8mo ago

Massive explosion rocks SpaceX Texas facility, Starship engine in flames

interestingengineering.com Massive explosion rocks SpaceX Texas facility, Starship engine in flames

A SpaceX Raptor engine, designed for the Starship rocket, exploded during a test. The incident raises concerns about the future of Starship.

230 comments

The front fell off.
- I’d just like to make the point that that is not normal.
  
  Well, the ship was towed outside of the environment.
- Well what was it made of?
  
  Pickles mostly
  
  Poorly built rocket
- You must be from Reddit. I appreciate good comments like this
  
  What's with all the snobbery?

the explosion, which took place at its Boca Chica Starbase facilities
The raptor testing stand at McGregor experienced an anomaly
Well, which is it? I'm going to trust NASASpaceflight over this article and go with it was a McGregor. No where near Starbase. And that means it will likely have no effect on IFT4 as this article says.
edit: Adding to this, the author of this article has no idea what they are talking about.
The Raptor engines that are currently undergoing testing are SpaceX’s Raptor 2 engines
So clearly nothing to do with IFT4, as Ship 29 and Booster 11 are already outfitted with their engines, non of which are Raptor 2s.
On its last flight test, IFT-3, Starship finally reached orbital velocity and it soared around Earth before crashing down into the Indian Ocean. On the next flight, SpaceX aims to perform a reentry burn, allowing Starship to perform a soft landing in the ocean.
IFT3 burned up on reentry, maybe parts of it made it to the ocean, but it was not crashing into the ocean that was the problem. IFT4 does not plan on doing a reentry burn. No one does a reentry burn from orbit. Starship uses a heat shield like every other orbital space craft. They are planning to attempt a landing burn, that is probably what they are talking about.
- It waw McGregor. And while the explosion was spectacular, it happened on the test stand, so not much damage was done actually.
  
  Yeah anyone following space YouTube has seen this a dozen times already and knows that it was a deflagration likely due to busted lines and not a detonation. The test stand is likely undamaged (In anysignificant way at least) and it was just an engine test of likely raptor 2 design. This has nothing to do with IFT4 or starbase as far as we can tell.
- Just to be pedantic:
  IFT 3 was a suborbital flight, so... either it did not reach orbital velocity, or the upper stage careened so wildly out of control that it borked it.
  Its kind of confusing as in the live stream of it they keep saying the phrase orbital velocity, reached orbit, but also say it was intended to be a suborbital flight.
  Edit: Yeah as best I can tell it was not even intended to be an orbital flight. https://x.com/planet4589/status/1765586241934983320
  Also, the lower stage crashed into the ocean at around mach 2, so maybe that is what they are referring to? Looked like many of the engines did not relight, in addition to significant instability as it traversed back through the atmosphere.
  Also also, the 're entry' burn may be referring to attempting to relight the engines while in space? You are probably correct that they mean the landing burn / belly flop???
  Edit 2: If they intend to do a suborbital flight, but also reach orbital velocity, this would entail a trajectory leading to a fairly steep descent path, which could need a ... basically a pre reentry burn, to lessen velocity and/or change the descent path to something more shallow.
  Its pretty hard to tell actual info about these Starship flights, partially because SpaceX outright lies during their live feeds, is tight lipped about other things, and many sources of coverage are often confused and/or simping for Musk.
  One last thing: Does... Starship, the upper stage... even have monopropellant thrusters, or gyros, or anything for out of atmosphere orientation adjustments?
  From the IFT3 vid it seemed like either no, or they malfunctioned.
  
  IFT3 was technically suborbital, but only barely. Like a couple hundred km/h short. Literally a couple of seconds longer second stage burn would have put it into a stable orbit. Or the same velocity just with a lower apogee. They intentionally left the perigee just inside the atmosphere so a deorbit burn was not required. This is also the plan for IFT4, iirc. I think they are talking about the bellyflop/suicide burn. It was not planned on IFT3, but is for IFT4.
  Both the booster and the ship have attitude control thrusters that you could see firing during the live stream of IFT3. Early prototypes used nitrogen cold-gas thrusters, but were planned to be upgraded to methane/oxygen hot-gas thrusters at some point. I don't recall if/when they were.
  
