SpaceX’s recent Starship test flight, the first during which it flew with its Super Heavy orbital payload, terminated with a larger detonation than it initially appeared. Saturday, during a Twitter Space, SpaceX founder and Twitter proprietor Elon Musk provided additional details about the launch, which he still deemed “successful” relative to SpaceX’s mission objectives.
During the launch, it became evident that things were not going according to plan when, at the moment when the first-stage booster was supposed to separate from the Starship upper stage, the two components did not separate, and instead, the entire launch vehicle appeared to begin falling back to Earth while spiraling erratically.
The enormous spacecraft Starship is endowed with an automated self-destruction feature to reduce the danger of an uncontrolled return to Earth. Musk disclosed that the command did not function instantaneously during the most recent flight attempt, with forty seconds passing before it actually caused a detonation that obliterated the majority of the rocket.
Musk revealed additional information about what went wrong with the flight, including the fact that three of the rocket’s 33 engines did not even contribute to the launch propulsion because they shut down before Starship departed the pad. This caused the spacecraft to “lean” as it ascended, which was not intended.
Just under 30 seconds into the launch, one of the remaining Raptor 2 engines malfunctioned, causing damage to other nearby engines. About a minute and a half into the launch, the engines lost the ability to control the trajectory of the launch vehicle, causing it to rotate.
Unplanned events occurred during the initial launch, such as the immense cloud of dust and detritus caused by the devastation of the concrete launch pad caused by the lift-off propulsion. This resulted in debris being dispersed throughout the vicinity of the launch facility, as evidenced by recent satellite images.
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