SpaceX founder Elon Musk said Monday that a “relatively small” methane leak caused the explosion of the company’s latest Starship test rocket on an experimental flight over South Texas last week.
The 164-foot-long (50-meter) Starship test vehicle, known as Serial No. 11, took off from SpaceX’s development facility near Brownsville on March 30 for an atmospheric test flight to an altitude of approximately 33,000 feet, or 10,000 meters.
Three Raptor engines, each consuming supercooled methane and liquid oxygen propellants, propelled the stainless steel rocket of more than a million pounds thrust from its launch mountain.
After the Starship climbed straight above a dense failure, the Starship shut down the Raptor engines sequentially, as planned, before moving horizontally to begin a controlled descent back to the ground. Aerodynamic valves helped stabilize the giant vehicle as it fell back to earth before the Raptor engines flared up again and caused the rocket to rotate vertically to attack a landing strip next to the Starship launch site.
Dense fog prevented clear views of what happened, but a camera view aboard SpaceX’s live webcast froze when the Raptor engines fired for landing. From other camera views, clutter appears to have flooded the test site, which Musk calls Starbase, after a thunderous surge crackled across the facility.
Light wreckage of the Starship apparently traveled up to 8 kilometers from the launch site and ended up in a public lookout area, although the material may have been dropped from the rocket as it climbed to the top of its orbit, and not during the explosion just before landing. not.
Musk tweeted on Monday that the take-off phase of the Starship SN11 test flight went according to plan. The transition to horizontal and control during the free fall back to earth was also good, he said.
But a small methane leak caused a fire on one of the vehicle’s Raptor engines and a ‘fried’ part of an aviation system. This caused a “hard start” in the methane turbo pump at the start of the landing, Musk said.
“It’s corrected six say for Sunday,” Musk tweeted.
Rise phase, transition to horizontal and control during free fall were good.
A (relatively) small CH4 leak caused fire on engine 2 and a fried part of the aviation, causing a hard start of the burn in CH4 turbo pump.
This is corrected six ways until Sunday.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 5 April 2021
The explosion on March 30 was the fourth Starship vehicle in a row that SpaceX has lost since launching high-altitude test flights in December.
A hard landing on an otherwise successful Starship test flight was caused by low pressure from the head tanks carrying the vehicle’s Raptor engines for the critical combustion just before contact, and one of the Raptor engines could not burn again for the landing. not. test flight 2 February.
The SN10 rocket reached the first soft landing of a full-size Starship vehicle at the end of a test flight on March 3, but the rocket exploded minutes later.
SpaceX is developing the Starship vehicle as the company’s next-generation rocket and crew and cargo carrier to eventually replace the Falcon 9 launcher and Dragon capsule. The Starship vehicle now being tested in Texas will form the upper phase of the giant new rocket, which will stand about 120 feet long with the Starship on top of a large stage stage.
The full-size rocket set up for orbital missions raised 28 Raptor engines on the first phase and six Raptor engines on the Starship upper. SpaceX says it can deliver more than 220,000 pounds, or 100 tons, of payload mass in a low orbit in the earth.
Once in orbit, the Starship will be able to receive a fresh supply of methane and liquid oxygen propellants to continue transporting its heavy cargo – and eventually humans – to distant destinations, such as the moon and Mars, according to SpaceX
The boost stage, known as the Super Heavy, and the Starship vehicle will be fully reusable to limit launch costs.
But first, SpaceX must master the Starship landing maneuver, which is very different from the way SpaceX lands its operational Falcon rocket amplifiers. SpaceX also plans to launch the first Super Heavy Amplifier prototypes with test flights.
SpaceX’s next Starship rocket, designated SN15, is preparing to roll out of its mounting hanger at the test site near Boca Chica Beach in South Texas. Once on the launch pad, SpaceX engineers will walk through a series of checkouts and likely fire a fuel test and a test drive before heading to a test flight.
The Starship production complex is located a few kilometers inland from the launch and landing cushions.
SpaceX has skipped building SN12, SN13 and SN14 in favor of an updated Starship setup that will debut with SN15.
“It has hundreds of design improvements in structures, aviation / software and engine,” Musk tweeted last week. Hopefully one of the improvements covers this problem (with SN11). If not, the adjustment will add a few more days. ‘
SpaceX plans to launch the first fully stacked Super Heavy and Starship in a runway launch from South Texas in July. “That’s our goal,” Musk tweeted.
An orbital launch effort by July is an aggressive goal, as are many schedules set out by SpaceX’s founder and CEO.
According to SNK, the next important technological update of the Starship vehicle will come with SN20 later this year.
“The ships will be able to orbit a heat shield and stage separation system,” Musk tweeted. “The probability of rising success is high. However, SN20 + vehicles are likely to require many flight attempts to survive Mach 25 access warming and land intact. ”
SpaceX has set up the first Super Heavy booster test bed, known as BN1, at the launch site in South Texas. But Musk said the vehicle is a signpost to try out manufacturing and production techniques, and that it will not fly. Teams build the second Super Heavy prototype – BN2 – for atmospheric test flights before proceeding with the construction of BN3 for a possible attempt to launch a runway.
Send an email to the author.
Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @ StephenClark1.