I don’t think it’s that. When yesterday’s issue occurred, Starship was too high for aerodynamic forces to be a factor. It appears that there have been fires in the engine bay on the last two flights. Yesterday, one of the vacuum engines failed right before engine cutoff and the asymmetric thrust put the ship into an uncontrolled spin. Video shows an apparent burn-through of the nozzle of one of those engines right before this occurred.
The last two flights have been conducted with a new revision of Starship that hadn’t flown before. It’s not surprising that some new issues would crop up, but it is surprising that it’s engine problems that seem to be the culprit, since I think the engines are the same as on Starship version 1.
Regardless, I have no doubt they’ll figure it out. Falcon 9 experienced numerous failures during its development, and now it’s the safest and most reliable rocket ever built.
Oh, and P.S.: Don’t be misled by the media nonsense about Starship “exploding.” While technically that did eventually happen, it was a planned explosion created by the flight termination explosives that are onboard every test flight being triggered to ensure that an out of control rocket doesn’t come down in the wrong area. The explosion wasn’t the failure, it was an intentional safety mechanism.
Good post.
Thanks