WASHINGTON — SpaceX’s Super Heavy rocket came within one second of aborting a “capture” landing attempt on Starship’s latest test flight, according to audio recordings that Elon Musk posted online, apparently inadvertently.
Musk posted a three-minute video on October 25 on X, the social media network he also owns, showing action from a video game he’s playing. However, the audio is not from the video game, but rather from several people discussing the Starship Flight 5 test flight on October 13. This flight marked the first successful return and capture of a Super Heavy booster using Marsian arms attached to the launch tower that raised it. From Boca Chica, Texas.
In the audio recording, a person, who was not identified, described an issue with a very heavy landing afterburner where a “misconfigured” parameter meant that the rotational pressure, which the Raptor engines supposedly had in the booster, did not increase as expected.
That person said: “We were one second away from this stumble and we asked the missile to stop and try to hit the ground next to the tower.” This scenario would “incorrectly tell the healthy missile not to attempt this hunt.”
“We had a whole bunch of new abortions and adherence to standards that we tried to double check, but, I mean, I think our concern was spot on, and one of them was very close to biting us,” the person continued.
The people on the audio note that there were discussions about delaying the launch of Flight 5 to provide additional time to verify these parameters. “We were afraid the fact that we had 100 abortions was not so trivial,” one person said.
In the audio recording, SpaceX officials said they had completed a review of data from Flight 5 the day before, comparing it to abortions “and what we need to change about it.”
Another issue discussed in the audio while Musk was playing the video game was the cover on the chine, a structure perpendicular to the booster, that came off when the car moved ultrasonic as it descended. A SpaceX official said in the audio recording that removing the spine cover was something they were concerned about before launch.
“We weren’t expecting exactly the right place, but that cover that was torn off was over a set of single-point failure valves that should operate during landing afterburner,” that person said. “Fortunately, none of that equipment or instruments were damaged, but we did tear off that spine cover over some really important equipment when the landing burn started. We have a plan to address that.”
The person also began discussing an issue with the motor shaft during the landing burn, but the video stopped at that point.
Discussions appear to include planning for Starship’s next test flight, Flight 6. SpaceX is moving forward with preparations for the flight, transporting the next Super Heavy booster to the launch site for testing. “Flight 6 is coming soon!” he to publish Early October 25.
Unlike previous launches, where new or updated licenses came from the FAA just before launch, SpaceX already received FAA approval for Flight 6 in the license update it received for Flight 5. “The FAA has outlined the changes SpaceX requested for Flight 6 “It is within the range of what was previously analyzed,” the FAA said when it issued the authorization for Flight 5, but did not reveal what those changes were.
SpaceX officials said in the audio recording that they are “trying to focus on reducing enhanced risk versus expanding the ship’s envelope” for the next flight. They were also seeking a balance between minimizing risk and speeding the next flight without the schedule constraints of an FAA license.
“We don’t take as much time as we would ideally want in a really fancy place, like really studying everything,” one person said. “But since this is the first launch in a long time — well, really, ever — that we haven’t been driven by the FAA, we’re trying to strike a reasonable balance between speed and mitigating risk on the booster, specifically.”
Musk was mostly silent during the video, saying, “Wow!” When they were told that the miscarriage was about to fall.
After posting the video on X, a user asked him if he knew he shared the audio of Starship’s phone. “Yes 😂” Musk He responded.
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