company has not posted anything about that test yet, however.
As of right now, the 19th of May will be Starship's 9th test flight. Launch time is between 6:30 and 8:34 p.m. CT. The U.S. Coast Guard has been issued a hazard notice.
Starship 35 is expected to roll back to Massey's tomorrow, the 9th of May, and do another Static Fire. Super Heavy Booster 14 is ready to go and will be the first ever Super Heavy reused!
🚨BREAKING NEWS🚨 SpaceX has provided an update on what went wrong during Starship Flight 8 on March 6th, 2025. The following provides some excerpts from this update, the full update is linked in the comments. 👇
For Booster 15's Boostback burn, only 11 our of 13 Raptor engines ignited, while 12 out of the 13 planned ignited for the Landing Burn, which was followed by a successful catch of the booster by the Chopsticks at the launch and catch tower at Starbase. The most probable cause for engines not relighting during the boostback and landing burn phases was traced to torch ignition issues on the individual engines caused by thermal conditions local to the igniter. Post-flight testing was able to replicate the issue and engines on future flights will have additional insulation as mitigation.
Approximately five and a half minutes into Starship 34's ascent burn, a flash was observed in the aft section of the vehicle near one of the center Raptor sea level engines followed by an energetic event that resulted in the loss of the engine. Immediately after, the remaining two center Raptor engines and one of the Raptor vacuum engines shut down and vehicle control authority was lost.
Starship flew within a designated launch corridor to safeguard the public both on the ground, on water, and in the air. All debris came down within the pre-planned Debris Response Area, and there were no hazardous materials present in the debris and no significant impacts expected to occur to marine species or water quality.
The most probable root cause for the loss of Starship was identified as a hardware failure in one of the upper stage’s center Raptor engines that resulted in inadvertent propellant mixing and ignition. Extensive ground testing has taken place since the flight test to better understand the failure, including more than 100 long-duration Raptor firings at SpaceX’s McGregor test facility.
To address the issue on upcoming flights, engines on the Starship’s upper stage will receive additional preload on key joints, a new nitrogen purge system, and improvements to the propellant drain system. Future upgrades to Starship will introduce the Raptor 3 engine which will include additional reliability improvements to address the failure mechanism.
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 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.
Zitat Flight 7 and Flight 8 each ended in dramatic explosions over the Atlantic Ocean that could be seen from Florida, the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos, raining fiery Starship debris into the drink below. Flight 7's Ship encountered a propellant leak and fire in the spacecraft's "attic," leading to its explosion and loss. Side-by-side, Flight 8 followed a very similar trajectory, but instead of a fire in the attic, Starship's last flight suffered a "flash" in what could be comparatively called its "basement," which brought about its blazing demise.
In this case, "basement" is Ship's business end with six powerful Raptor rocket engines. The flight plan for Starship's eighth launch called for Ship to deploy four dummy payloads simulating SpaceX Starlink satellites about 17.5 minutes after liftoff, followed by a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean off of Western Australia roughly 50 minutes later. But it never got the chance to do either, and now we know why.
A "flash" occurred near one of Ship's center, sea-level Raptor engines, followed by an "energetic event" that led to that engine's shutdown, SpaceX said in an update. The two remaining sea-level Raptors immediately terminated their thrust, as well as one of Ship's vacuum-optimized Raptor engines, causing the vehicle to begin tumbling out of control.
About two minutes after the initial flash, SpaceX lost communication with the vehicle, which triggered the spacecraft's automated flight termination software and subsequent self-destruct.
"The most probable root cause for the loss of Starship was identified as a hardware failure in one of the upper stage’s center Raptor engines that resulted in inadvertent propellant mixing and ignition," SpaceX wrote.
Super Heavy, too, though successfully returned to Starbase and the warm embrace of "Mechazilla," didn't do so without incident. Only 11 of the Flight 8 booster's 13 engines used for its initial boostback burn were successful in reigniting. Its landing burn as it approached the launch tower saw 12 of 13 engines relight, including one of the previously unlit engines from the boostback burn.
SpaceX traced the cause to "torch ignition issues" on each of the malfunctioning engines, as a result of "thermal conditions local to the igniter," the company said. To mitigate these overheating issues on Starship's upcoming flight, SpaceX says they have reinforced the affected areas with additional insulation.
Fixes for Starship's upper stage came down to tightening some bolts at some of Ship's more critical junctures and improving the plumbing so flammable gases don't ignite when they aren't supposed to:
"Starship’s upper stage will receive additional preload on key joints, a new nitrogen purge system, and improvements to the propellant drain system. Future upgrades to Starship will introduce the Raptor 3 engine which will include additional reliability improvements to address the failure mechanism."
