SpaceX hit a snag during its latest test flight of the Starship megarocket when the upper stage exploded, sending debris raining down and disrupting air traffic. The 403-foot rocket’s upper-stage malfunctioned, causing the spacecraft to spin out of control less than 10 minutes after liftoff. In a statement, SpaceX said an “energetic event” resulted in the loss of several Raptor engines, which caused the incident. “This in turn led to a loss of attitude control and ultimately a loss of communications with Starship,” SpaceX said. “Final contact with Starship came approximately 9 minutes and 30 seconds after liftoff.” The rocket lifted off at about 6:30 p.m. ET on Thursday from SpaceX’s Starbase near Boca Chica, Texas. The reusable first-stage Super Heavy booster was again [caught](https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1897794546781532408) by the company’s “Mechazilla” tower. [Videos](https://x.com/GeneDoctorB/status/1897798175081005540) posted to social media showed fiery debris shooting across the sky near Florida and the Bahamas after the incident. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on Thursday briefly halted flights into several Florida airports, including Orlando International Airport, because of “space launch debris.” The incident marked the [second test](https://qz.com/elon-musk-spacex-investigate-starship-rocket-launch-1851742308) in a row where Starship’s upper-stage malfunctioned and the rocket spewed debris. During a test in January, Starship rapidly disassembled during its ascent burn, raining debris over Turks and Caicos. “Unfortunately, this happened last time too, so we have some practice at this now,” SpaceX livestream commentator Dan Huot said at the launch site. The FAA said it would require SpaceX to conduct a mishap investigation into the incident. The agency will need to sign off on SpaceX’s investigation before the next test can be conducted. When the FAA approved SpaceX’s test last month, it noted that a mishap investigation into the January flight is still ongoing. It said that SpaceX had met all requirements for a test flight after conducting a comprehensive safety review. “Today was a minor setback,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk [wrote](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1897883255380029524) on the social media platform X, which he owns. “Progress is measured by time. The next ship will be ready in 4 to 6 weeks.”

 SpaceX is having trouble with Starship's upper stage [after back-to-back failures](https://www.wired.com/story/the-starship-program-hits-another-speed-bump-with-second-consecutive-failure/), but engineers are making remarkable progress with the rocket's enormous booster. The most visible sign of [SpaceX](https://www.wired.com/tag/spacex) making headway with Starship's first stage—called Super Heavy—came at 9:40 am local time (10:40 am EDT; 14:40 UTC) Thursday at the company's Starbase launch site in South Texas. With an unmistakable blast of orange exhaust, SpaceX fired up a Super Heavy booster that has already ne to the edge of space. The burn lasted approximately eight seconds. This was the first time SpaceX has test-fired a "flight-proven" Super Heavy booster, and it paves the way for this particular rocket—designated Booster 14—to fly again soon. [SpaceX confirmed](https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1907876664274473132) a reflight of Booster 14, which previously [launched and returned to Earth in January](https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/01/fire-destroys-starship-on-its-seventh-test-flight-raining-debris-from-space/), will happen on next Starship launch With Thursday's static fire test, Booster 14 appears to be closer to flight readiness than any of the boosters in SpaceX's factory, which is a short distance from the launch site. SpaceX said 29 of the booster's 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines are flight-proven. "The first Super Heavy reuse will be a step towards our goal of zero-touch reflight," SpaceX wrote on X. A successful reflight of the Super Heavy booster would be an important milestone for the Starship program, while engineers struggle with problems on the rocket's upper stage, known simply as the ship. What a Difference ----------------- Super Heavy's engines are capable of producing nearly 17 million pounds of thrust, twice the power of NASA's Saturn V rocket that sent astronauts toward the Moon. Super Heavy is perhaps the most complex rocket booster ever built. It's certainly the largest. To get a sense of how big this booster is, imagine the fuselage of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet