In response to the accidents in which Starship exploded during two test flights, the New York Times published an article on Saturday saying that this was a step back in SpaceX's rocket development process. The company's engineers were not as foolproof as the outside world imagined, and they did not really find out the cause of the last explosion.
For SpaceX, 2025 was supposed to be the best year ever.The company's founder, Elon Musk, has become one of the most influential figures in the White House, and President Trump has backed his vision of sending humans to Mars.
But so far, the rocket company's development situation is not ideal. As the core vehicle to achieve the goal of Mars exploration, the giant Starship rocket developed by SpaceX has been launched twice this year, but both times it exploded.
The latest explosion occurred on Thursday as the Starship was on its eighth test flight, less than two months after its seventh test flight disintegrated in space. Starship once again staged a "fireworks show", causing new troubles for travelers in Florida and the Caribbean, who had never experienced flight delays due to "falling space debris" before. However, both accidents resulted in no casualties.
Development regresses
For SpaceX, an explosion doesn't necessarily mean failure. The company has always adhered to the concept of "launch, blow up, repair, and launch again" and has significantly reduced the cost of space launches with innovations such as the recycling and reuse of rocket boosters. Starship is designed to be a fully reusable rocket, with the potential to once again disrupt the space industry.
However, these two starship explosions are a setback in the development process of SpaceX rockets, as these flights failed to even replicate the success of early testing and may suggest that the company's engineers aren't as foolproof as fans sometimes believe.
"SpaceX has built an image of near-perfection, but you're starting to see now that they're human and (make mistakes)," said Daniel Dumbacher, a former NASA official. He is currently a professor of the practice of engineering at Purdue University and serves as chief innovation and strategy officer for Special Aerospace Services. The company is engaged in engineering and manufacturing, and its customers include NASA, the U.S. Space Force and some SpaceX competitors.
Delays caused by explosions could also affect NASA, the latter has signed an agreement with SpaceX to use Starship to send American astronauts to the moon in the "Artemis III" mission in 2027.
No real problem found
The starships that exploded in these two explosions both used upgraded designs, and both suffered mission failures less than 10 minutes after launch. Frustratingly, they don't even perform as well as the older versions of Starship that flew last year. The previous three early flight tests successfully circled half the earth, successfully passed through the atmosphere over the Indian Ocean and returned to the ground, and conducted a simulated landing test in the waters off the west coast of Australia.
Moreover, the failures of the seventh and eighth flights occurred at similar stages of flight, and both appeared to have problems near the engines of the second-stage spacecraft. This indicates that SpaceX failed to successfully diagnose and solve the problem, which may mean that the upgraded Starship has a major design flaw.
This also means,SpaceX is not yet able to test some aspects of the updated Starship design, including smaller and repositioned forward flaps used to guide the spacecraft as it re-enters the atmosphere. SpaceX also plans to test a Pez candy dispenser-like device for deploying its Starlink internet satellites.
Moreover, this also prevents SpaceX’s research and development plan from continuing to advance to other goal levels. SpaceX needs to prove that the Starship can stay in orbit for an extended period of time, then deorbit and return to the launch site, where it will be picked up by a robotic arm on the launch tower. The company also needs to demonstrate the ability to launch multiple Starships in rapid succession.
The most important thing is,SpaceX needs to prove it can transfer liquid oxygen and methane propellant from one Starship to another.This process is critical to allowing the starship to accumulate enough fuel to travel to the moon or Mars. That is, the starship heading to the moon would need to remain in Earth orbit while other starships would be launched into space to replenish propellant in the fuel tanks of the starship used for the lunar lander.
Dunbach, a former NASA official, believes that SpaceX can solve the technical challenges facing the starship.“I have no doubt that they will work it out, re-flight test it, and fix everything,” he said. “I just don’t know how long it will take them to do that.