01:30: Countdown angehalten bei minus 40 Sekunden. 01:36. Liftoff. T 2:30: Stufentrennung. Die Startstufe wird diesmal nicht aufgefangen. 6:19; Landing Burn start - und sofortiger Aufall der 6 Triebwerke. 7:59: Ship engine cutoff. Nomineller Start für die Zweitstufe; anders als bei Flug 7 + 8. 156 km Höhe, 26600 km/h. 18:50. Der erste Versuch, die Tür der 2. Stufe zu öffnen, um die 8 Starlink-Atrappen aufzusetzen. Die Flugleitung überspringt diesen Punkt. 29:00. Das Ship kippt auf und ab; scheint ins Taumeln geraten zu sein. 30:00. Flugkontrolle teilt mit, daß es Brüche in den Treibstoffleitungen für die Lagekontrolle gegeben hat & keine Lagekontrolle mehr gegeben ist. 42:00. 100 km Höhe, 26.000 km/h. 44:00. 90 km Höhe. 44:44. 80 km. 45:46. 70 km. 46:46. 60. Verlust der Telemetrie in einer Höhe ovn 59,3 km.
"Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande." - Voltaire
SpaceX’s next Starship vehicle was destroyed in a catastrophic explosion shortly after 11 p.m. CT (0400 UTC) Wednesday as it was being readied for a static fire test at the company’s Massey facility, near Starbase, Texas.
The bullet-shaped, stainless-steel Ship 36 was ripped apart in a giant fireball as liquid methane and liquid oxygen were being loaded for an expected test firing of the vehicle’s six Raptor rocket engines. It was unclear how much damage was inflicted to the test stand and other facilities at the Massey site.
“The Starship preparing for the tenth flight test experienced a major anomaly while on a test stand at Starbase,” SpaceX said in a social media post. “A safety clear area around the site was maintained throughout the operation and all personnel are safe and accounted for. Our Starbase team is actively working to safe the test site and the immediate surrounding area in conjunction with local officials.”
SpaceX said there were no hazards to residents in nearby communities but urged people to stay away while it worked to safe the test site.
Airspace warnings, issued by the Federal Aviation Administration prior to Wednesday’s failure, suggested SpaceX was targeting June 29 for the tenth test flight of the full Starship vehicle with its Super Heavy Booster first stage.
SpaceX had performed a single-engine test fire for Ship 36 on June 16 and fired up the 33 Raptor engines of the Super Heavy Booster for the mission on June 6.
The dramatic failure follows three unsuccessful test flights of the Starship upper stage earlier this year. Flights 7 and 8 both ended with an explosion of the Ship upper stage during the climb to space. After a successful ascent on Flight 9 on May 27, the Starship upper stage suffered a loss of attitude control and was destroyed during reentry without accomplishing most of the planned in-space test activities.
Und ja: das war das Starship, das als Oberstufe für den nächsten Flug getestet wurde.
Zitat The company was testing a Starship upper stage at its Starbase site in South Texas on Wednesday night (June 18), to prepare for the megarocket's upcoming 10th flight test. But something went very wrong, as video captured by NASASpaceflight.com shows: The vehicle exploded, sending a massive fireball high into the dark Texas skies. SpaceX acknowledged the incident in an X post early on Thursday morning (June 19), noting that it occurred around 11 p.m. local time (midnight EDT and 0400 GMT on June 19).
Zitat SpaceX's next Starship rocket exploded during a ground test in South Texas late Wednesday, dealing another blow to a program already struggling to overcome three consecutive failures in recent months.
The late-night explosion at SpaceX's rocket development complex in Starbase, Texas, destroyed the bullet-shaped upper stage that was slated to launch on the next Starship test flight. The powerful blast set off fires around SpaceX's Massey's Test Site, located a few miles from the company's Starship factory and launch pads.
Live streaming video from NASASpaceflight.com and LabPadre—media organizations with cameras positioned around Starbase—showed the 15-story-tall rocket burst into flames shortly after 11:00 pm local time (12:00 am EDT; 04:00 UTC). Local residents as far as 30 miles away reported seeing and feeling the blast.
Massey's Test Site, named for a gun range that once occupied the property, is situated on a bend in the Rio Grande River, just a few hundred feet from the Mexican border. The test site is currently the only place where SpaceX can put Starships through proof testing and static fire tests before declaring the rockets are ready to fly.
