The three Raptor engines tasked with Starship\u2019s third high altitude test flight have been installed into the aft of SN10. Pending acceptable results from an upcoming Static Fire test, SN10 will be tasked with repeating the flight of her deceased sisters, SN8 and SN9, before a landing attempt that will utilize a slightly different approach to the flip ahead of landing \u2013 allowing for redundancy in the event one Raptor suffers an issue, as was the case with the loss of the previous two Starships.<\/p>\n
Starship SN11 was moved to the High Bay for nosecone and aero surface installation, with production continuing unabated. At the same time, future vehicles up to at least SN18 are being prepared, along with the first two Super Heavy prototypes.<\/p>\n
SN10: <\/p>\n
Preparations for Starship SN10\u2019s flight were already taking place as SN9 took to the skies last week. SN9\u2019s flight achieved the same milestones as SN8 before suffering an issue during the flip maneuver and crashing into the landing pad.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, SN9 didn\u2019t cause any damage to her sister sat on Pad A, in turn providing positive reinforcement for hosting two Starships out at the launch site at the same time during a launch campaign.<\/p>\n
The specific cause of SN9\u2019s issue during landing has not been revealed. The two official pipelines of information \u2013 SpaceX, and its Chief Designer\/CEO Elon Musk, offered a variation on the theme.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the landing flip maneuver, one of the Raptor engines did not relight and caused SN9 to land at high speed and experience a RUD (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly),\u201d noted a post-flight update from SpaceX. Whereas Elon tweeted, \u201cWe were too dumb. It was foolish of us not to start 3 engines & immediately shut down 1, as 2 are needed to land.\u201d<\/p>\n
Interestingly, the SpaceX update made a key reference to \u201cdid not relight,\u201d pointing to a likely issue with one Raptor\u2019s ignitor.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n