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SpaceX Has Finally Figured Out Why Starship Exploded, And The Reason Is Utterly Embarrassing
This should never have happened.
On the evening of January 16th, residents of Turks and Caicos must have thought the world was ending as burning red debris filled the sky. This was SpaceX’s 7th failed attempt to get their now-infamous Starship to work. They lost control of the upper stage, causing it to catastrophically explode over these pristine islands, littering them with debris. Needless to say, this was a serious step backwards for SpaceX, as this rocket was meant to already be fully functional and ready for service. But, over a month on, we have finally found out what caused this “mishap,” and it’s face-slappingly damning!
As reported by The Verge, SpaceX believes that vibrations caused a failure of a fuel line in the aft section of the upper stage (i.e., Starship, not its Super Heavy booster), leading to a fuel leak. Two minutes after separation and ignition of the upper stage engines, this leak also ignited. The leak and consequent fire were so significant that they exceeded Starship’s venting capacity, which is used to extinguish such fires. This raging fire dramatically increased the pressure in the aft section and began to compromise the rocket engines. After two minutes of this, these engines started to shut down automatically…
