The following is an extract from our monthly Launchpad newsletter, in which resident space expert Leah Crane journeys through the solar system, the galaxy and beyond. You can sign up for Launchpad for free聽here.
This month saw the first launch attempt of SpaceX鈥檚 enormous Starship rocket 鈥� the biggest and most powerful rocket ever to fly. But shortly after it lifted off on 20 April, it exploded. Not ideal, but certainly exciting!
There has been a lot of back-and-forth online about whether the Starship test launch can be considered a success. In the pro column, everything leading up to the launch went relatively smoothly, and it did lift off and fly to an altitude of nearly 40 kilometres. In the con column, 40 kilometres is less than half the distance to space, and the rocket did blow up, scattering a lot of debris all around the Starbase launch facility in Boca Chica, Texas. So, let鈥檚 get into a little more detail about what this means for SpaceX.
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By 15 seconds after the launch, three of Starship鈥檚 33 Raptor engines weren鈥檛 working. Twenty-five seconds after that, another shut down, and one more another 20 seconds later. Two minutes and 49 seconds after liftoff, the rocket was supposed to reorient by flipping its nose towards the horizon and the engines were supposed to all shut down 鈥� this was meant to happen as the first and second stages of the craft separated from one another. Instead, the whole thing started to tumble end over end, and at 4 minutes after launch, flight controllers blew it up on purpose.
The explosion wasn鈥檛 necessarily a surprise 鈥� after all, four of the nine test flights of prototypes over the past few years resulted in rockets blowing up. 鈥淭est flights are weighted heavily towards failure 鈥� everything needs to go right, and only one thing needs to go wrong,鈥� says space analyst Laura Forczyk. 鈥淚 do not believe that even most people within SpaceX thought that this mission would be entirely successful with launching to space and landing back on Earth.鈥�
鈥淚 have been calling it a successful failure, because it did get fairly far into the mission and it did give SpaceX a lot of valuable data,鈥� says Forczyk. Statements from SpaceX had a similar tone, talking about how much the company learned from the test flight.
At a meeting of the US House science committee a week later, NASA administrator Bill Nelson said: 鈥淭hat鈥檚 their modus operandi. They launch, and if something goes wrong, they figure out what it is, go back, and they launch it again.鈥� He also said that based on information from SpaceX, he expects it will only take about two months for them to rebuild their launch pad and get a new Starship ready to launch.
But the aftermath of the launch means it may not be that simple. Starbase was missing one key piece of infrastructure: a flame trench. Most launch pads have a deep channel that directs the flame away from the engines to minimise damage, but Starbase does not. When Starship took off, the full power of the engines went straight into the concrete below it, wrecking the pad and sending debris flying. Chunks of concrete and metal littered the launch site, and a cloud of pulverised concrete rained down on the surrounding area, reaching spots as far as 10.5 kilometres away. The launch even started a small wildfire. Nobody was hurt, but it seems like that may have been a stroke of luck.
鈥淚 understand the mentality of 鈥楢 flame trench is going to take a long time so we鈥檙e gonna skip it鈥�, but there is a reason that pretty much every launch pad has a flame trench,鈥� says Forczyk. 鈥淭his was entirely predictable.鈥� And it may prove an issue for future launches. SpaceX had a tough time getting environmental approval from the US government for this first launch, and closer scrutiny next time may be part of the fallout.
For now, Starship is grounded, as is required by the government for all rocket mishaps until SpaceX completes an internal investigation. Several nonprofits in Texas have also alleging that the government did not adequately assess the possible environmental risks of a launch and seeking to get SpaceX鈥檚 launch license rescinded until the risks are investigated further. So it might be a while before we see Starship fly again 鈥� but hopefully SpaceX has learned enough so that next time, it鈥檒l reach space.