The extent of the damage to ground equipment at Massey's was not immediately clear, so it's too soon to say how long the test site will be out of commission. For now, though, the explosion leaves SpaceX without a facility to support preflight testing on Starships.
The explosion at Massey's is a reminder of SpaceX's rocky path to get Starship to this point in its development. In 2020 and 2021, SpaceX lost several Starship prototypes to problems during ground and flight testing. The visual of Ship 36 going up in flames harkens back to those previous explosions, along with the fiery demise of a Falcon 9 rocket on its launch pad in 2016 under circumstances similar to Wednesday night's incident.
Despite—or perhaps because of—all of these changes for Starship Version 2, SpaceX has been unable to replicate the successes it achieved with Starship in the last two years. Ships launched on test flights in January and March spun out of control minutes after liftoff, scattering debris over the sea, and in at least one case, onto a car in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
SpaceX engineers concluded the January failure was likely caused by intense vibrations that triggered fuel leaks and fires in the ship's engine compartment, causing an early shutdown of the rocket's engines. Engineers said the vibrations were likely in resonance with the vehicle's natural frequency, intensifying the shaking beyond the levels SpaceX predicted.
The March flight failed in similar fashion, but SpaceX's investigators determined the most probable root cause was a hardware failure in one of the ship's engines, a different failure mode than two months before.
During SpaceX's most recent Starship test flight last month, the rocket completed the ascent phase of the mission as planned, seemingly overcoming the problems that plagued the prior two launches. But soon after the Raptor engines shut down, a fuel leak caused the ship to begin tumbling in space, preventing the vehicle from completing a guided reentry to test the performance of new heat shield materials.
SpaceX is working on a third-generation Starship design, called Version 3, that the company says could be ready to fly by the end of this year. The upgraded Starship Version 3 design will be able to lift heavier cargo—up to 200 metric tons—into orbit thanks to larger propellant tanks and more powerful Raptor engines. Version 3 will also have the ability to refuel in low-Earth orbit.
Version 3 will presumably have permanent fixes to the problems currently slowing SpaceX's pace of Starship development. And there are myriad issues for SpaceX's engineers to solve, from engine reliability and the ship's resonant frequency, to beefing up the ship's heat shield and fixing its balky payload bay door.
Zitat On Wednesday, June 18 at approximately 11 p.m. CT, the Starship preparing for the tenth flight test experienced an anomaly while on a test stand at Starbase.
After completing a single-engine static fire earlier this week, the vehicle was in the process of loading cryogenic propellant for a six-engine static fire when a sudden energetic event resulted in the complete loss of Starship and damage to the immediate area surrounding the stand. The explosion ignited several fires at the test site which remains clear of personnel and will be assessed once it has been determined to be safe to approach. Individuals should not attempt to approach the area while safing operations continue.
As is the case before any test, a safety zone was established around the test site and was maintained throughout the operation. There are no reported injuries, and all personnel are safe and accounted for.
There are no hazards to the surrounding communities in the Rio Grande Valley. Previous independent tests conducted on materials inside Starship, including toxicity analyses, confirm they pose no chemical, biological, or toxicological risks. SpaceX is coordinating with local, state, and federal agencies, as appropriate, on matters concerning environmental and safety impacts.
Engineering teams are actively investigating the incident and will follow established procedures to determine root cause. Initial analysis indicates the potential failure of a pressurized tank known as a COPV, or composite overwrapped pressure vessel, containing gaseous nitrogen in Starship’s nosecone area, but the full data review is ongoing. There is no commonality between the COPVs used on Starship and SpaceX’s Falcon rockets.
The SpaceX team would like to thank officials and residents in the surrounding Rio Grande Valley communities for their support, particularly first responders who have assisted since shortly after the anomaly took place.
Der Punkt ist, daß es ein solches strukturelles Versagen wie bei der neuen, verlängerten Variante des Starship ("Block 2") bei der ersten Baureihe nicht gegeben hat, auch nicht die inneren Vibrationen, die bei Flug 7 und 8 zum Zerbrechen 2-3 Minuten nach der Stufentrennung/Zündung und bei Flug 9 zum Bruch der Treibstoffleitung nach 40 Minuten, die zum unkontrollierten Taumeln geführt haben.
Zweitens: durch die Explosion dürfte der Teststand für die Wet Dress Rehearsals nicht unerheblich beschädigt worden sein. Bis diese behoben sind, verfügt Starbase über keine Möglichkeiten für Testläufe für künftige Starts.
