Why does SpaceX Rockets continue to explode?

With more Another failed vessel test This week, in which the ambitious heavy rocket exploded again, you could reasonably suspect that luck was ultimately exhausted for SpaceX.

But this degree of failure during a development process is not really unusual, according to Wendy Whitman Cobb, an expert in spatial policy of the school of studies advanced air and space, especially when you test a new space technology as complex as a large rocket. However, starship tests are significantly different from the slow and regular development rate we expect from the space sector.

“The reason why many people perceive that this is unusual is that it is not the typical way that we have historically tested rockets,” explains Whitman Cobb.

Historically speaking, space agencies like NASA or Legacy aerospace companies such as United Launch Alliance (ULA) took their time with the development of rockets and were not tested as long as they had confidence in a successful result. This is still the case today with NASA’s main projects such as the development of Space Launch System (SLS), which has now dragged for more than a decade. “They will take as long as they must make sure that the rocket will work and a launch will succeed,” says Whitman Cobb.

SpaceX has chosen a different path, in which it tests, fails and itere frequently. This process was at the heart of its success, allowing the company to make developments like the reusable Falcon 9 rocket at a rapid pace. However, this also means frequent and very public failures, which have generated complaints concerning environmental damage in the local area around the launch site and made sure that the company has heads with regulatory organizations. There are also important concerns concerning the political ties of the CEO Elon Musk to the Trump administration and its Anti -democratic influence on the federal SpaceX work regulations.

Even in the context of the Move-Fast-And-Break-Things approach in SpaceX, however, the development of the starship appeared chaotic. Compared to the development of the Falcon 9 rocket, which has had a lot of failures but a generally clear avant-garde path of failure often to the failure less and less over time, Starship has a much more irregular record.

The previous development was more increasing, first demonstrating that the rocket was healthy before moving on to more complex problems such as the reusability of the booster or the first stage. The company did not even try to save the booster from a Falcon 9 and to reuse it up to several years of testing.

Starship is not like that. “They try to do everything with Starship,” said Whitman Cobb, while the company is trying to start a completely new rocket with new engines and make it reusable at the same time. “It’s really a very difficult engineering challenge.”

The raptor engines that feed the starship are an engineering nut particularly difficult to break, because there are many – 33 per vessel, all grouped together – and they must be able to perform the delicate roast feat in space. The reduction of engines has succeeded in some of the previous ship test flights, but it was also a point of failure.

Why, then, SpaceX pushes so much, so fast? This is because Musk focuses on the laser to go to Mars. And although it would be theoretically possible to send a mission to Mars using existing rockets such as Falcon 9, the volume of equipment, supplies and people necessary for a Mars mission has a very large mass. To make the missions Mars even at an affordable distance, you must be able to move a lot of mass in a single launch – hence the need for a much larger rocket like starship or NASA SLS.

NASA has previously covered its bets by developing its own heavy rocket and supporting the development of starship. But with the recent financing cuts, it seems more and more likely that the SLS will be ax – leaving SpaceX as the only player in the city to facilitate the Mars of NASA.

But there is still a lot of work to do to bring the starship in a place where serious plans for crew missions can even be made.

Will a sports test in Mars occur by 2026, with a crew test to follow in 2028, as Musk said this week that it aims? “I think it’s completely delusional,” said Whitman Cobb, stressing that SpaceX did not seem to seriously consider problems such as the addition of life to the vessel or the manufacture of concrete plans for the habitats in March, launch and landing pads or infrastructure.

“I don’t see SpaceX like putting your money where your mouth is,” says Whitman Cobb. “If they make the launch window next year, it will be not transformed. There is no way that they are putting people on this right now. And I seriously doubt that they will do it.”

This does not mean that Starship will never go to Mars, of course. “I think SpaceX will get out of its way. I think their engineering is good enough to make starship operators, ”explains Whitman Cobb. But obtaining an unrelated rocket in March in the next decade is much more realistic than next year.

Putting people on the rocket, however, is another matter entirely. “If they seek to build a large -scale human colony?” It’s decades, ”says Whitman Cobb. “I don’t know I will live to see that.”