standing on end. This story originally appeared on [Ars Technica](https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/04/spacex-just-took-a-big-step-toward-reusing-starships-super-heavy-booster/), a trusted source for technology news, tech policy analysis, reviews, and more. Ars is owned by WIRED's parent company, Condé Nast. SpaceX has now launched eight full-scale test flights of Starship, with a Super Heavy booster and Starship's upper stage stacked together to form a rocket that towers 404 feet (123.1 meters) tall. The booster portion of the rocket has performed well so far, with seven consecutive successful launches since a failure on Starship's debut flight. Most recently, SpaceX has recovered three Super Heavy boosters in four attempts. SpaceX has a wealth of experience with recovering and reusing Falcon 9 boosters. The total number of Falcon rocket landings is now 426. SpaceX reused a Falcon 9 booster for the first time in March 2017. This was an operational flight with a communications satellite on a mission valued at several hundred million dollars. Ahead of the milestone Falcon 9 reflight eight years ago, SpaceX spent nearly a year refurbishing and retesting the rocket after it returned from its first mission. The rocket racked up more mileage on the ground than it did in flight, first returning to its Florida launch base on a SpaceX drone ship and then moving by truck to SpaceX's headquarters in Hawthorne, California, for thorough inspections and refurbishment. Once engineers finished that work, they transported the booster to SpaceX’s test site in McGregor, Texas, for test-firings, then finally returned the rocket to Florida for final launch preparations. There will be no such journey for the Super Heavy booster. First of all, it's a lot more difficult to transport than the shorter, skinnier Falcon 9. Super Heavy's design also features improvements informed by lessons learned in the Falcon 9 program. This helped SpaceX get the Super Heavy on the cusp of a reflight in less than three months. You can watch a replay of Thursday's static fire test in this video from NASASpaceflight.com. With Starship and the Super Heavy booster, SpaceX should get more points for difficulty. Super Heavy is larger and has more engines than the Falcon 9, so theoretically, there are more things that could go wrong. And instead of touching down with landing legs at a separate location, SpaceX uses mechanical arms to catch Starship's booster as it returns to the launch pad. This approach should allow engineers to rapidly reuse Super Heavy boosters. Eventually, SpaceX will do the same with Starships returning from orbit. Still Investigating ------------------- At the same time that engineers are taking steps forward with the Super Heavy booster, the other big piece of Starship is holding up SpaceX's launch cadence in Texas. The upper stage, or ship, failed at roughly the same point in flight on SpaceX's two most recent test flights in January and in March. These test flights were the first use of an upgraded, larger ship known as Block 2 or Version 2. On both flights, Starship lost power from its engines and tumbled out of control roughly eight minutes after liftoff, breaking apart and dropping fiery debris near the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. The failures prevented SpaceX from testing Starship's upgraded heat shield, one of the most significant upgrades introduced with Block 2. The plan for both flights was to send Starship on a trajectory through space halfway around the world, then perform a guided reentry over the Indian Ocean, targeting a pinpoint splashdown northwest of Australia. A successful reentry and splashdown at sea could give SpaceX officials confidence to attempt a full orbital flight of Starship, culminating in a catch at the launch site in Texas. Instead, SpaceX repeated the same launch profile from the January mission on the following flight in March. The company will likely do the same on Flight 9, the next Starship launch. SpaceX has closed out the investigation into the accident that cut short the January test flight, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA announced Monday that it accepted the results of SpaceX's investigation, which determined the "probable root cause for the loss of the Starship vehicle was stronger than anticipated vibrations during flight \[that\] led to increased stress on, and failure of, the hardware in the propulsion system." Ultimately, the vibrations led to a fire in the engine compartment before the engines shut down and the vehicle lost control. The FAA said SpaceX identified and implemented 