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I think it’s interesting that SpaceX is struggling so much with the shift to a full flow staged combustion engine using liquid methane.

We knew from the Soviet that it was going to be really hard but after the successful flights I thought they had it in the bag.

We might be touching on the limits of SpaceX constant tweaking fail fast approach.

joha4270
I think its premature to blame this on Raptor. At least, I couldn't see anything suggesting the static fire was imminent, so my money would be on "anything but the engines" over "the engines". At least with what we know so far.

But SpaceX's brand of rocket development is certainly exciting

goku12
That's what it seems like to me too. From the slo-mo video, it looks like one of the propellant tanks (likely the methane tank on the top) burst open, spilled a lot of the propellant and then caught fire. Engines are unlikely to be the culprit here. Interestingly, there seems to be a crack or a gap already on the surface, along which the tank bursts open when the accident occurs.
jmaestrooper
So that's 3 issues in the last 2 flights and one static fire, all different, all with different root causes, all catastrophic. Block 3 will be a different vehicle, should they just skip Block 2 (scrap however many they already built) and move on to Block 3?
m4rtink
I think they requires Raptor 3 engines & they are apparently still finishing their development.

So might as well use up the remaining Starship 2 & Raptor 2 inventory in destructive testing (both intentional and emergent).

FiberBundle
In the spacex subreddit there are comments claiming that key engineers have left the company because of differences with leadership/culture. Not sure how credible those are, but spacex has had suspiciously many failures recently.
Waterluvian
It’s not even just a binary state of an engineer being there or not. The morale and general attitude of the environment can cause engineers still there to just not have their hearts in it.

I think about the countless engineering success stories I’ve read where you can tell the people involved were just living and breathing the problem.

Gareth321
It's hard to tell whether key engineers were the differences between success and failure but Comparably lists SpaceX’s Retention Score as an A– grade, placing it in the top 15% of similarly sized companies based on employee feedback. Additionally, SpaceX boasts an Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) of +25, placing it in the top 25% among peer companies comparably.com.

https://www.comparably.com/companies/spacex/culture/seattle

https://www.comparably.com/companies/spacex/enps

U.S. tech companies are notorious for high turnover and SpaceX doesn't seem particularly bad.

floatrock
Sounds impressive, sure. Question is how much weight do you put into survey stats like those given Musk's extensive history of things like buying the influence he wants, putting his thumbs on the scales of his truth-bot, getting generous valuations based on hype and stories, knowing about "those vote counting computers" (Trump's own words), ruthlessly firing anyone who disagrees with him, etc etc etc.

Then again, they are launching tons of rockets, and any cult leader has his followers, so what do I know...

bell-cot
Not to say that Musk's been particularly endearing lately - but what would the normal turnover in an engineering-centric company the size of SpaceX be?

Especially with how hot the field is these days. I suspect "key" SpaceX engineers do not lack for lucrative offers.

marvin
There was a seriously sour grapes quality to that comment thread. I wouldn't give it too much weight without hearing from actual SpaceX employees.
jlmorton
There's a high quality slow motion video available [1] that shows the problem was almost certainly a failed pressure tank, not the engines.

[1] https://x.com/dwisecinema/status/1935552171912655045

nomel
Well that video makes it very clear: the problem is the front fell off, and a bit too enthusiastically.
amoss
Is the front supposed to fall off?
Paradigma11
Did they use cardboard derivatives?
dfedbeef
Let's wait for the engineers to confirm that isn't supposed to happen.
aaronmdjones
Maybe they should engineer them so that the front doesn't fall off
nomel
Unfortunately, that neccesarily increases the risk that the back falls off.
inasio
There's something strangely beautiful about this video, similar to the Hindenburg video perhaps, so much detail everywhere
fabian2k
The earlier Starship tests looked more promising. But when it looked like they were making real progress it got much worse again with Starship V2.

I like the idea of hardware-rich development, but it seems they might have fiddled too much here or maybe just tried to go too fast.

panick21_
I don't necessary think its a problem with the engine as such. The problem seems much more to get the fuel to the right place in the right pressure at all parts of flight.

If an engine blows up, because its pulling in bubbles, its not the engines fault.

I think Raptor 2 has a few issues still but as we can see on the booster, the can perform fine for what most rocket engines have to do.

Symmetry
We haven't really seen any problems with the engines themselves, so much as the plumbing that has try to keep them fed through radical changes in the rocket's orientation.
pantalaimon
v1 Starships were working just fine and even managed to make a soft splashdown.

The problems all started with v2.

m4rtink
Sure, but AFAIK the V1 design just wasn't mass effective for the goals of the program - eq. lifting usable payload & being fully reusable.

Still in hindsight, a couple more flights to test the improved heat shield could help move that are forward & reduce some of the unknowns.

dfedbeef
Too many Vs
tonyhart7
so whats the differences
rapsey
If the task is difficult, what other approach is there?
beaned
There are rovers on Mars already that landed on the first try. The approach was rigorous planning and study with the highest standards.

It doesn't mean the approach SpaceX is taking isn't valuable in some contexts, but it's certainly not the only method.

Teever
That seems like a poor example given how many failed attempts to land something on Mars that took place before they got to designs that would get it right in the first go.
yborg
The Viking landers were the first attempt by the US to land on Mars. The Soviets actually soft-landed first on their second try but the lander failed after transmitting one corrupted image. There were certainly many failed Mars missions by various countries, but the Vikings at least got it right on the first go.
mulmen
NASA’s first attempt to land on Mars was successful. I count 11 total attempts with one failure.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missions_to_Mars

m4rtink
Yeah, this is a remarkably good score - for comparison Europe is at 0 out of 2. :P

The first one [1] actually landed but failed to send back any data (kinda like the soviet example) due to deployment failure.

But the second one will at least have an impact on future generations, with people being confused why there are two Shiaparelli[2] craters on Mars. ;-)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beagle_2 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schiaparelli_EDM

mstipetic
The rocket booster landing of mars rover also hasn’t been tried before.
beAbU
Infinitely more fun to witness though.

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