"Les hommes seront toujours fous; et ceux qui croient les guérir sont les plus fous de la bande." - Voltaire
Zitat SpaceX will launch next Starship flight in 'about 3 weeks,' Elon Musk says By Mike Wall published 20 hours ago
Starship will fly again before the summer is over, if all goes according to plan. SpaceX aims to launch the 10th test flight of Starship, the biggest and most powerful rocket ever built, about three weeks from now, company founder and CEO Elon Musk said via X on Monday (July 14).
It's been a bumpy path to the launch pad for Flight 10. The Ship upper stage originally slated to fly the mission exploded on a test stand at SpaceX's Starbase site in South Texas on June 18, during preparations for a common prelaunch engine trial.
SpaceX soon determined a likely cause — the failure of a pressurized nitrogen tank in Ship's nosecone area. The company is now working to get a different Ship vehicle ready for Flight 10.
Zitat August 25, 2025 01:30 - 02:30 Germany Time - Starship's Tenth Flight Test
The tenth flight test of Starship is preparing to launch as soon as Sunday, August 24. The launch window will open at 6:30 p.m. CT.
A live webcast of the flight test will begin about 30 minutes before liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX. You can also watch the webcast on the X TV app. As is the case with all developmental testing, the schedule is dynamic and likely to change, so be sure to check in here and stay tuned to our X account for updates.
After completing the investigations into the loss of Starship on its ninth flight test and the Ship 36 static fire anomaly, hardware and operational changes have been made to increase reliability. You can read the full technical summary of the investigations here.
The upcoming flight will continue to expand the operating envelope on the Super Heavy booster, with multiple landing burn tests planned. It will also target similar objectives as previous missions, including Starship’s first payload deployment and multiple reentry experiments geared towards returning the upper stage to the launch site for catch.
The booster on this flight test is attempting several flight experiments to gather real-world performance data on future flight profiles and off-nominal scenarios. The Super Heavy booster will attempt these experiments while on a trajectory to an offshore landing point in the Gulf of America and will not return to the launch site for catch.
Following stage separation, the booster will flip in a controlled direction before initiating its boostback burn. This maneuver was demonstrated for the first time on Flight 9 and requires less propellant to be held in reserve, enabling the use of more propellant during ascent to enable additional payload mass to orbit.
The primary test objectives for the booster will be focused on its landing burn and will use unique engine configurations. One of the three center engines used for the final phase of landing will be intentionally disabled to gather data on the ability for a backup engine from the middle ring to complete a landing burn. The booster will then transition to only two center engines for the end of the landing burn, entering a full hover while still above the ocean surface, followed by shutdown and drop into the Gulf of America.
The Starship upper stage will again target multiple in-space objectives, including the deployment of eight Starlink simulators, similar in size to next-generation Starlink satellites. The Starlink simulators will be on the same suborbital trajectory as Starship and are expected to demise upon entry. A relight of a single Raptor engine while in space is also planned.
The flight test includes several experiments focused on enabling Starship’s upper stage to return to the launch site. A significant number of tiles have been removed from Starship to stress-test vulnerable areas across the vehicle during reentry. Multiple metallic tile options, including one with active cooling, will test alternative materials for protecting Starship during reentry. On the sides of the vehicle, functional catch fittings are installed and will test the fittings’ thermal and structural performance, along with a section of the tile line receiving a smoothed and tapered edge to address hot spots observed during reentry on Starship’s sixth flight test. Starship’s reentry profile is designed to intentionally stress the structural limits of the upper stage’s rear flaps while at the point of maximum entry dynamic pressure.
Flight tests continue to provide valuable learnings to inform the design of the next generation Starship and Super Heavy vehicles. With production ramping up inside Starfactory at Starbase alongside new launch and test infrastructure actively being built in Texas and Florida, Starship is poised to continue iterating towards a rapidly and fully reusable launch system.
Zitat August 15, 2025 FLIGHT 9 AND SHIP 36 REPORT Flight 9
On May 27, 2025, Starship’s ninth flight test successfully lifted off at 6:36 p.m. CT from Starbase, Texas. The flight test began with the first Super Heavy booster to be reflown starting up successfully and completing a full-duration ascent burn with all 33 of its Raptor engines before separating from Starship’s upper stage in a hot-staging maneuver. During separation, Super Heavy performed the first ever deterministic flip followed by its boostback burn.
After completing the boostback burn, Super Heavy flew at a significantly higher angle of attack than previous flights during its descent back to Earth, reaching a peak angle of approximately 17 degrees. This trajectory was a flight experiment to gather data on the limits of the booster’s performance. Once it reached the planned splashdown area, the booster relit 12 of the planned 13 engines for its landing burn. Shortly after the burn started, an energetic event was observed near the aft end of the vehicle followed by loss of telemetry. Final data was received from the booster approximately 382 seconds into flight and at approximately 1 kilometer in altitude over the designated clear zone.
