Why did the Starship SN8 landing fail?
On December 9, 2020, humanity witnessed its first glimpse of SpaceX's Starship, which will take humans to Mars. It was a successful test; however, the prototype failed to land and crashed in a spectacular fashion, erupting in a fireball. What went wrong and how to explain what we saw?
The SN8 designated prototype launched from the Cameron county launchpad in Texas at around 5:30 pm eastern time on December 9, 2020.
The prototype reached an altitude of 41,000 ft before gliding all the way to the landing pad. The Starship fired up its boosters and performed an extremely awesome flip maneuver and started its landing burn. However, the Starship was unable to stick the landing and crashed in spectacular fashion, erupting in a fireball, with what seemed to be an otherwise very successful flight.
After the test, Elon Musk tweeted that "Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly)." This statement provides us with a pretty good insight into what went wrong in the final stages of the flight.
While we don't know all the details, I will try to build on that statement, explain what that means, and also make some assumptions based on my observations to sketch what caused the SN8 crash at landing.
Please let me know what you think in the comments section of the video.
The prototype reached an altitude of 41,000 ft before gliding all the way to the landing pad. The Starship fired up its boosters and performed an extremely awesome flip maneuver and started its landing burn. However, the Starship was unable to stick the landing and crashed in spectacular fashion, erupting in a fireball, with what seemed to be an otherwise very successful flight.
After the test, Elon Musk tweeted that "Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly)." This statement provides us with a pretty good insight into what went wrong in the final stages of the flight.
While we don't know all the details, I will try to build on that statement, explain what that means, and also make some assumptions based on my observations to sketch what caused the SN8 crash at landing.
Please let me know what you think in the comments section of the video.
Why did the Starship SN8 landing fail?
Learn why the SN8 prototype failed to land and crashed in a spectacular fashion
DECEMBER 31, 2020