SpaceX’s SN9 Starship vehicle lifted off from the Boca Chica R&D facility in Texas on the 2nd for a high-altitude test flight, but then followed in the footsteps of SN8 and exploded into a fireball again due to a failed landing.
CNN reported that the rocket’s three engines were ignited, shut down and reignited before landing, but finally exploded when it landed on the launch pad, according to the original plan. It is still unclear which part went wrong.
As seen in the footage, SN9 successfully lifted off from the launch pad, climbed steadily to 10,000 meters above the ground, hovered for a short Time for testing, and then returned according to the established procedures.
However, when SN9 was in the final stage of flipping, one of the engines was suspected to have failed to start, causing the vehicle to apparently oversteer and then hit the ground and explode.
It is not clear why SN9 failed to land, but the engineer in charge of the explanation still stressed that this is only a test flight, but also the second time that the starship vehicle flew in accordance with the same adjustment, the development team will have to make more efforts in landing, and will find out the cause from the data, “in general, this is still a great test”.
The FAA issued a permit earlier on the 2nd, but still did not explain the exact reason for the temporary cancellation.
SpaceX engineer John Insprucker said on the launch live that the flight test “looks pretty good” and that engineers were able to gather data to improve the starship design during the test, which flew up to 10 kilometers.
We showed the ability to convert the engine to a landing propellant storage tank, and the subsonic re-entry looks pretty good and stable, with only a little more work needed on the landing,” he said.
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