After the scrubbed launch of April 18th, today it happened: SpaceX Starship eventually lifted off from the Starbase pad, but surprises did not hide. What it seems to be a separation failure between the booster and the spacecraft prevented a full positive mission success.
The booster should have separated from the Spacecraft and splashed down into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico at about 30 miles in front of the coast. Starship should have continued its climb to low orbit and after an almost complete journey around the planet splashed down into the waters 100 km (60 mi) northwest of Kauai in the Hawaiian Islands. However, the mission followed the expected path only for very few minutes...
A scrubbed launch two days ago
After the scrubbed launch of the previous days, which was caused by a frozen pressure valve, the team transitioned the full stacked vehicle into a WDR - Wet Dress Rehearsal. This particular test of the systems is called 'Wet' beacuse the propellant is kept onboard while performing the procedures. All of this is not without risks. On the 1st of Septermber 2016 SpaceX experienced a pad explosion of a Falcon 9 which resulted from a major breach of the cryogenic helium system of the second stage during propellant-loading operations. The fire not only destroyed the rocket and its payload, but also remarkably damaged the launch pad, which had to be rebuilt.
Why Starship is so important for SpaceX and Human Space Exploration?
With its overall 119 m (390 ft) in height, it is the tallest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built, and the first intended to be fully reusable - when it will be nominally operated and not during test flights like today's.
Since November 2005 when SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk first mentioned a heavy-lift rocket concept named BFR that could launch 100 t (220,000 lb) to low Earth orbit, this was the first time the rocket was fully flight tested. The first prototype, Starhopper, performed several static fires and low-altitude flights. Then, it was time for high-altitude flights and SN8 was the first fully complete Starship upper stage prototype to reach more than 12 kilometers above the ground, but then suffered an hard impact on the landing pad, which also triggerede an investigation by Federal Aviation Administration for the violation of the launch license.
More prototypes followed, accompanied with some bad ending tests termitaing in explosions, like the one of SN10, which happened about ten minutes after touchdown, probably due to a propellant tank rupture.
In July 2021, Super Heavy BN3 conducted its first full-duration static firing and lit three engines. In January 2023, Starship underwent a first WDR and on 9th February 2023 a static fire with 31 engines at 50% throttle was successfully performed, as we reported here.
Here we are: today's flight
Started with a countdown hold at T-40 seconds, it is a designated time for the last checks: the fuel/propellant combination (LOx and Methane) of Starship is more permissive in terms of timing with respect to the one of Falcon 9, these two components are less subjected to atmospheric temperature exposure which tends to heat up the fuel/propellant combination and degrade the performance of the Falcon 9.
By the way, after some instants the countdown resumed until liftoff. As we can see from the image from SpaceX, the whole system took off with already three engines (maybe partially) inoperative. This did not prevent it to detach from the launch pad.
After one minute and four seconds, the rocket was already at six kilometers from the ground, travelling at 700 kilometers per hour. Now, five engines were already marked as inoperative (maybe only partially).
After two minuts and ten seconds, we have the first onboard image of the rocket at 24 kilometers from the ground, and the surface of our Planet already appears in all its beauty! The whole system has already the max-q point (about 30 seconds before) and is now travelling at 1800 kilometers per hour.
It is at about T + 2 minutes 30 seconds that we are expecting MECO (Main Engine Cut Off), the flip and the subsequent separation of the booster from Starship. However, this did not happened.
From the ground the two are still seen as a one body flipping in the thin atmosphere until at 13:37 GMT a RUD (Rapid Unplanned Disassembly) occurred: the whole rocket exploded.
Causes of this conclusion for today's launch are yet not clear, but for sure at SpaceInfo we will publish more content about Starship, here and inside the Members Club: join SpaceInfo for free to get access to all the exclusive content for members!
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