  IFT3 began to tumble shortly after launch, at least before they opened the "door" where it was obvious. The tumble may have been caused by a leak, and the "reentry" was simply a chaotic mess where the engine(s) began to burn up in the atmosphere, and it was absolutely 100% out of control.
- The re-entry burn is the burn to slow down your spacecraft below orbital speeds, initiating re-entry.
  Every spacecraft that wants to land back on earth after orbiting it needs to do a re-entry burn.
  The only exception, theoretically, are spacecraft that return from outside earth's orbit. They could in theory re-enter by steering towards the atmosphere at the right angle. I don't know if they actually do that in practice or slow down to orbital speeds first, though.
  
  What you're talking about is usually referred to as a de-orbit burn. Sure somebody could call it a reentry burn, but not SpaceX. What SpaceX calls a reentry burn is the maneuver when a Falcon 9 booster lights its engines as it first hits the atmosphere to slow down and move the heating away from it's body. Neither the super heavy booster nor the ship make a maneuver like this.
  IFT3 did not make a de-orbit burn, and there is not one planned for IFT4 either.

Okay? It was on a test stand. That's what test stands are for. Isn't stuff like this almost a weekly occurrence for them?
- I imagine they don't necessarily always fail explosively. I don't know how often this stuff actually happens.
  
  A year or two ago they were blowing one up every month or so. They've become more rare recently as they've dialed in the engines.
- I don’t know how frequent it is, but the important point is the attitude that test failures can be ok. I don’t know if this one is, but yes there’s a pattern ….
  Instead of being so risk averse that you take years and billions extra doing your best to create one of a kind hardware trying be perfect (NASA/Boeing), SpaceX builds many copies, iterate, test frequently, learn from failures. This approach seemed to have worked extremely well for previous rockets, so I’m still cheering them on.
  Even just consider this test - the fact that they’re trying to build a rocket engine every week with the goal of automating the process well enough to have high confidence in them, can test it without the rocket, can build a rocket and attach engines later, can use a rocket and replace a failed engine. If this modular approach comes together this is huge!
  
  ...what? SpaceX is years behind schedule for delivering crewed space flight to NASA. US tax payers have had to cough up billions of dollars for seats on Russian Soyuz spacecraft to at least be able to get to space somehow in the meantime.
  Iterating and failing is okay, but SpaceX has neither been faster nor cheaper in doing so than NASA's original moon landing program.
- Okay? It was on a test stand.
  Test Pad, it was on a test pad.
  The footage shows SpaceX’s engine test pad going up in flame.
  The reason they use test pads is that iPads are too expensive.
  
  No, it was a test stand at the McGregor rocket testing facility, it wasn't even at Boca chica (the place where all the finished rockets are launched from). This is not a big deal and won't affect their schedule at all.
- Weekly explosions on a test pad? No. None of the integrated tests have exploded on the pad. (Edit: like this one, which did)
  The last starship on the pad was mid March. It made it up, but fell apart during reentry. Before that, IFT 2 was in Nov 23, and the exploded 8 min up. IFT 1 was over a year ago, and that only made it 4 min after lift off.
  
  Like you say, nobody is making this explosion out to be a deadly emergency but it also probably doesn't inspire confidence when the company fails so much more often than it succeeds. Starship engines have been "unexpectedly" exploding for years.

Remember when the FAA investigated SpaceX's violation of it's launch license over them ignoring warnings of worsening shockwave damage after their botched SN8 landing?
Pepperidge Farms Remembers.

Good lord, everyone please learn a tiny bit about spacex and the state of the space industry instead of letting your (justified) hatred of Elon do the typing.
- I dont see whynanyone's surprised, anything Elon is touchung is tainted by association. It's not rocket science.
  
