The "third bombing" of the Musk starship was staged, and it successfully took off and landed. Why did it blow up again?

Musk, a science and technology madman, has brought us many wonderful visions of future technology. His starship SN is one of them. The goal of the starship SN project, which is operated by his SpaceX company, is to send humans to Mars. Musk plans to immigrate 1 million people to Mars within 3 years. The Stararrow SN spacecraft is a means of transportation to and from Mars, which is equivalent to a "star bus" between the earth and Mars, and can transport about 1 people at a time.

In order to achieve this goal, Musk and his team from Space Exploration Technology Company have been working hard. So far, the starship has been tested 1 times, but unfortunately, on March 4th, the starship SN1 exploded again.

Starship SN1 is considered as the first prototype of the Starship Project, and its launch time has been postponed many times. At 6:14 pm EST, it finally ignited and lifted off from the space facility in Texas, and the ignition and ascent processes were smooth. Its goal this time was to rise to an altitude of 1 kilometers. In the process of approaching the target, the three Raptor engines of Starship SN1 were turned off one after another, and then began to fall. At the altitude of 2 kilometers from the ground, the three engines were ignited one by one, and the attitude was also adjusted to the recovery landing mode. Finally, it successfully landed on the ground, but the landing position was a little far from the target center, and it landed on a concrete plate on the side of the launch pad. The attitude was slightly skewed, and the lower baffle was damaged, but on the whole, the landing was basically successful.

At this time, everyone cheered, SpaceX thought it was "done", and the official closed the live broadcast, and it was about to celebrate the victory. However, no one expected that the starship SN1 suddenly exploded seven minutes after landing, and the landing platform instantly turned into a sea of fire, and the whole starship was blown to the sky. The fire ball went straight up to a height of 1 meters, and it was swallowed up by the fire ball within a diameter of 1 meters around it. The starship itself became a big fireball. After being pushed into the sky by the impact force, it fell heavily to the ground and became a pile of red-hot iron sheets. This scene suddenly shocked everyone present.

The cause of this explosion is thought to be fuel leakage in the fuel tank. When SN1 landed, the engine flame caused a fire under the arrow, and it never went out after landing. Finally, the flame ignited the leaked fuel, which led to the explosion of the whole hull.

This is the third bombing of the starship. Perhaps the technical requirements are getting more and more complicated, and the tasks to be completed are getting higher and higher. Since the starship SN8, there have been problems in the test process. When SN8 landed, it directly hit the landing platform and exploded into a pile of fragments because of its too fast landing speed. SN9 was even more miserable. When landing, it didn't even have time to adjust its posture, so it fell to the launch pad. Musk and spaceX had hoped that the launch of the starship SN1 would save face, but they didn't expect it to explode in the end.

The "three-company bombing" of the starship also said that the technology of the starship project needs to be improved, and the details are not in place. In its current state, it is impossible to expect it to fly to Mars to carry out personnel transportation tasks, and the project still has a long way to go before it reaches the practical stage.

However, SpaceX officials still believe that this test has achieved phased goals. For example, its air attitude control is still relatively good. Next, SpeceX will launch the Star Arrow SN11. What will happen? Let's wait and see.

Reference:

The article "Musk's new SN1 spacecraft landed successfully and then exploded" in Observer Network on March 4.