On Saturday, SpaceX conducted the second integrated development flight test of its Starship Super Heavy rocket, developed to carry humans to space and return. During this test, the Starship was supposed to enter space for the first time and briefly orbit Earth before splashing down near Hawaii. However, the mission was cut short before reaching that point, and Starship’s flight termination system appeared engaged.
It was a much smoother launch than April, which saw Starship tumble tail-over-head less than four minutes into the flight. The company had already announced that the test would be considered a success if it made it past hot staging, which is the point at which the booster and spacecraft separate during flight. This was expected to be the riskiest part of the flight, as Elon Musk has said that if something goes wrong here, the whole thing will likely blow up.
But despite the setback, there were still many cheers and applause from the live stream audience when the countdown clock clicked over to zero, and the 33 Raptor engines on the Super Heavy booster roared to life and fired simultaneously. For a moment, the stainless steel monster looked like an airship from another era, gliding over its test pad and emitting a surreal glow.
The test was a milestone in the development of the massive vehicle, designed to ferry people and cargo to the moon, Mars, and beyond. To reach those destinations, the Starship must travel at incredibly high speeds — up to 17,500 miles per hour or more — and all systems must work correctly during this critical phase.
During the live stream, aerospace engineer John Insprucker described what appeared to be a problem in the upper stages of the Super Heavy, where it was intended that the Starship separate from the booster to continue to orbit. The separation sequence was completed, but the rocket lost thrust due to a problem with one of the booster’s 33 Raptor engines.
This caused the rocket to veer off course, and Insprucker told the live stream audience that the flight termination system on the booster was triggered to prevent the craft from flying off too far. The company ended the live stream shortly after, with Insprucker saying that it was likely that the rapid veering destroyed the engine on the booster.
The failure to complete the planned trajectory for the Starship test was disappointing, but there are reasons to be hopeful that future flights will go more smoothly. In the meantime, the company will work on the fixes necessary to prevent such a scenario from happening again. According to Insprucker, the fixes will include a “flight-termination system on the second stage” to prevent the same problem from occurring again and a new mechanism for attaching the Starship to its booster during launch.
