Explosion and fireworks in the sky: Starship’s seventh launch ended in an accident

On January 17, SpaceX performed the seventh launch of the Starship superheavy system. It managed to successfully land the Super Heavy booster, but the spacecraft itself was lost in the explosion.

Super Heavy landing and Starship explosion

The Starship launch proceeded normally. The 123-meter rocket lifted off from the launch pad and began to gain altitude. After separating from Starship, the Super Heavy booster performed a return maneuver and returned to the launch site. The apparatus successfully extinguished its speed before being picked up by Mechazilla’s turret arms.

The moment the Super Heavy booster returned to Earth. Source: John Kraus

Unfortunately for SpaceX, its successes ended there. During the Starship’s gain in altitude, several engines shut down abnormally. When the spacecraft was at the 146 kilometer mark, contact was broken. Shortly afterward, numerous videos made on various Caribbean islands began appearing on social media. They showed the burning wreckage of the spacecraft entering the atmosphere. Later, a video showing the Starship explosion itself also appeared. Several planes whose route passed over the suspected debris site had to turn around to eliminate the risk of collision.

It is unknown at this time what exactly caused the accident. But live footage of the launch showed that one of the steel plates on the hull had begun to break away. There is also evidence of a fire before Starship exploded.

Consequences of the Starship accident

The loss of Starship was the first time since 2023 when SpaceX failed to put Starship on its intended flight path. It is worth recalling that the seventh test involved an updated version of the spacecraft. Starship increased in size and received more capacious tanks. In addition, the engineers made many changes to various elements of its design that were supposed to improve its reliability.

Starship’s seventh launch. Source: John Kraus

The plan for Starship’s seventh flight was to demonstrate the deployment of Starlink satellites, restart the Raptor engine that had already flown into space, and once again test the spacecraft’s tensile strength, from which some heat shield tiles had been intentionally removed. However, these goals will be achieved during the next Starship flights.

At this point, it’s hard to know how much the failure will affect SpaceX. The company is known for its ability to quickly identify and correct deficiencies, then get back to flying. However, in this situation, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) would have to conduct an investigation that could suspend Starship flights for a significant period of time.

Even if the investigation is rapid, the accident will almost certainly postpone Starship’s first full orbital mission. It was assumed that if the seventh flight of the spacecraft was successful, the eighth flight would be the first time it would be placed in full orbit around the Earth. Now SpaceX may have to modify that plan and delay Starship’s orbital flight until a retest is conducted.

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