SpaceX Experiences An Anomaly While Testing Their New Starship Rocket

On July 11, 2022, SpaceX attempted a spin prime test of its 33 Raptor engines on the bottom of Booster 7. Booster 7 is a booster which will fly on the orbital flight alongside Ship 24. The flight was slated for no earlier than August 1, 2022, however after this recent failure, who knows when the flight will occur.

At 4:20pm Central Daylight time, an explosion was seen under Booster 7, which was sitting on the Orbital Launch Mount. The explosion sent a pressure wave (similar to SN4) which moved the chopstick catching arms back a few degrees, send some of their hoses and piping flying through the air around the launch site. Lots of components of the copstick arms, booster, and orbital launch mount went flying throughout the air during this violent explosion. It is unknown wether there is major damage at the site yet, however it is most likely that Ship 24 lost some tiles and Booster 7 will have to be rolled back to the production site.

Credit: LabPadre // Video of the Booster 7 Engine Explosion

The image above shows Booster 7 during the explosion. Around the crane (center) and Test Tank B7.1 (right of crane), you can see the pressure wave emmited from the explosion. On the left of the booster, you can also see some of the piping being blown off from the launch mount. After this image was taken, and large bang was heard, which shook the camera and bumped it down. The second photo is the footage after the shockwave hit the camera.

The reason for this explosion was that during the spin prime test, gaseous methane was released from the engines, which was expected, but it then found an unexpected ignition source, and caused a large explosion under Booster 7. It then started a fire which has been burning for the past few hours, but seems to finally being extinguished. SpaceX had sensors that neutralize the gaseous methane to prevent it from reacting and catching on fire, however those sensors were disabled during the test, and then the explosion occured.

Will Booster 7 Still Fly On The Orbital Flight Test?

• Yes
• No