The seventh test flight of SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket reversed how space launches traditionally fare: The first stage concluded the mission intact while the second stage finished it in pieces.
Having Starship’s Super Heavy booster fly itself back to its launch tower to be caught by that structure’s “chopsticks” arms might have seemed like the hard part. SpaceX waved off a catch in Starship’s sixth flight test in November after nailing that improbable feat a month earlier.
But after liftoff at 5:37 p.m. Eastern on the power of 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines—one reused from November’s flight—Starship’s booster successfully braked in the upper atmosphere and steered itself back toward the company’s Starbase facility at Boca Chica, Texas. Just under seven minutes after launch, the booster ducked in between the chopsticks, which closed inward to catch attachments at the booster’s upper end to secure it for a safe landing.
33 Raptor engines send Starship up quickly. (Credit: Rob Pegoraro/SpaceX)
Instead, Starship’s upper stage—which had consistently reached engine cut-off to begin a suborbital flight around the world on each flight since the third test last March—encountered something it couldn’t overcome.
SpaceX’s livestream showed the six Raptor engines on Starship’s upper stage starting to blink out as the booster was landing—first one shut down, then the next four cut out in quick succession. Telemetry froze showing the stage had only one engine still lit and was traveling at 13,246mph, 91 miles up.
“That is essentially telling us that we had an anomaly with that upper stage,” SpaceX commentator Dan Huot said on SpaceX’s livestream after confirming the loss of communications. “At this point, we are assuming that the ship has been lost.”
SpaceX then shared its own confirmation of the loss on X. “Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn,” the company posted. “Teams will continue to review data from today’s flight test to better understand root cause.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk followed up with his own optimistic post: “Improved versions of the ship & booster already waiting for launch 🚀”
Cleared for landing (Credit: Rob Pegoraro/SpaceX)
Thursday’s launch featured what Huot’s colleague Kate Tice described before liftoff as a “next generation upper-stage design” with such changes as a roughly 7-foot extension that raised the height of the complete Starship stack to almost 404 feet, a 25% increase in propellant volume, smaller and relocated fins, and tweaked heat-shielding tiles intended to require less refurbishment.
Starship had a lot of work planned after a second-stage engine shutdown. This flight was going to see it deploy 10 dummy Starlink satellites, a prelude to SpaceX’s plans to deliver 60 v3 satellites on a single Starship launch and use that increase in capacity to deliver gigabit download speeds.
Starship’s reentry would have then tested the redesigned heat shielding, some with active cooling, to help SpaceX identify places on the ship’s exterior where it can eliminate tiles that need inspection and repair after each flight. The company is “building towards that heat shield that requires no refurbishment between flights,” Huot said before the launch, something no spacecraft has managed yet.
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Those tests will have to wait for SpaceX to determine what went wrong on this test. Although the company has shown a remarkable ability to find problems, fix them and fly again quickly.
Almost home (Credit: Rob Pegoraro/SpaceX)
Thursday’s mishap may also push back planned tests of Starship’s ability to transfer propellants in space before deep-space missions. NASA has invested heavily in that extended-range potential, in the form of a $2.89 billion contract for a lunar-landing version of Starship’s upper stage for its Artemis missions to the moon later in this decade.
As SpaceX’s Tice said after the test: “We always knew that excitement is guaranteed today; success, not guaranteed.”
SpaceX’s competitors at Blue Origin—the recipients of a second lunar-landing order from NASA, having won a $3.4 billion contract in 2023—should be able to attest to that. The Jeff Bezos-owned firm started its Thursday by finally launching its giant New Glenn rocket into orbit on its first try but then failing to land its booster on a barge in the Atlantic.
Jan. 16, 2025 may not be the most complete day in the history of American spaceflight, but it has to rank among the most interesting.
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About Rob Pegoraro
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