The purpose of the 7th check flight was once to check a number of upgrades SpaceX made to its heavy-lift rocket gadget. After a a success release and finishing a complete period burn, the Tremendous Heavy booster separated from Starship and caused a boostback burn designed to go back it to the release website. Following a touchdown burn, the Tremendous Heavy booster was once effectively stuck mid-air by way of the release tower at Starbase for the second one time.The undertaking didn’t move reasonably as neatly for Starship. Roughly two mins after the spacecraft ignited its moment degree Raptor engines following separation, a flash was once seen within the aft segment of Starship referred to as the attic, adopted by way of sensors detecting a power upward thrust from a leak. Two mins after that, a moment flash was once seen, adopted by way of sustained fires within the attic segment that at last “led to all however one in all Starship’s engines to execute managed close down sequences and in the end ended in a lack of verbal exchange with the send.”Put up-flight research indicated that Starship’s Independent Flight Protection Machine caused a self-destruct roughly 3 mins after the bottom staff misplaced touch with the spacecraft. In line with SpaceX, essentially the most possible reason behind the incident was once vibrations that had been a lot more potent all the way through the flight than were skilled all the way through checking out. That led to larger pressure at the propulsion gadget’s {hardware} and, in the end, a propellant leak that “exceeded the venting capacity of the send’s attic house and led to sustained fires.”The explosion created falling particles that seemed extra like a meteor bathe over the islands of Turks and Caicos to a number of vacationers who shared movies of the aftermath on social media. Even supposing SpaceX says all of the “particles got here down inside the pre-planned Particles Reaction Space,” the Federal Aviation Management in short slowed and diverted a number of flights within the house on January sixteenth because of the incident.As a part of the investigation into the explosion involving SpaceX, the FAA, NASA, the Nationwide Transportation Protection Board, and the U.S. Area Power, the corporate performed a 60-second static check hearth with the Starship that might be used on an upcoming 8th flight. Following the result of that check, SpaceX has made {hardware} adjustments to gasoline feedlines in addition to changes to propellant temperatures and working thrust goals.The corporate has additionally added further vents and a “new purge gadget using gaseous nitrogen” to the attic segment of Starship designed to make that house extra tough to propellant leakage.SpaceX lately plans to release an 8th check flight of Starship on February twenty eighth, 2025, however continues to be “running with the FAA to both shut the mishap investigation or obtain a flight protection choice, along side running on a license authorization to allow its subsequent flight of Starship.”
SpaceX thinks it is aware of why Starship exploded on its final check flight