The most probable cause for the failure at landing burn was higher than predicted forces on the booster structure, specifically on the booster’s fuel transfer tube, due to the increased angle of attack experiment. Post-flight analysis showed that vehicle loads exceeded the capabilities of the transfer tube which is believed to have experienced a structural failure, resulting in a mixing of methane and liquid oxygen and subsequent ignition. For the remaining flight tests using this version of the Super Heavy booster, the angle of attack for booster descent will be lowered to decrease aerodynamic forces and minimize the likelihood of structural failure.
SpaceX works with an experienced global response provider to retrieve any debris that may wash up in South Texas and/or Mexico as a result of Starship flight test operations. During the survey of the expected debris field from the booster, there was no evidence of any floating or deceased marine life that would signal booster debris impact harmed animals in the vicinity.
Following a successful stage separation, the Starship upper stage lit all six of its Raptor engines and flew along its expected trajectory. Approximately three minutes into the burn, sensors in the nosecone detected a steady increase in methane levels. This continued until approximately five minutes into the burn when pressure began to rapidly decrease in the main fuel tank while pressure simultaneously increased in the nosecone. Starship’s systems were able to compensate for the drop in main tank pressure and completed the ascent burn, achieving the planned velocity and Second Stage Engine Cutoff (SECO).
After engine shutdown, the elevated nosecone pressure combined with planned nosecone venting led to a large amount of attitude error, which continued to build up until the vehicle’s automatic fault systems disabled nosecone venting. The attitude error resulted in the ship automatically skipping the payload deploy objective, which was also unable to be completed as the higher nosecone pressure resulted in adverse loads on the mechanism responsible for opening the payload door.
The vehicle was able to gradually decrease its attitude error using reaction control thrusters until nosecone venting was reenabled as planned. Roughly 40 seconds after nosecone vents were reenabled, onboard cameras showed liquid methane entering the nosecone and temperatures on multiple sensors and controllers started dropping. This eventually triggered automatic passivation commands on the vehicle, resulting in Starship skipping the in-space burn and venting all remaining propellant into space.
Starship reentered Earth’s atmosphere in an off-nominal attitude and communication was lost during entry. Final telemetry from Starship was received approximately 46 minutes into the flight test, while the vehicle was approximately 59 kilometers in altitude and inside the designated entry area over the Indian Ocean. There were no autonomous flight safety system mission rule violations or initiation of the flight termination system.
SpaceX led the investigation efforts with oversight from the FAA and participation from NASA, the National Transportation and Safety Board, and the United States Space Force.
The most probable root cause for the loss of the Starship upper stage was traced to a failure on the main fuel tank pressurization system diffuser. Cameras inside the vehicle showed a visible failure on the fuel diffuser canister, which is located inside the nosecone volume on the forward dome of the main fuel tank. While pre-flight analysis did not show a predicted failure, SpaceX engineers were able to recreate the failure using flight conditions when testing at our facility in McGregor, Texas.
To address the issue on upcoming flights, the fuel diffuser has been redesigned to better direct pressurized gas into the main fuel tank and substantially decrease the strain on the diffuser structure. The new design underwent a more rigorous qualification campaign, subjecting it to flight-like stresses and running for more than ten times the expected service life with no damage.
Ship 36
On Wednesday, June 18 at approximately 11:00 p.m. CT, the Starship (Ship 36) preparing for the tenth flight test experienced an anomaly while on a test stand at Starbase. The vehicle was in the process of loading cryogenic propellant for a six-engine static fire when a sudden energetic event resulted in the complete loss of Starship and damage to the immediate area surrounding the stand.
As is the case before any test or launch, a safety zone was maintained around the test site and all hazards remained within the safety zone. There were no reported injuries or safety violations.
The most probable root cause was identified as undetectable or under screened damage to a composite overwrapped pressure vessel (COPV) in Starship’s payload bay section, which failed and resulted in structural failure of the vehicle causing subsequent propellant mixing and ignition. The COPVs in the payload section store gaseous nitrogen for use in the Starship environmental control system.
To address the issue, COPVs on upcoming flights will operate at a reduced pressure with additional inspections and proof tests added prior to loading reactive propellants onto a vehicle. SpaceX has also updated its COPV acceptance criteria and developed a new non-destructive evaluation method to detect internal COPV damage. New external covers are also being added to COPVs during their integration, adding an additional layer of protection and visual indication of potential damage.
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