That’s why these are called ‘test flights’, right? SpaceX made its ninth attempt at sending the frankly massive Starship, plus a Super Heavy booster that had been previously used for a test, into orbit. Progress was made on the program, but it still failed to achieve its goals.
The progress comes via the spacecraft making it further into the mission than it ever has before. The failure is that Starship exploded before it could deploy a handful of dummy Starlink satellites from the Pez dispenser system SpaceX is developing.
Double blow for Starship
The 122-metre-tall rocket assembly had travelled farther than its previous best performances before issues arose that ended SpaceX’s plans for Starship on this attempt. The first sign of a problem was when the ground team lost contact with the Super Heavy booster system, previously captured by Mechazilla’s ‘chopsticks’, and the booster made an uncontrolled descent into the ocean.
It could also be argued that the engineering failure that ended the entire mission is visible in footage (below) of the launch. If that’s the case, SpaceX’s engineers probably knew immediately how the whole thing was about to go. Sensors often beat eyes when examining rocketry failures.
SpaceX’s recycled booster was supposed to drop into the ocean anyway, but under the company’s control during splashdown. The event presaged the problems Starship suffered. It experienced uncontrolled rotation roughly half an hour into the mission. Prior to this, the ‘Pez’ satellite launch was also scrubbed due to problems with the launch day doors. All re-entry goals to test heat shielding and steering changes for the vehicle were also missed as SpaceX “shut down” (exploded) Starship from the ground.
According to Elon Musk, the problems were caused by a leak from the primary fuel tank.
As was the case previously, expect the next test launch to be delayed on NASA’s orders as launch data is examined and problems are worked around. If the pattern holds, it should be about two months before a tenth launch is scheduled — a fairly rapid turnaround as spacecraft experimentation goes.
And despite the setback, the launch footage (above) of SpaceX’s ninth super-heavy test is simply awesome (in the original sense of the word) to watch.
