SpaceX publishes statement on Starship Flight 7 upper stage anomaly

SpaceX has published a statement on the events that occurred during the Starship Flight 7 and revealed how this test progressed through different phases.

Flight 7 lifted off from Starbase, Texas at 4:37 p.m. CT on Thursday, January 16. At T+00:02, the first stage fired all of its 33 Raptor engines and achieved a nominal ascent.

After hot-staging, the booster performed a boostback burn with 12 Raptor engines, while one additional engine didn’t relight. That said, the booster then marked a return to the landing site.

In the final phase, the first stage fired 13 middle ring and center Raptor engines to mark a landing between the launch tower arms. Interestingly, one engine that didn’t work during boostback, relit during the landing.

Post-stage separation, the second stage lit six Raptor engines and performed an ascent burn to space. However, it didn’t go well for the ship. Before completing the ascent burn, the telemetry was lost with the vehicle after eight and a half minutes of the mission time.

Credit – X

The rocket maker also shared a potential cause of this mishap, revealing that a fire developed in the aft section of the ship lead causing a rapid unscheduled disassembly. It simply means hardware damage to the supper stage, which later turned into a blast.

Afterward, the ship’s debris scattered in the sky and started falling into the Atlantic Ocean. SpaceX confirmed that the debris had fallen into the predefined hazard zones.

“Starship flew within its designated launch corridor, as all U.S. launches do to safeguard the public both on the ground, on water, and in the air.” wrote SpaceX in the statement after Starship Flight 7 test.

Flight 7 was the inaugural test for the next-generation Starship with an upgraded propellant capacity, avionics, flap design, and better heat shield.

The teams are still evaluating the flight data and still looking for the root cause of the entire upper-stage anomaly.

(source)