Starship Flight Test #8 — A Repeat of Both Successes and Failures
On the 6th of March 2025 at 5:30 PM CST, SpaceX conducted yet another test flight of its Starship rocket for the eighth time. This flight involved the Booster 15 and Ship 34, where the mentioned Ship is currently the second Starship V2 to fly. This mission once again experienced its own set of achievements and setbacks, with Ship 34 experiencing a Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly (RUD) on its way to its destination and the successful 3rd consecutive booster catch made by Booster 15. This flight laid out the importance of ensuring that each test flight has new lessons learned while ensuring that those lessons are correctly applied on each flight. [To learn more of the supposed objectives if this flight succeeded, read more HERE on The Weekly Spaceman!]
Another successful liftoff
After a brief hold in T-40 seconds, the water deluge system below the Starship rocket activated, with all 33 engines following its ignition sequence. The hold down clamps were released, and the full stack Starship flew to the skies again for the 8th time, attempting to go further than the past test flight. All 33 engines lit up successfully and liftoff was entirely nominal. The rocket flew up and reached Max-Q, just like normal procedures. Approximately 2 minutes and 35 seconds into the mission duration, the booster shut down all but three of its Raptor Engines, in preparation for its return to the launch site.
An eventful booster separation and boostback burn
Once the booster shut off all but three of its engines, the Ship turned on all of its 6 Raptor Engines successfully through hot-staging, parting ways with the booster. Consequently, the booster conducted its flip maneuver and re-ignited 11 out of 13 of its engines for the boost back towards the launch site. Despite that, it continued its maneuver, proving once again the ability of the rocket in terms of engine-out capability. It then shut off its engines and separated its hot-staging ring in preparation for its third booster catch attempt.
The third successful booster catch
After an eventful booster separation and boostback burn, the booster controlled itself towards the vicinity of the launch site with its control systems and grid fins working together in sync. At 6 minutes and 34 seconds during the mission, the booster ignited 12 of the required 13 Raptor engines, once again proving the engine-out capability of the Starship rocket. Looking at the footage, it seems like the booster had a new angle getting into the arms of the Mechazilla catch tower, but it could also be possibly new camera angles from SpaceX, giving the illusion of such a return procedure. It then shifted down to 3 engines as it got nearer to the catch tower, with the Mechazilla arms closing in towards each other as the booster came into center. The booster then shut-off it's engines as it settled into the arms of the tower, completing the third consecutive booster catch - an impressive feat of engineering.
An unfortunate end to Ship 34
As the Ship separated from the booster after its hot-staging maneuver, its 6 Raptor engines ignited successfully, sending it hurtling by itself into space. All was smooth for the next minutes that came during the flight. As people celebrated the successful return of the booster, the Ship was still going, for seconds at the very least.
Eight minutes and five seconds into the duration of the mission, one of the three Raptor-vacuum (RVac) engines suddenly shut off during flight. Consequently, the three Raptor sea-level engines also shut-off, making the Ship uncontrollable as these were the only engines that could gimbal. The engine-out capability was also of no use as the thrust between the left engines was not balanced properly. The rocket spun out of control due to the loss of control in the Ship.
Nine minutes and nine seconds into the mission duration, another RVac engine shut-off, leaving one engine only during this part of the flight. Seconds later, it then followed to shut down, leaving the Ship out of control, awaiting to be destroyed by itself or the FTS, which was already safed in this part of the flight. Final contact with Starship came approximately 9 minutes and 30 seconds after liftoff.
It’s important to remember that this failure seems similar to Starship Flight Test 7, a leak and an engine failure in the bottom area of the Ship, which may be concerning if not fixed properly very soon.
The aftermath of this flight
People located downrange, such as in Florida, the Bahamas, Costa Rica, the Caribbean Islands, and more, saw the Ship hurtling back to Earth in pieces. They saw a spectacular but sad light show above them as the Ship re-entered the atmosphere uncontrollably.
SpaceX directly informed the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Air Traffic Control (ATC) of the anomaly and activated the pre-planned contingency measures in the event of such a failure could occur. Planes were diverted outside the pre-planned contingency zones and sent to safer areas. This approach has proven successful, as there are no reports of damaged aircraft caused by the Ship.
If you would like to read more about what occurs in this procedure and why it is safe enough for planes to pass through these pre-planned keep out zones, you can read more here to learn how SpaceX, the FAA, and the ATC cooperate and plan on such an event in case it happens. This procedure is the same thing that occurred in the past Starship flight, and it will help you calm down your worries on the aircraft flights that are passing on this trajectory. [Click HERE for that article, still on The Weekly Spaceman]
What happened in the failure?
