Starship’s eighth flight was going to be a repetition of the previous launch, which Spacex could not complete because the ship ended up disintegrating over the Atlantic Ocean. However, exactly the same thing has happened again.
The ship has exploded again. And in the same flight phase: eight minutes after takeoff, when Starship 34 was about to turn off to start its suborbital trajectory to the Indian Ocean.
Like the Starship 33, the ship lost control when several of its engines (first three, and then a room) went out or exploited. Then he began to turn on his axis until he exploded, either because he ended up disintegrating, as his predecessor, or because the flight termination system was activated, self -controlled the rocket for security.
The reentry was seen from Miami. The videos of the remains of the ship by disintegrating in the atmosphere soon appeared. From Bahamas, from the Turkish and Caicos Islands and from the Dominican Republic, as the last time, but also from Cabo Cañaveral and Miami, since the explosion occurred when the rocket was traveling to 20,000 km/h, while the Starship of Flight 7 exploded more than 21,000 km/Hy, therefore, farther.
As happened in January, the airplanes also began to deviate. The areas where remains of the rocket can fall are delimited and, when an incident occurs, Spacex warns the authorities, which close the airspace, asking the pilots to deviate to other airports if necessary.
Twice the same stone? According to Spacex’s investigation, Starship 33 had failed by a “stronger harmonic resonance phenomenon” than expected. Vibrations that caused an oxygen leak in the lower part of the rocket, which in turn triggered a fire, which in turn exploded the engines.
Spacex did a land ignition test of a minute to try to better understand the problem, and tried to mitigate the effects of these vibrations improving the ventilation of the lower part of the ship, to avoid an accumulation of gases. Although it is not confirmed that the Starship 34 has failed for the same reasons, in an image of the live a small fire has been seen, and in another the explosion of an engine.
Something happens with the Starship Block 2. Put to find guilty, the greatest setback in the recent history of the Starship program coincides with a change of version. Starship 33 and Starship 34 are the first Block 2 models, which represent the second generation of the ship-cohete.
Two meters higher than the previous generation, has methane deposits and liquid oxygen of greater capacity, improvements in the thermal shield, renewed front alerons and changes in propulsion subsystems. Whatever it is, something has failed in this iteration, and Spacex now has more data to solve it.
Imágenes | SpaceX, Tim, Mark O’Henly
In WorldOfSoftware | Spacex had been abruptly canceling for almost two years a starship launch. Until now
