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Elon Musk, founder and CEO of SpaceX, said that the company’s Starship exploded during its November test flight because of a propellant dump.
Starship already exploded during its debut test flight in April but the second explosion in November happened much later during its flight plan. It was near the end of its burn for a long suborbital trajectory when the company lost contact. SpaceX said the launch vehicle’s automated flight termination system was activated without specifying what exactly happened.
While speaking at a recent event at the company’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, Musk said the failure was because the rocket vented liquid oxygen propellant near the end of the burn, according to SpaceNews. “Flight 2 actually almost made it to orbit. If it had a payload, it would have made it to orbit because the reason that it actually didn’t quite make it to orbit was we vented the liquid oxygen, and the liquid oxygen ultimately led to a fire and an explosion,” he said.
According to Musk, that venting would not have been needed if the ship had a payload, implying that the launch vehicle’s Raptor engines would have consumed the extra fuel before it reached orbit. Musk did not give any further explanations about what exactly started the fire.
Apart from Starship, he also spoke about the company’s many achievements over the last year, according to Ars Technica. Apart from the two explosive Starship flights, SpaceX also launched 96 flights with the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets. The company is aiming for more than 140 launches of the Falcon rocket family this year. There might even be up to 10 Starship test flights this year.
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