Posted on 05/28/2025 5:54:11 AM PDT by Red Badger
The Starship test flight encountered problems approximately 30 minutes into its uncrewed journey.
Starship’s ninth flight test launch. - SpaceX/X
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On May 27th, SpaceX launched the ninth test flight of its 403-feet (123-metre) Starship megarocket.
Despite reaching orbit, the vehicle then lost attitude control, resulting in an uncontrolled reentry and its third consecutive failure.
After lifting off from Starbase, Texas, at 7:36 p.m. Eastern, the Starship test flight encountered problems approximately 30 minutes into its uncrewed journey.
An onboard fuel leak caused the mega-rocket to spin uncontrollably in space, leading to an earlier-than-planned re-entry into the atmosphere.
SpaceX announced on social media that Starship underwent a “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” indicating it burst apart.
As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly. Teams will continue to review data and work toward our next flight test.
With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help us improve Starship’s…
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 28, 2025
Fuel tank issue
Prior to this recent launch, Starship had undergone eight integrated test flights with its Super Heavy booster.
Reportedly, this flight follows a March 6 explosion, which led the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to divert flights and temporarily halt departures at four Florida airports due to falling debris.
SpaceX’s Starship is designed for full reusability with its Super Heavy booster and Ship upper stage.
Flight 9 saw Starship’s two stages separate successfully, with the upper stage reaching space — a notable improvement compared to its last two flights.
However, SpaceX ultimately lost both stages before achieving all mission objectives.
A ground equipment issue briefly delayed flight 9’s liftoff, but the mission aimed to address prior engine problems that led to upper stage loss.
The Starship’s six Raptor engines performed as expected, successfully placing the vehicle into orbit, reported SpaceNews.
However, footage from the vehicle shortly after engine shutdown seemed to reveal propellant venting and a gradual roll.
“We are in a little bit of a spin. We did spring a leak in some of the fuel tank systems inside of Starship. At this point, we’ve essentially lost our attitude control with Starship,” Dan Huot, the SpaceX webcast host, stated.
After losing attitude control, a controlled reentry was impossible.
To prepare for reentry, SpaceX decided to “passivate” the vehicle, which involved venting its leftover propellant.
Intermittent video showed the reentry beginning over the Indian Ocean about 40 minutes after liftoff, with visible flap damage.
This marks the third consecutive Starship test flight that failed to achieve a controlled reentry and soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
“Starship’s ninth flight test marked a major milestone for reuse with the first flight-proven Super Heavy booster launching from Starbase, and once more returned Starship to space,” the SpaceX statement stated.
Failed to deploy dummy satellites
A primary objective of Flight 9 was to open Starship‘s payload bay and deploy eight dummy Starlink satellites.
However, the payload door malfunctioned, leading to the cancellation of the satellite release. It remains unclear if this door malfunction was linked to the propellant leak and subsequent loss of attitude control.
The mission also couldn’t perform its intended tests of new heat shield tiles or stress-testing of the vehicle’s vulnerable sections.
Despite these setbacks, the spirit of innovation at SpaceX remains unbroken.
As manufacturing engineering manager Jessie Anderson stated, “This is exactly the SpaceX way. We’re going to learn, iterate, and iterate over and over again until we figure it out.”
And they plan to do so quickly. Elon Musk hinted that the next three Starship test launches could occur every three to four weeks.
With the ambition of establishing human presence on the Moon and Mars, SpaceX is engineering Starship, which stands as the largest and most powerful rocket yet.
Interestingly, Musk recently made a bold claim stating that the Starship rocket could be launched to Mars by late 2026, a mission that will also include Tesla’s humanoid.
Well, it is Rocket Surgery.................
I’ve wondered too, but OTOH, this is probably just a bridge too far problem. EM’s going to reconcile himself to an interim development, or more that one (a nine-engine Raptor-based booster, for example) that can be put to immediate work, proved out, and sufficient for a scaled-down lunar mission. Probably wouldn’t hurt to send one to Mars for a few laps (no landing) and return, while work continues on the Starship systems.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/4319264/posts?page=4#4
Intellectually... I can tell myself that... The optics still suck though.
Yes, I've read this and understand the concept, but there has to be a price to pay on shock-wave bounce back off the top of the first stage back at the second stage. How do they control that?
Yes, they suck, but in a good way................
I guess we’ll see. The early estimates of the mission profile for this Flight seemed easy enough to achieve and the extra time between 8 and 9 seemed to imply that the V2 failures were being addressed... Then, the day of... they started talking steeper angle for booster re-entry, multiple lights of the booster engines, tiles deliberately not placed over certain areas on the Ship, etc...
They actually were at LEO and the Ship actually hit SECO. Both were V2 milestones. But then it seemed like the same old/same old kicked in with the PEZ door getting stuck (after it was tested how many times), more hotspots, more valve leaks, spraying prop everywhere, losing attitude control AGAIN...
There may be a lot of data they got this time around... but these events are starting to be awfully similar. They may not be an echo, but it sure as hell rhymes...
Sounds like basic flaws in software and in PEZ door designs.
But a leak in a gas tank? Come on now, I don’t believe you even believe that was caused by a new design.
Actuator on the PEZ door. Valves on the prop tanks venting. At least, that is what they’ve released so far...
“Booster” aka “Shake Stand”
Faulty valve, not a leak is what SpX is saying now. Why not a leak? Because the tank design is new & possibly faulty.
Just get off the inane sabotage crap. Its not happening.
Whoops, “EM’s going to” shound have been “EM’s going to have to”. [blush]
Shades of “Contact”?
The movie or the book?...................
The movie or the book?...................
1954. Watch out; the Smithsonian's on the lookout for fossils.
Utter disregard for astronomy aside, they sure had the babes on that show.
Apparently they are having problems with that.
Well, that is your opinion. Let's see how it plays out. Was it made in China?
I’m about 99 and 9/10% sure that all the parts were made in the United States.
It doesn’t really matter as any Trump hater now hates Musk as well, but one would assume that the part (gas tank if I remember correctly) that had issues, would have been completely worked out by this stage.
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