11 corrective actions to prevent the same failure from happening again. Officials haven't announced a probable root cause for the launch failure in March. The FAA said SpaceX's investigation remains open. But the circumstances and timing of the failure suggest it could share a similar underlying cause. Whatever the case may be, Starship's back-to-back failures to start the year are a setback. Elon Musk, SpaceX's founder and CEO, wanted the company to launch as many as 25 Starship flights in 2025. At this point, achieving half that number might be a stretch. This means critical tests of the ship's reentry and return to the launch site, in-orbit refueling capability, and the first Starship missions to deploy larger versions of SpaceX's Starlink Internet satellites are on hold. Earlier this year, Musk suggested the Starship refueling demonstration would slip into 2026, which isn't good news for NASA. The US space agency has multibillion-dollar contracts with SpaceX to develop a version of Starship to land astronauts on the Moon's south pole as part of the Artemis lunar program. For those missions, SpaceX must launch around 10 (the exact number remains unclear) Starship refueling flights to low-Earth orbit to top off the propellant tanks for the ship before it heads to the Moon. This will require not just a thorough demonstration of SpaceX's refueling architecture but also recovery and reuse of boosters and ships to maintain a launch rate fast enough to complete all of the refueling flights over a period of a few weeks to a few months. SpaceX hasn't released a schedule for the next Starship flight, but it's probably at least a month away. The ship assigned to the next test flight is still in its factory at Starbase. Its next move will be to roll out to a test stand for its own engine firing, then SpaceX will likely move it back to the factory for inspections and finishing touches. Then, SpaceX will roll the ship to the launch pad, where crews will raise it on top of the Super Heavy booster in the final days before liftoff. _This story originally appeared on_ _[Ars Technica](https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/04/spacex-just-took-a-big-step-toward-reusing-starships-super-heavy-booster/)._

[Stephen Clark, Ars Technica](https://www.wired.com/author/stephen-clark-ars-technica/) May 14, 2025 7:31 PM The next Starship launch may come as soon as next week. A test of its Raptor engines suggests SpaceX has resolved the issues that plagued its recent flights.  Photograph: Brandon Bell/Getty Images SpaceX fired six Raptor engines on the company's next [Starship rocket](https://www.wired.com/story/the-starship-program-hits-another-speed-bump-with-second-consecutive-failure/) on Monday, clearing a major hurdle on the path to launch later this month on a high-stakes test flight to get the private rocket program back on track. Starship ignited its Raptor engines Monday morning on a test stand near [SpaceX's](https://www.wired.com/tag/spacex) Starbase launch facility in South Texas. The engine ran for approximately 60 seconds, and SpaceX confirmed the test firing in a [post on X](https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1922361827712725019): "Starship completed a long duration six-engine static fire and is undergoing final preparations for the ninth flight test." SpaceX hasn't officially announced a target launch date, but maritime warnings along Starship's flight path over the Gulf of Mexico suggest the launch might happen as soon as next Wednesday, May 21. The launch window would open at 6:30 pm local time (7:30 pm EDT; 23:30 UTC). If everything goes according to plan, Starship is expected to soar into space and fly halfway around the world, targeting a reentry and controlled splashdown into the Indian Ocean. After Monday's successful static fire test, SpaceX is in the final stretch of preparations for Starship's ninth full-scale test flight. Last month, SpaceX test-fired the rocket's massive booster stage, known as Super Heavy. The Super Heavy booster assigned to the next Starship launch will become the first that SpaceX will reuse from a previous test flight. This, alone, is a significant step for the Starship program. SpaceX wants the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage to become rapidly reusable, eventually operating more like an airplane than a legacy rocket. The booster slated to launch on Flight 9 made its first flight in January, when it soared to the edge of space, released SpaceX's Starship upper stage, and returned to the launch pad, where it was caught in midair by heavy-duty mechanical arms. SpaceX will again try to catch the