Another SpaceX Starship lost during test flight despite successful booster catch
SpaceX lost contact again in its latest test flight of the Starship and Super Heavy rocket from Texas.
The rocket was making its eighth attempt, and SpaceX was able to perform the third-ever catch of the booster back at the tower. The suborbital test flight came just under two months since the last attempt ended explosively over the Atlantic.
The rocket lifted off just after 6:30 p.m. EST from SpaceX's Starbase launch site in Boca Chica, Texas. The flight profile once again called for the Super Heavy booster to fly back to the launch tower caught on the tower's pivoting arms called chopsticks.
The upper stage Starship then was supposed to continue halfway around the planet to attempt a water landing in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia.
But teams lost contact again over the Atlantic.
'Unfortunately it seems as we lost the attitude control of the ship,' said SpaceX commentator Kate Tice.
Fellow commentator Dan Huot said telemetry showed engines going out with only about 20 seconds left in the upper stage's ascent burn.
'We did see the ship start to go into a spin and at this point we have lost contact with the ship,' he said.
The failure follows a similar pattern seen during the Jan. 16 launch, which also saw a successful catch of the Super Heavy booster, but the Starship spacecraft blew up after passing over the Gulf of Mexico with scenes of the streaking debris posted to social media from places like the Turks & Caicos.
The event grounded the in-development rocket, but the Federal Aviation Administration cleared it to launch again as of Feb. 26.
'After completing the required and comprehensive safety review, the FAA determined the SpaceX Starship vehicle can return to flight operations while the investigation into the Jan. 16 Starship Flight 7 mishap remains open,' the FAA stated. 'The FAA is overseeing the SpaceX-led investigation.'
The flight continues progress for Elon Musk's heavy-lift rocket program.
'Several hardware and operational changes have been made to increase reliability of the upper stage,' SpaceX posted on its website.
To support an increased pace of launches in the coming years, SpaceX continues to move forward with a second launch site in Texas and announced $1.8 billion in infrastructure to assist in launch sites from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. It hopes to launch from the KSC site at Launch Complex 39-A before the end of the year.
For this test launch, though, the objectives that were not reached during the last attempt are on tap again. That includes a test run of payload deployment and reentry experiments that the company hopes will lead to a future launch with the upper stage landing back at the Texas launch site.
Four test payloads will simulate the size of SpaceX's Starlink satellites and follow the same trajectory of the upper Starship stage so they they burn up on reentry.
'Developmental testing by definition is unpredictable,' SpaceX posted. 'But by putting flight hardware in a flight environment as frequently as possible, we're able to quickly learn and execute design changes as we seek to bring Starship online as a fully and rapidly reusable vehicle.'
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Note: Cities in the Space Coast of Florida, which is in Brevard County and measures 72 miles of coast, include Titusville, Mims, Port St. John, Merritt Island, Cocoa, Cocoa Beach, Melbourne, West Melbourne, Palm Bay, Satellite Beach, Indian Harbour Beach, Indialantic, Melbourne Beach, Grant-Valkaria and Sebastian. Launch, Space Coast, east Orlando, near University of Central Florida, Bithlo, the northern part of the Treasure Coast, Indian River County, Sebastian, Vero Beach, parts of Daytona Beach, New Smyrna Beach and Oak Hill 1: Launch + 30 seconds, Space Coast, Orlando, the Treasure Coast, Indian River County, Sebastian, Vero Beach, Daytona Beach, New Smyrna Beach and Oak Hill, Volusia County, St. Augustine, Ocala, Lakeland area 2: Launch + 90 seconds, which includes PLF Jettison or separation and jettison of the payload fairing: Space Coast, Daytona Beach, New Smyrna Beach, Oak Hill, Port Orange, Volusia County, Treasure Coast, Indian River County, Martin County, St. Lucie County, Orlando, Sanford, Kissimmee, Central Florida, Ocala, Lakeland, St. Augustine, Ponte Vedra Beach 3: Launch + 150 seconds, which includes solid rocket booster jettison, visibility extends to Sebring, Winter Haven, Palatka, Gainesville, Jacksonville, Sarasota, Manatee County, Sarasota County, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Cape Coral, Fort Myers, Naples, Collier County, Lee County, Clearwater, West Palm Beach, Lake Worth Beach, Wellington, Jupiter, Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, southern Georgia, Savannah, Georgia, parts of the Caribbean, the Bahamas 4: Launch + 210 seconds, which includes booster separation, Tallahassee, Panama City, Panhandle, Big Bend area of Florida; visibility extends beyond Florida to Georgia, South Carolina, parts of North Carolina 5: Launch + 270 seconds, ULA Atlas V rocket launch visibility extends beyond Florida to these other states and cities: Georgia; Savannah, Georgia; Atlanta, Georgia; Columbus, Georgia Alabama; Dothan, Alabama; just outside Birmingham, Alabama Tennessee; Knoxville, Tennessee; just outside Huntsville, Tennessee; just outside Nashville, Tennessee Kentucky South Carolina; Spartanburg, South Carolina North Carolina; High Point, North Carolina; Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Charlotte, North Carolina; Wilmington, North Carolina Virginia; Virginia Beach, Virginia; Richmond, Virginia West Virginia; Charleston, West Virginia Maryland; Washington, Maryland Delaware; Annapolis, Delaware; Dover, Delaware 6: Launch + 330 seconds, ULA Atlas V rocket launch visibility extends beyond Florida to these other states and cities: New Jersey: Trenton, New Jersey; New York, New Jersey Pennsylvania: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Erie, Pennsylvania Ohio: Cleveland, Ohio; Columbus, Ohio; Cincinnati, Ohio; Toledo, Ohio Indiana: just outside Indianapolis, Indiana; Fort Wayne, Indiana Michigan: Detroit, Michigan Kentucky: just outside Louisville, Kentucky Rhode Island: Providence, Rhode Island Connecticut: Hartford, Connecticut Massachusetts: Boston, Massachusetts New York: Binghamton, New York; Albany, New York 7: Launch + 390 seconds, visibility of Atlas V rocket may be possible in these states: Alabama Tennessee Kentucky Georgia South Carolina North Carolina Virginia West Virginia Ohio Indiana Michigan Delaware Maryland New Jersey Pennsylvania New York Rhode Island Connecticut Massachusetts New Hampshire Vermont Maine Toronto, Canada The above guidelines are estimates based on the graphic provided by ULA. Sangalang is a lead digital producer for USA TODAY Network. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram at @byjensangalang. Support local journalism. Consider subscribing to a Florida newspaper. This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Amazon-ULA rocket launch in Florida may be seen in Michigan, Ohio, Jersey
