The Starship SN11 mission was supposed to be the mission where SpaceX fixed the errors from the Starship SN10 mission and performed a flawless landing, instead, the company went for a landing attempt in low-visibility conditions and the rocket ended up failing for an as yet unconfirmed reason. The official live feed went dead five minutes and 49 seconds into launch but third-party feeds managed to capture the explosion.
Headphone warning!
— Brady Kenniston (@TheFavoritist) March 30, 2021
Our last views of #Starship #SN11"s flight, now with sound!
That"s a big boom.
More on the @NASASpaceflight livestream: https://t.co/PbgTUl6KGY pic.twitter.com/3BZD3uOpIc
According to Elon Musk, it looks as though there were some problems with engine 2 and that "something significant" happened after the landing burn but it"s not clear what until more investigations have been carried out.
Looks like engine 2 had issues on ascent & didn’t reach operating chamber pressure during landing burn, but, in theory, it wasn’t needed.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 30, 2021
Something significant happened shortly after landing burn start. Should know what it was once we can examine the bits later today.
SN11 was the firm’s fourth attempt at landing the rocket after flying to an altitude of 10 km. The mission was delayed twice in total, first last Friday and then yesterday. The second delay was caused by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after its inspector was unable to reach the launch site in time.
Had the mission been delayed today, the firm would have had to have waited until Friday before it could get the go-ahead to launch. It also had several hours left today before the launch window closed so it could have waited to see whether the fog cleared but ultimately it decided to take the risk of launching. SpaceX had concerns that if it had waited, winds could have picked up making a launch unviable.
SN15 rolls to launch pad in a few days. It has hundreds of design improvements across structures, avionics/software & engine.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 30, 2021
Hopefully, one of those improvements covers this problem. If not, then retrofit will add a few more days.
It’s unclear when SpaceX will be conducting its next Starship launch but we should probably expect it in the next few weeks if the previous launches are anything to go by. The firm really does need to nail the landing process soon as it wants to try out the rocket on orbital and lunar flights in the coming months and years. Be sure to follow This Week in Rocket Launches for any updates on the Starship-front.