Musk wrote that the nitrogen COPV seems to have failed beneath its proof strain, inside circumstances that ought to not have broken the tank. “If additional investigation confirms that that is what occurred, it’s the first time ever for this design,” Musk added.
Choosing Up the Items
Earlier Wednesday, simply hours earlier than the late-night explosion at Starbase, an advisory launched by the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed SpaceX had set June 29 as a tentative launch date for the subsequent Starship take a look at flight. That will not occur now, and it is anybody’s guess when SpaceX may have one other Starship able to fly.
Massey’s Check Website, named for a gun vary that after occupied the property, is located on a bend within the Rio Grande River, only a few hundred ft from the Mexican border. The take a look at web site is presently the one place the place SpaceX can put Starships by proof testing and static hearth exams earlier than declaring the rockets are able to fly.
The extent of the injury to floor gear at Massey’s was not instantly clear, so it is too quickly to say how lengthy the take a look at web site will likely be out of fee. For now, although, the explosion leaves SpaceX with no facility to help preflight testing on Starships.
The movies embedded beneath come from NASASpaceflight.com and LabPadre, exhibiting a number of angles of the Starship blast.
The explosion at Massey’s is a reminder of SpaceX’s rocky path to get Starship thus far in its improvement. In 2020 and 2021, SpaceX misplaced a number of Starship prototypes to issues throughout floor and flight testing. The visible of Ship 36 going up in flames harkens again to these earlier explosions, together with the fiery demise of a Falcon 9 rocket on its launch pad in 2016 below circumstances just like Wednesday night time’s incident.
SpaceX has now launched 9 full-scale Starship rockets since April 2023, and earlier than the explosion, the corporate hoped to launch the tenth take a look at flight later this month. Starship’s observe report has been dreadful to date this 12 months, with the rocket’s three most up-to-date take a look at flights ending prematurely. These setbacks adopted a triumphant 2024, when SpaceX made clear progress on every successive Starship suborbital take a look at flight, culminating within the first catch of the rocket’s large Tremendous Heavy booster with large robotic arms on the launch pad tower.
Stacked collectively, the Tremendous Heavy booster stage and Starship higher stage stand greater than 400 ft tall, creating the most important rocket ever constructed. SpaceX has already flown a reused Tremendous Heavy booster, and the corporate has designed Starship itself to be recoverable and reusable, too.
After final 12 months’s accomplishments, SpaceX gave the impression to be on observe for a full orbital flight, an try to catch and get better Starship itself, and an vital in-space refueling demonstration in 2025. The refueling demo has formally slipped into 2026, and it is questionable whether or not SpaceX will make sufficient progress within the coming months to try restoration of a ship earlier than the top of this 12 months.
Ambition Meets Actuality
SpaceX debuted an upgraded Starship design, referred to as Model 2 or Block 2, on a take a look at flight in January. It has been one setback after one other since then.
The brand new Starship design is barely taller than the model of Starship that SpaceX flew in 2023 and 2024. It has an improved warmth protect to raised stand up to the intense warmth of atmospheric reentry. SpaceX additionally put in a brand new gas feed line system to route methane gas to the ship’s Raptor engines, and an improved propulsion avionics module controlling the car’s valves and studying sensors.
