{"id":44243,"date":"2025-05-15T01:26:19","date_gmt":"2025-05-14T17:26:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/after-back-to-back-failures-spacex-tests-its-fixes-on-the-next-starship\/"},"modified":"2025-05-15T01:26:19","modified_gmt":"2025-05-14T17:26:19","slug":"after-back-to-back-failures-spacex-tests-its-fixes-on-the-next-starship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/after-back-to-back-failures-spacex-tests-its-fixes-on-the-next-starship\/","title":{"rendered":"After back-to-back failures, SpaceX tests its fixes on the next Starship"},"content":{"rendered":"

SpaceX fired six Raptor engines on the company\u2019s next Starship rocket Monday, clearing a major hurdle on the path to launch later this month on a high-stakes test flight to get the private rocket program back on track.<\/p>\n

Starship ignited its Raptor engines Monday morning on a test stand near SpaceX\u2019s Starbase launch facility in South Texas. The engine ran for approximately 60 seconds, and SpaceX confirmed the test-firing in a post on X: \u201cStarship completed a long duration six-engine static fire and is undergoing final preparations for the ninth flight test.\u201d<\/p>\n

SpaceX hasn\u2019t officially announced a target launch date, but maritime warnings along Starship\u2019s flight path over the Gulf of Mexico suggest the launch might happen as soon as next Wednesday, May 21. The launch window would open at 6:30 pm local time (7:30 pm EDT; 23:30 UTC). If everything goes according to plan, Starship is expected to soar into space and fly halfway around the world, targeting a reentry and controlled splashdown into the Indian Ocean.<\/p>\n

After Monday\u2019s successful static fire test, SpaceX is in the final stretch of preparations for Starship\u2019s ninth full-scale test flight. Last month, SpaceX test-fired the rocket\u2019s massive booster stage, known as Super Heavy. The Super Heavy booster assigned to the next Starship launch will become the first that SpaceX will reuse from a previous test flight.<\/p>\n

This, alone, is a significant step for the Starship program. SpaceX wants the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage to become rapidly reusable, eventually operating more like an airplane than a legacy rocket. The booster slated to launch on Flight 9 made its first flight in January, when it soared to the edge of space, released SpaceX\u2019s Starship upper stage, and returned to the launch pad, where it was caught in mid-air by heavy-duty mechanical arms.<\/p>\n

SpaceX will again try to catch the Super Heavy booster on Flight 9.<\/p>\n

Righting the ship<\/h2>\n

While reusing the first stage is a noteworthy milestone, the next flight is important for another reason. SpaceX\u2019s last two Starship test flights ended prematurely when the rocket\u2019s upper stage lost power and spun out of control, dropping debris into the sea near the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

With Flight 9, SpaceX hopes to get the Starship program back on track. The company aimed for as many as 25 Starship test flights this year but will now likely fall short of that number. Near-term goals beyond Flight 9 include returning Starship from low-Earth orbit to the launch site, with a tower catch similar to the one SpaceX used to recover the Super Heavy booster.<\/p>\n

Then, SpaceX will begin flight experiments with an in-space refueling system to transfer super-cold liquid propellants between two Starships in orbit. This is an important milestone for NASA, which has a contract with SpaceX worth more than $4 billion to develop a version of Starship for landing humans on the Moon. To do that, SpaceX must launch around 10 Starship refueling tankers\u2014the exact number remains unclear\u2014to gas up to the Moon-bound Starship lander before it can depart low-Earth orbit.<\/p>\n

SpaceX founder Elon Musk also wants Starship to fly to Mars, which will, likewise, require a mastery of in-space refueling. NASA may also soon rely on Starship and other massive commercial rockets to launch astronauts from Earth. The Trump administration has proposed canceling NASA\u2019s Space Launch System rocket after two more flights in favor of lower-cost commercial options.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Starship\u2019s black heat shield tiles are visible here during the rocket\u2019s static fire test on Monday morning.<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Before any of this becomes possible, SpaceX must prove it has overcome the setbacks encountered on the two previous test flights. Both flights failed at roughly the same time\u2014approximately eight minutes after liftoff\u2014near the end of the ship\u2019s engine firing. SpaceX investigators, working under the oversight of the Federal Aviation Administration, determined the Starship test flight in January failed after propellant leaks led to fires in the rocket\u2019s aft compartment, or attic. This led to the early shutdown of the rocket\u2019s engines and eventual breakup.<\/p>\n

Engineers concluded the leaks were most likely caused by vibrations during the ship\u2019s climb into space. The vibrations were in resonance with the vehicle\u2019s natural frequency, intensifying the shaking beyond the levels SpaceX predicted. For the next test flight on March 6, SpaceX made changes to the ship\u2019s feed lines routing fuel to its Raptor engines, made adjustments to propellant temperatures, and flew the engines at a new throttle setting.<\/p>\n

,<\/p>\n

But that didn\u2019t solve the problem. Once again, Starship\u2019s engines cut off too early, and the rocket broke apart before falling to Earth. SpaceX said \u201can energetic event\u201d in the aft portion of Starship resulted in the loss of several Raptor engines, followed by a loss of attitude control and a loss of communications with the ship.<\/p>\n

The similarities between the two failures suggest a likely design issue with the upgraded \u201cBlock 2\u201d version of Starship, which debuted in January and flew again in March. Starship Block 2 is slightly taller than the ship SpaceX used on the rocket\u2019s first six flights, with redesigned flaps, improved batteries and avionics, and notably, a new fuel feed line system for the ship\u2019s Raptor vacuum engines.<\/p>\n

SpaceX has not released the results of the investigation into the Flight 8 failure, and the FAA hasn\u2019t yet issued a launch license for Flight 9. Likewise, SpaceX hasn\u2019t released any information on the changes it made to Starship for next week\u2019s flight.<\/p>\n

What we do know about the Starship vehicle for Flight 9\u2014designated Ship 35\u2014is that it took a few tries to complete a full-duration test-firing. SpaceX completed a single-engine static fire on April 30, simulating the restart of a Raptor engine in space. Then, on May 1, SpaceX aborted a six-engine test-firing before reaching its planned 60-second duration. Videos captured by media observing the test showed a flash in the engine plume, and at least one piece of debris was seen careening out of the flame trench below the ship.<\/p>\n

SpaceX ground crews returned Ship 35 to the production site a couple of miles away, perhaps to replace a damaged engine, before rolling Starship back to the test stand over the weekend for Monday\u2019s successful engine firing.<\/p>\n

Now, the ship will head back to the Starbase build site, where technicians will make final preparations for Flight 9. These final tasks may include loading mock-up Starlink broadband satellites into the ship\u2019s payload bay and touchups to the rocket\u2019s heat shield.<\/p>\n

These are two elements of Starship that SpaceX engineers are eager to demonstrate on Flight 9, beyond just fixing the problems from the last two missions. Those failures prevented Starship from testing its satellite deployer and an upgraded heat shield designed to better withstand scorching temperatures up to 2,600\u00b0 Fahrenheit (1,430\u00b0 Celsius) during reentry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SpaceX fired six Raptor engines on the company\u2019s next Starship rocket Monday, clearing a major hurdle on the path to launch later this month on a high-stakes test flight to get the private rocket program back on track. Starship ignited its Raptor engines Monday morning on a test stand near SpaceX\u2019s Starbase launch facility in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25,316,739,317,1100,1898],"class_list":["post-44243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-launch","tag-spacex","tag-starbase","tag-starship","tag-starship-flight-9","tag-texas"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44243"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}