Starship's ninth test creates problems for Elon Musk

The Hill

2 days ago

When the Federal Aviation Administration finally gave SpaceX permission to test its giant rocket, the Starship, space observers breathed sighs of relief.
As video blogger Ellie Sherrif pointed out that although the failures of the seventh and eighth flights seemed to be similar in that the Starship exploded soon after it separated from the Super Heavy first stage, they had completely different root causes, which SpaceX attempted to address for the ninth flight.
Then the question arose: Had SpaceX fixed the problems that had caused failures for both the eighth and seventh tests?
The good news is that SpaceX fixed those problems. Starship did not explode soon after separation from the Super Heavy. But, as so often happens during test flights of cutting-edge rockets, other problems arose.
The ninth test flight of the Starship was a good news/bad news event. The good news: The Starship did not explode over the Gulf soon after separating from the Super Heavy. And the Super Heavy first stage was a reused rocket from the seventh flight. Proving reusability was a big deal toward making SpaceX's monster rocket a viable launch vehicle. Unlike in previous tests, all of the engines in the Super Heavy remained lit during the ascent phase.
But, as Ars Technica reported, plenty of bad news occurred during the most recent flight as well. The Super Heavy, tested during descent to the limits, did not touch down in the Gulf but instead exploded.
The bad news continued as the Starship cruised through space toward its planned controlled landing in the Indian Ocean.
First, a test involving the deployment of Starlink simulators failed when the bay doors did not open.
Then, Starship began tumbling when the rocket lost attitude control due to a fuel leak. It broke apart over the Indian Ocean. SpaceX was unable to relight one of the Starship's Raptor engines in space. Reentry data from the reusable heat tiles on the rocket was lost.
SpaceX founder CEO Elon Musk, noting how the ninth flight fell short of its objectives, noted that the test had garnered a lot of data to review. He also suggested that the flight cadence for Starship will increase to a launch every three to four weeks.
If true, that is good news. Rapid turnaround is vital if Starship is to become a viable vehicle to take humanity to the moon, Mars and beyond. We will see what the FAA has to say about that.
Musk has two very big problems on his hands, one technical and the other political.
The technical problem consists of getting Starship operational so that it can both support the Artemis return to the moon program and Musk's dream of founding a settlement on Mars. He has hopes of an uncrewed landing on the moon in 2026 to test Starship's use as a Human Landing System for the Artemis III mission, currently planned for 2027. He also would like to send an uncrewed Starship to Mars in 2026.
The trick will be flying again and again, ironing out every problem from the Starship so that at the end of the process, SpaceX has a viable launch vehicle, on par with the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy in reliability.
The other problem Musk faces is political. He has spent the past year delving into politics, first by supporting Donald Trump's campaign to be reelected as president, then by running the DOGE project to ferret out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government. His political adventures, no matter what one thinks of them, have rubbed some powerful people the wrong way.
One can already write the talking points, accusing the Trump administration of spending money so that Musk can blow up rockets. It is only a matter of time before Musk's opponents in Washington, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), run to the cameras to denounce the billionaire space race. He has done so before.
Jared Isaacman, who was Trump's nominee for NASA administrator until this weekend, sprang to Musk's defense on X,
'Some may focus on the lows, but behind the efforts of Starship–and other programs like New Glenn, Neutron, Vulcan, Terran, Stoke, etc.–is a massive space economy taking shape: tens of thousands of jobs, billions in private investment, all aimed at truly opening the last great frontier.'
Musk told Ars Technica's Eric Berger that he plans to step away from his government work and concentrate more on his companies, including SpaceX.
'It was just relative time allocation that probably was a little too high on the government side, and I've reduced that significantly in recent weeks.'
All in all, a sound decision.
Mark R. Whittington, who writes frequently about space policy, has published a political study of space exploration entitled 'Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?' as well as 'The Moon, Mars and Beyond' and, most recently, 'Why is America Going Back to the Moon?' He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.