  You're right, Elon Musk being associated with a company is negative. And what SpaceX has accomplished despite that association is truly impressive.
  I think around here most people agree that billionaires don't earn their billions, they reach that point having benefited from the efforts of thousands of workers. So why don't we recognize those people's work? Somehow, SpaceX has managed to avoid the meddling that we see from Musk in relation to Twitter and Tesla.
  Before SpaceX the U.S. was reliant on Russia's soyuz to get us to and from the space station. We didn't have anything that could launch people into orbit.
  Before SpaceX we were launching single use rockets built by companies like United Launch Alliance (ULA), which was founded as a joint venture between defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Boeing. (They're still around and still for the most part suck)
  And before SpaceX the cost to do anything in space was extremely prohibitive. NASA didn't and still doesn't really build their own rockets, they contract out, and the contracts had been cost-plus, meaning ULA got an agreed on profit plus expenses. So if the schedule slipped on development or development cost more than expected, they actually make more money. There wasn't much of a private market in space.
  With SpaceX they created re-usable rocket components, re-established a U.S. sourced crew capsule, and using fixed price contracts they reduced the cost of launch by an order of magnitude. And by publishing fixed prices to get into space, they pretty much by themselves kicked off the private space economy. SpaceX launches more frequently than any other company, and more than any nation.
  And they did all that with a better safety record than previous programs! I can't speak to this particular explosion, but SpaceX has taken an approach where they create new designs quickly, and test them quickly with the potential for explosions, before they put humans at risk on a live launch.
  Elon Musk didn't do all that, the people at SpaceX did. And if anything I'm concerned about the point when he gets tired of fucking up twitter and tesla and turns his attention to SpaceX. I'm hoping the national security aspect of the company will mean responsible adults prevent him from interfering.
  
  Well, this is rocket science.
- I’d have a lot more sympathy for this comment if people would actually do this in reference to Space Billionaires. I’ve had far too many conversations online and elsewhere where the individual shits on NASA for space industry problems and worships Space Billionaires because [some convoluted “government bad rich entrepreneurs good” reason] and their problems aren’t really problems. I’m not saying you’re part of the billionaire sycophant club, but I’m not against musk’s well deserved criticism as he sacrifices people in his rush, and probably work quality suffers alongside them.
  
  Is it ok to shit on NASA for dumping so much money into developing Starship?
  Also the SLS doesn't seem much better. But at least they've been around the moon on the SLS.
  Personally I'd rather they work on developing spacecraft that can be launch on Falcon 9 or Falcon 9 Heavies, even if it meant multiple launches and assembling things at the ISS before going to the Moon and onwards. Doing this during the Apollo era was difficult because docking operations weren't all that reliable and there was no ISS back then so giant rockets was the way to go. But things have changed and dumping insane amounts of money into building massive rockets seems like a waste of money and probably isn't as safe as using proven rocket systems.
- Uh huh, totally not the drug addicted scammers fault that he made bullshit claim after bullshit claim, pushing engineers to make reckless decisions, totally not the owners fault.
  I'll grant you that SpaceX has, amongst others, a number of smart engineers, though smart is a relative term if you're working for elon musk
  
  You wouldn't say this if you were following the industry at all. Please see my other comment in this thread. SpaceX is dominating, for good reason, and seemingly in spite of musk.
- I've been against the space industry/NASA/etc's bullshit love of Elon's fucked up project ever since the idiot took over. If they can't see how he has mismanaged every single thing he's ever touched and pulled out of every single contract with them because of him, they have serious issues.
  Maybe now NASA will come to their senses, kick SpaceX to the curb, and work with someone actually competent.
  
  Like who? Boeing?
  
  Please see my other comment in this same thread. It's not like Tesla or Twitter where they're clearing slipping and releasing bad product. Look at the actual accomplishments!
  As much as we on lemmy might look down on consumers of conservative news, I'm really surprised by how similarly reflexive and uninformed a lot of the comments here are.
  
  Cry harder. Without SpaceX the US space industry would be worse than Russia right now. SpaceX launches hundreds of rockets per year and saves NASA millions in launch costs, and can actually launch people into space, unlike Boeing

Does anyone else think the thumbnail looks like a llama with laser eyes?
- Carrrrrllllll
  
  That killllls peeeeople
- Earth-8311 version of Cyclops.
- I didn't see it by myself but now I can't unsee it
- I do now
- Can't unsee

A few years ago (already) I would have been sad and shocked. Now I don't give a shit about SpaceTwitter. That douchebag managed to kill all the interest I had for space exploration, a topic I was passionate about for most of my life. He really is that kind of killjoy.
- Why would you let that ruin all of space exploration for you? He's a dick. I don't give a crap about his company. But exploring the solar system is still absolutely amazing.
  