The imminent anomaly started as one of the RVac engines showed a glow mark on the bottom of its engine bell, showing a possible engine leak, a failure known to have also happened during Starship Flight 7. As time passed, the red glow worsened and spread around, like a fire was about to start in the aft section of the Ship.
Despite being in the vacuum of space, where those glows are not seen so much due to the lack of pressure, it still worsens as time passes. Engines shut down one by one, starting with the glowing RVac engine. It then simultaneously affected the three sea-level engines surrounding it, a possible sign that the engine had exploded. This could have been why the other engines were also affected, making it impossible to control the Ship due to the lack of gimballing and thrust-vectoring capability of the remaining two RVac engines.
Some photos and videos even show a missing RVac engine inside the Ship’s aft section, showing that the engine failure wasn’t just an automated shutdown, it was an explosion that destroyed the entirety of the engine. Another video shows the missing RVac engine exploded in one of the mission control's computer screens, showing the failure in full effect.
Another possible cause as to why there was a damaged RVac engine during flight is possibly caused by the hot-staging maneuver, where it shows the Ship was somewhat blasted by the 11 of 13 engines used by the Booster during its boostback phase. This new mission profile seemed interesting as it was worse than the rest of the hot-staging maneuvers, as the hot plume was severely focused on the Ship (based on visual observations.) Therefore, the Ship’s engine and aft section could have been damaged by that, causing it to fail subsequently later on the flight.
Why could have it happened?
Based on the opinions that people could have provided, there could have been various reasons as to why the Starship Test Flight 7 failure “seemed to have been repeated” during this flight. [Note: These are OPINIONS NOT FROM US but from other people. This citation is made to reflect the entire context of all possible opinions provided. Some could be real, some could be not.]
TECHNICAL REASON - (The reason that makes sense, as of now) As we all know, Starship is still CURRENTLY ON IT'S TEST FLIGHT PHASE, so it's normal for failures to remain unseen, especially since they are on the new V2 Ship. They may have conducted a full-duration static fire already, which was all visually smooth, but there could be variables that were not considered during the test, such as the addition of the hot-staging maneuver or the lack of the environment of space itself.
POLITICS AND LACK OF COMPETENCE - (This could be unreasonable as we all know how valuable Starship is, so making sure things work well is important) As disappointing as this reason could be, it is a possibility according to other people’s opinions. Ever since Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, has influenced politics, we all know that he has a huge power to influence things, specifically the FAA in this context. Remember, the investigation is not closed yet, but a public safety determination was made (which is ALL NORMAL in past flights, possibly not, especially if they didn't conduct the needed changes) Things could have become incompetent in one of the areas in production, testing, or the flight itself, due to the rush that someone may have asked for, which may have skipped things that needed to be checked properly.
What’s next for Starship?
For now, the FAA has once again grounded the Starship rocket for further investigation on the failure that occurred during this flight. In that case, all parties involved will work together to solve this issue once more and find the actual root causes behind the unfortunate anomaly that occurred on the Ship. No matter what the reasons are for this fateful event, or who was even involved that caused this unfortunate happening, let's hope that the next flight will be a successful one ahead.
Whether something political or technical affected this flight’s chances for success, let’s hope that it will not be a big cause for concern in the future. Remember, the current development stage of Starship is CURRENTLY ON TESTING PHASE, so failures are a common thing. What matters is the knowledge learned and the way that knowledge is properly applied on the team and the rocket as a whole.
As they continue to push the limits of their spacecraft to grasp all the challenges needed to provide a ginormous spacecraft of this kind, many things will change each flight. Remember, the full V1 stack already succeeded in all of its tests needed, and it can get to orbit (if SpaceX had the opportunity to do so.) But they decided to continue pushing the limits and move to Starship V2 first to make sure that no anomalies will happen in orbit, which would be more dangerous than these transatmospheric (suborbital) test flights, as if a Ship is stuck in orbit, there’s no way to know where it might land or crash as it is more uncontrollable.
If you might think that this could be the end for SpaceX, it is not. Remember the past flights they made, starting from Falcon 1. Remember that Falcon 1 failed 3 times before they got to orbit for the first time. Remember the CRS mission that made SpaceX change the COPV of the Falcon 9 to make more upgrades for the rocket, which caused it to fail. But until then, Falcon 9 is succeeding more than ever before, and that failure is a speck of dust within the success streak of Falcon 9. It just proves that failure during the revision processes is normal and it will be gone soon as time passes by and new lessons are learned. Starship will get there too, and SpaceX will break history once more.
This is KYNNMASTER 123 for The Weekly Spaceman, see you in the next one! 😊
SOURCES AND CREDITS ARE IN EACH SUBTOPICS AS IT AUTOMATICALLY REDIRECTS TO THE SOCIAL MEDIA SITE USED FOR UPLOADING THE DATA, PHOTOS, AND VIDEOS!
