Musk wrote that the nitrogen COPV seems to have failed under 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.
Selecting 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 following 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 Take a look at Web site, named for a gun vary that after occupied the property, is located on a bend within the Rio Grande River, just some hundred toes from the Mexican border. The take a look at website is at present the one place the place SpaceX can put Starships by means of proof testing and static fireplace exams earlier than declaring the rockets are able to fly.
The extent of the injury to floor tools at Massey’s was not instantly clear, so it is too quickly to say how lengthy the take a look at website will probably be out of fee. For now, although, the explosion leaves SpaceX with no facility to assist preflight testing on Starships.
The movies embedded under 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 up to now 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 beneath circumstances much like Wednesday evening’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 monitor report has been dreadful up to now this yr, 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 toes tall, creating the biggest 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 yr’s accomplishments, SpaceX seemed to be on monitor for a full orbital flight, an try to catch and get better Starship itself, and an essential 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 aim restoration of a ship earlier than the tip of this yr.
Ambition Meets Actuality
SpaceX debuted an upgraded Starship design, known 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 defend to higher face up to the acute warmth of atmospheric reentry. SpaceX additionally put in a brand new gasoline feed line system to route methane gasoline to the ship’s Raptor engines, and an improved propulsion avionics module controlling the automobile’s valves and studying sensors.