  The people on lemmy are college kid level extremist on literally everything and it would be funnier if it weren't so exhausting.
  
  Maybe he lost interest because of all the bullshit Elon Musk promised that came to NOTHING, remember a few years back he promised there would be manned missions to Mars now... NOW!!! MANNED MISSIONS!!! They were supposed to be well along building a base on Mars that should have started 2 years ago!!
  Reality may seem kind of dull compared to the fantasies Musk promised.
  Personally I never believed Musk for a second, and I thought Neil Tyson was a blabbering idiot for parroting him. But many fell for it, and my wife thought I was "negative" for not believing and agreeing with them!
  But things like the James Webb telescope are 100% cool.
  
  Well, before SpaceX I looked at the space exploration program as a science enthusiast. The missions were rare but important for science. Then this dude came out of nowhere, saying he was about to save the Earth with electric cars and build a station on Mars. And for a moment it really worked. I genuinely thought he was a good billionaire. Then he completely loose his mind, start talking and acting like the worse moron of the universe, and I started studying his statements without the shiny distorting layer. He's so full of shit it makes me sick. Most of the things he says is nonsense.
  So I can't tell why my brain works that way, but it does. Today I'm more exited by new ways to produce renewable energies on Earth than I am about rockets. That joy I felt for any SpaceX news slipped away.
  My comment was just the realization of that. That was weird to be honest, but true.
  
  But hating people is more important than accomplishing stuff, isn't it?
- I know how you feel I used to love watching all the SpaceX launches, but I just can't bring myself to care anymore about anything Musk is involved in.
  
  Sad to be you. Starship is super exciting
- Wow talk about blaming someone else for your waning interest. If you were really into space exploration, you wouldn’t let one person come in the way. A person who doesn’t even know you. Or you don’t know either technically. I’m no Elon shill and I dislike him like everyone else. But I’ll be damned if I lose interest in space just because of him. Even if the whole world was a douchebag, I’d still get out telescoping equipment and gaze at the skies. And oh by the way, if not for SpaceX do it for NASA who were there way before anyone else. Do it for your ancestors who looked at the sky in amazement every night.

NASA successfully launched Artemis 1 first try.
- A disposable rocket at $4 billion dollars a pop, if not more. They built one rocket, they may build a second and maybe even a third. Eventually.
  SpaceX is not building a rocket, they are building a rocket factory. A factory that will mass-produce fully reusable rockets.
- Different philosophy. Play it safe and analyze everything extensively to make sure you don't have a PR nightmare. That leads to less aggressive designs and longer schedules, but looks better for the public and Congress.
  
  And they don’t even have a goal of more than one launch a year and billions of dollars per launch. Artemis is the same old flag waving BS: do it once to say you’re first, then lose interest.
  Starship’s goals of reusability, frequent launches, order of magnitude cost reductions can be the foundation of the next jump in space industry/exploration
- DEFINITELY not first try. I was there in their first try... and second... Still didn't see it launch.
- At a greater cost than every starship built to date combined...
  Congrats?
  I expect they'll be able to launch 2, perhaps even 3 more Artemis rockets before the program is cancelled and the rocket architecture abandoned due to unreasonable cost.
  
  Where's your evidence proving exactly how much Starship has cost in total? Or wait, maybe you are just making bullshit up because you have no idea how much it has actually cost them because they don't disclose that information like NASA does.

Maybe someone called it cisgendered.
- 💥

Bruh its a TEST STAND TEST STAND this is not the Frist time a engine exploded on a test stand raptor engines in their development phase are supposed to explode. Elon musk has said if something doesn't explode then you did something wrong
- Well, if Musk said it, it must be true. /s
- If you're testing for fail state, sure.
  If you're testing for sustained burn, you fucked up. Time to science and figure up how to unfuck it.

Hope everyone was okay, the article doesn’t talk about injuries.
- Personnel are evacuated from McGregor whenever a test is to be performed, just like they are with Starbase.
  There is absolutely zero chance anyone got hurt. This isn't Boeing.
  