Super Heavy booster on Flight 9. Righting the Ship ----------------- While reusing the first stage is a noteworthy milestone, the next flight is important for another reason. SpaceX's last two Starship test flights ended prematurely when the rocket's upper stage lost power and spun out of control, dropping debris into the sea near the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands. With Flight 9, SpaceX hopes to get the Starship program back on track. The company aimed for as many as 25 Starship test flights this year, but will now likely fall short of that number. Near-term goals beyond Flight 9 include returning Starship from low-Earth orbit to the launch site, with a tower catch similar to the one SpaceX used to recover the Super Heavy booster. Then, SpaceX will begin flight experiments with an in-space refueling system to transfer super-cold liquid propellants between two Starships in orbit. This is an important milestone for NASA, which has a contract with SpaceX worth more than $4 billion to develop a version of Starship for landing humans on the moon. To do that, SpaceX must launch around 10 Starship refueling tankers—the exact number remains unclear—to gas up the moon-bound Starship lander before it can depart low-Earth orbit. SpaceX founder Elon Musk also wants Starship to fly to Mars, which will, likewise, require a mastery of in-space refueling. NASA may also soon rely on Starship and other massive commercial rockets to launch astronauts from Earth. The Trump administration has proposed canceling NASA's Space Launch System rocket after two more flights in favor of lower-cost commercial options. Before any of this becomes possible, SpaceX must prove it has overcome the setbacks encountered on the two previous test flights. Both flights failed at roughly the same time—approximately eight minutes after liftoff—near the end of the ship's engine firing. SpaceX investigators, working under the oversight of the Federal Aviation Administration, determined the Starship test flight in January failed after propellant leaks led to fires in the rocket's aft compartment, or attic. This led to the early shutdown of the rocket's engines and eventual breakup. Engineers concluded that the leaks were most likely caused by vibrations during the ship's climb into space. The vibrations were in resonance with the vehicle's natural frequency, intensifying the shaking beyond the levels SpaceX predicted. For the next test flight on March 6, SpaceX made changes to the ship's feed lines routing fuel to its Raptor engines, made adjustments to propellant temperatures, and flew the engines at a new throttle setting. But that didn't solve the problem. Once again, Starship's engines cut off too early, and the rocket broke apart before falling to Earth. SpaceX said “an energetic event” in the aft portion of Starship resulted in the loss of several Raptor engines, followed by a loss of attitude control and a loss of communications with the ship. The similarities between the two failures suggest a likely design issue with the upgraded "Block 2" version of Starship, which debuted in January and flew again in March. Starship Block 2 is slightly taller than the ship SpaceX used on the rocket's first six flights, with redesigned flaps, improved batteries and avionics, and notably, a new fuel feed line system for the ship's Raptor vacuum engines. SpaceX has not released the results of the investigation into the Flight 8 failure, and the FAA hasn't yet issued a launch license for Flight 9. Likewise, SpaceX hasn't released any information on the changes it made to Starship for next week's flight. What we do know about the Starship vehicle for Flight 9—designated Ship 35—is that it took a few tries to complete a full-duration test-firing. SpaceX completed a single-engine static fire on April 30, simulating the restart of a Raptor engine in space. Then, on May 1, SpaceX aborted a six-engine test-firing before reaching its planned 60-second duration. Videos captured by media observing the test showed a flash in the engine plume, and at least one piece of debris was seen careening out of the flame trench below the ship. SpaceX ground crews returned Ship 35 to the production site a couple of miles away, perhaps to replace a damaged engine, before rolling Starship back to the test stand over the weekend for Monday's successful engine firing. Now, the ship will head back to the Starbase build site, where technicians will make final preparations for Flight 9. These final tasks may include loading mock-up Starlink broadband satellites into the ship's payload bay and touchups to the rocket's heat shield. These are two elements of Starship that SpaceX engineers are eager to demonstrate on Flight 9, beyond just fixing the problems from the last two missions. Those failures prevented Starship from testing its satellite deployer and an upgraded heat shield designed to better withstand scorching temperatures up to 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit (1,430 degrees Celsius) during reentry. _This story originally appeared on_ _[Ars Technica](https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/05/spacex-test-fires-starship-for-an-all-important-next-flight/)._

