SpaceX Starship upper stage explodes during countdown to engine test firing

Dramatic explosion SpaceX founder Elon Musk on Thursday said SpaceX founder Elon Musk said that during a test at the company’s starbase facility on Texas Gulf Coast, a SpaceX Starship Upper Forum Rocket could be triggered by the rupture of a high pressure nitrogen tank.

Sudden explosion, fuel, a huge fire ball, smoke clouds and a volcanic eruptions made a huge fireball after the brilliant arms of shooting the lava burning debris in a volcanic explosion.

The explosion was reminiscent of a sudden explosion of a spacex Falcon 9 rocket while fueling in Cape Canawral in August 2016 that destroyed an Israeli communication satellite. The failure of Falcon 9 was blamed for the breakdown of a high -pressure helium tank, known as a composite override pressure vessel, or COPV.

But the company said that there is no “equality” among people used in Falcon CopVs and starships.

“Initial data suggests that a nitrogen COPV in payload bay failed below its proof pressure,” Musk said In the latest accident on your social media platform X. “If further investigation confirms that this has happened, this is the first time for this design.”

Starship exploded in the upper stage during the final stages of an upside-down count with a test firing of six methane-paward raptor engines of rockets at a test stand in Starbase Manufacturing Facialing. A single engine test firing was done earlier this week.

Such “hotfire” tests are a general precursor for real flights, allowing engineers to upgrade and verify the overall performance before reducing the rocket to launch. A successful test on Wednesday would have paved the way for the launch of a super heavy booster at the end of the month for the 10th “integrated flight test” of the program.

But the test did not recover. The video of Labpadre, a company that monitors the spacex activities in Starbase, shown the starship exploding in a huge fireball after 11 PM CDT, which was 10 to 15 minutes before 10 to 15 minutes before the anticipated engine test firing.

The video showed that two major explosions occurred, the first explosion near the rocket’s nose later occurred by a second explosion of flame and debris on the left side of the spacecraft. The Test stand disappeared in a billing orange fireball that increased in the sky throughout the night like a bomb blast.

The starship was filled with full load of liquid oxygen and partial weight of high-energy methane fuel when the explosion occurred. Ninety minutes later after the initial explosion, the fire was still burning at the test site, where cryogenic tests and hotfires are usually conducted.

SpaceX said in an X statement, “On Wednesday, June 18 at CT, Starsship, who prepared for the tenth flight test, experienced a major discrepancy at a Test stand in the Starbase.”

“A security clear area around the site was maintained throughout the operation and is safe for all personnel and is responsible for it. Our starbase team is actively working with local authorities to secure the test site and immediate surrounding area.

“There is no threat to residents in the surrounding communities, and we ask that individuals do not try to contact the area.”

What effect the explosion could have on the infrastructure in the test vision was not immediately known.

NASA count on Starship for Moon Mission

SpaceX has started nine super heavy-starship test flights from April 2023. The first three flights ended with an explosion or breakup, which destroyed both stages.

The fourth, fifth and sixth test flights were mostly successful, but two of the two recent flights ended with Starsip explosions, before the spacecraft could reach its planned sub-system procession. During the third, the most recent flight on 27 May, Starship reached its planned trajectory, but then Got out of control and broke When it fell back into the atmosphere.

NASA is counting on a huge rocket to launch a starship version on the moon Astronaut In the next two or three years, the lunar south pool to land one near the Dhruv.

It will not be easy.

To achieve the human landing system-HLS-Starship variant to the Moon, SpaceX will need to launch several super heavy starships in the Earth’s orbit in fast fire, where they have to do autonomally do, additional propellents will have to move to “depot” starships, ignores, and to return to Earth.

HLS will then do the dock and dock with the depot, re-loading the head for its tanks and moon to wait for a lockheed martin-made Orion crew capsule to wait for the arrival of Artemis astronauts.

SpaceX has not stated how many fuel flights may be necessary. But given that both the lander and tanker starships will use most of their propellant, simply entering the classroom, some independent observers estimate that the land will require 10 to 20 launch to gas for the moon for the moon.

NASA officials have said that the number will be in “high teenage”.

It is not known what can happen if one of those fuel -filling flights faces a terrible failure, but it is difficult to imagine whether the launch will first know what went wrong without knowing what went wrong and will be corrected.

Along with mastery in the autonomous transfer of thousands of gallons of super-rich liquid oxygen and hydrogen in space, an effort-this scale has never been tried-SpasX will need to develop a reliable system to keep those propellers cool that will be boiled to boil and exit in space to reduce sufficient amounts in the sun.

No such technology has been tested in the space environment yet.

There is a need to launch several super heavy-starships, to correct the autonomous transfer of cryogenic propelts in space and to waste new technology to keep liquid methane and oxygen from warming and to waste a complicated mission architecture with little margin for error under the current schedule.

The latest accident renews anxiety about the ability of SpaceX in some quarters, which has been done in only two to three years. But SpaceX has previously proved the amendment wrong and NASA has continued to express support for the further route for the company and the Artemis 3 Lumar Landing Mission.

The agency said in a statement, “The test is an important part of a development program, and we have confidence that SpaceX will examine every aspect of being wrong to fix the issue.”

It is indicating that Moon Lander, who was planned for its Artemis program, is currently different from the developmental starship being tested, the agency said “NASA fully supports Spacex as the company designs starships for future missions.”

“We are ready for NASA’s Artemis 3 mission to the company that distributes our starship Human Landing System.”