  For now.
  
  ‘Zero chance’ is suspect
- If they didn't think they had a chance of exploding, they wouldn't be testing them

Can someone please cue up the Boeing hit men?

Hope nobody more valuable than their dumb CEO is injured.
Fuck Musk.
- It was an engine on a test stand. This sort of thing is expected from time to time.

Fuck this stupid company. No more federal funding for SpaceX.
- As in the military and NASA aren't allowed to pay them to launch things? That's the vast majority of the government funding they've gotten.

So maybe working your engineers 24 hours a day isn't a great idea?
- So you're saying this was an extremely hardcore explosion?
  
  HARDCORE TO THE MEGA

Word on the street is that Starship was going to blow the whistle on Boeing.

It's just part of the process guys
- This guy gets it.

I think it's a rocket engine on fire guys!

maybe someone left their Tesla there

Do we have a shot of SpaceX employees cheering and clapping?
I kinda got used to seeing happy faces after a catastrophic failure.

Funny how elon will be one of the main reasons the US won't set a base on mars before china
- Uhh, i think boeing would be pissed for you downplaying their role.
  The US can’t do shit anymore because for a short term profit of the rich it sold off its industries to china.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk recently announced that Starship’s fourth integrated flight test, IFT-4, could be just days away.
He should really stop predicting things.
- As another commenter stated, this explosion is not at “Starbase” where they launch starship. It’s unlikely to have any impact on the launch schedule for Starship. They tested an engine on a test stand and it failed. They will likely learn something from it.
  
  Imagine how much SpaceX could learn if they blow up a crewed starship.
  Musk toadie (probably)

Seriously how are space launches a priority right now when we are facing global ecological collapse
- You could say the same thing about literally any industry and it would be just as true
  
  I could probably say the same about AI and crypto and mega yachts sure
  But healthcare, housing, education, childcare, sustainable green energy, sustainable food production.. All of them seem way more important than sending more junk into orbit.
- I ordered my horse out of the stable. The servant didn't understand me. I went into the stable myself, saddled my horse and mounted it. I heard a trumpet blowing in the distance and asked him what it meant. He knew nothing and had heard nothing. He stopped me at the gate and asked: "Where is the Lord riding to?" "I don't know," I said, "just away from here, just away from here. Always away from here, that's the only way I can reach my destination." "So you know your destination," he asked. "Yes," I replied, "I told you: 'Away from here' - that's my goal."
  Franz Kafka, 1920

hurriedly scans article
Was Elmo on it??
. . . Dammit.

Question: what the fuck is Starship trying to accomplish over Falcon or Falcon Heavy? It seems like the design is a major regression in every imaginable way and its shimmering body screams another rushed, ugly EM pet project that's an expensive boondoggle like his ketamine fueled AutoCAD nightmare on wheels.
- Reusable second stage, and more economic rockets with better turnaround.
  Elon is stupid and has a lot of money. SpaceX somehow got competent people managing him to somehow steer the company in decent direction.
  
  I think he has somehow managed to leave the CEO of SpaceX alone to do her thing - or likely she has managed him also as she seems incredibly competent.
  
  Thanks for clarifying and not just downvoting me for obviously editorializing
- Making space exploration 1000x cheaper basically. Not kidding, that’s roughly the goal I believe. That’s needed to make it possible to send enough stuff and people to Mars to make us a multi planetary species. It’s a completely crazy goal/idea, but that’s actually been the goal of SpaceX from the start. Getting Starship to work seems incredibly difficult and almost impossible, but so did landing a big booster rocket on a drone ship and today they do that so often it’s almost become boring.
  
  I don't think he was expecting an actual answer...
- Likely cheaper per launch with much higher payload capacity.
- It’s fueled by LOX which can be made from water, making it suitable for refueling anywhere we can find ice in the solar system.
  
  LOX is liquid oxygen, which is not a fuel, but an oxidizer. Starship is fueled by liquid methane. Methane can not be made from just water, you need a source of carbon. On Mars for example methane could be produced from CO2 in the atmosphere and water from ice.

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