 刚刚，马斯克 SpaceX 星舰第九飞结束 ...  ### 二手火箭成功发射，星舰飞船顺利上天 对于 SpaceX 来说，今年是充满压力和挑战的一年：前两次试飞接连失败，另一手还要为冲击明年的火星之旅做准备

 Space enthusiasts will have to wait awhile longer to see SpaceX attempt the 10th launch of its massive Starship rocket, the largest type of rocket ever built. The company had been targeting a one-hour window Sunday evening to launch Starship from a SpaceX facility near Boca Chica Beach in Texas. Soon after workers started loading the rocket with propellant, however, the company announced on social media that the effort was being halted. "Standing down from today's tenth flight of Starship to allow time to troubleshoot an issue with ground systems," [SpaceX wrote on X](https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1959755893324865963). The company does have potential chances to try again on Monday or Tuesday, if it can overcome this glitch. This test flight, once it gets off the ground, will let SpaceX put the two-stage rocket's massive booster through its paces, testing out a series of burns and having it hover over the Gulf of Mexico before ending its flight by dropping down into the water. The rocket's upper stage, or section, will go on a suborbital flight that will involve an attempt to deploy simulated satellites. This flight test has been highly-anticipated, as it comes after the multibillion-dollar Starship program has suffered a streak of failures this year. The [last flight](https://www.npr.org/2025/05/27/nx-s1-5413240/elon-musk-starship-rocket-launch-spacex), in May, saw the rocket lose control. In June, a preflight engine test resulted in a rocket [exploding](https://www.npr.org/2025/06/19/g-s1-73578/spacex-rocket-test-texas-explodes) on the launch pad, sending up a dramatic fireball. The expensive rocket losses are adding up, but SpaceX founder Elon Musk has taken a publicly sanguine stance, posting on social media that "Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!" Still, getting Starship to work is important for both NASA and SpaceX. NASA is [depending](https://www.npr.org/2025/06/07/nx-s1-5425266/spacex-musk-trump-starlink-starship) on Starship to be the vehicle that lands astronauts on the moon for the first time since 1972, and had been hoping to use it for that purpose [as soon as 2027](https://www.npr.org/2024/12/05/nx-s1-5218580/nasa-delays-artemis-human-moon-mission-heat-shield-investigation). Musk founded SpaceX with the goal of making humanity a multi-planetary species. He wants Starship to be able to take people to Mars so that they can colonize the red planet. Closer to home, he also wants to use Starship to deploy [Starlink satellites](https://www.npr.org/2025/06/30/1255015982/starlink-satellite-internet-musk-doge-bezos). He and SpaceX are no strangers to having to weather a run of bad test flights when developing a new rocket. SpaceX's very first rocket, the Falcon 1, suffered three failed launch attempts before finally reaching orbit in 2008. And even as Starship struggles, SpaceX continues its everyday work in supporting NASA's missions to the International Space Station. Earlier on Sunday, a robotic SpaceX capsule carrying food and other supplies for the station astronauts successfully [lifted off](https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/spacestation/2025/08/24/spacex-dragon-lifts-off-to-resupply-station-crew/) on one of the company's workhorse Falcon 9 rockets.

[](/search?tid=90) [Edwards](/~Edwards) (42866)发表于 2025年10月21日 23时18分 星期二 [新浪微博分享](//service.weibo.com/share/share.php?url=//www.solidot.org/story?sid=82600&appkey=1370085986&title=SpaceX%20%E8%BF%9B%E5%BA%A6%E6%BB%9E%E5%90%8E%20NASA%20%E5%8F%AF%E8%83%BD%E9%80%89%E6%8B%A9%E5%85%B6%E5%AE%83%E5%85%AC%E5%8F%B8%E5%BC%80%E5%8F%91%E6%9C%88%E7%90%83%E7%9D%80%E9%99%86%E5%99%A8) [](javascript:void(0);) **来自团圆奇遇** SpaceX 此前与 NASA 签署了一项价值 29 亿美元的合同，提供宇航员登陆月球表面的着陆器。NASA 代理局长 Sean Duffy 周一在 CNBC Squawk Box 上表示，SpaceX 推迟了时间表，而美国正致力于在中国之前载人登月，NASA 正考虑让其它公司与 SpaceX 竞争制造月球着陆器。如果 NASA 取消或修改与 SpaceX 的合同，可能预示着 NASA 的计划发生重大逆转 ... https://edition.cnn.com/2025/10/20/science/nasa-spacex-moon-landing-contract-sean-duffy