[Reading Science] Starship Explodes Again... Musk Who Overcame 'Jungkkyeokma'

First Full-Scale Launch Test on the 20th, 'Half Success'

"Congratulations!"

On the 20th (local time), this was what Elon Musk said to SpaceX employees after the first launch of the 'humanity's first interplanetary transport' Starship ended in failure. He emphasized the concept of 'Jungkkokma' (an unyielding spirit in the face of important matters). In a post on Twitter, he said, "Congratulations to the SpaceX team for conducting an exciting Starship test launch," adding, "We learned a lot for the next test launch within a few months." He also stated, "Success comes from the lessons learned through such experiments," and added, "Today's test results will help improve Starship's reliability in the process of realizing SpaceX's dream of humanity becoming a multi-planetary species."

On the morning of the 20th (local time), the most powerful space launch vehicle ever, Starship, is being launched from SpaceX's 'Starbase' in Texas, USA.

Musk is known as the world's top billionaire who is notorious for pushing his subordinates hard. This reputation extends not only to the electric car company Tesla and the recently acquired Twitter but also to SpaceX. Such remarks might sound insincere. They are proof of how difficult it is to build a super-large and super-powerful space vehicle like Starship, which can realize humanity's first interplanetary travel. Even Musk, often labeled a 'ruthless employer,' understands that since a huge amount of money has already been invested, steady encouragement and investment are necessary rather than reprimanding temporary failures to achieve success.

It is presumed that Musk himself must feel frustrated. Although he pours the profits earned from Tesla and others into the 'unprofitable' Starship development, results are not coming easily. A representative example is when, in November 2021, as the development of Starship's Raptor engine was delayed, he sent a letter to SpaceX employees warning, "If it is not completed by next year, we could go bankrupt."

However, Musk also knew well that maintaining 'Jungkkokma' was the way for himself, his employees, and SpaceX to survive. In fact, SpaceX considers this Starship launch to be a 'half success.' The Starship launched from Starbase in Texas at around 8:33 a.m. that day exploded four minutes later, failing to reach the target orbit (about 220 km). However, it safely passed through the so-called Max-Q point, where the pressure on the vehicle peaks after launch. This means that the basic flight performance and durability of Starship have been confirmed. When Starship passed the Max-Q point 1 minute and 20 seconds after launch, cheers erupted at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California. The biggest success point was achieving a high altitude despite it being the first flight of the complete vehicle. Until now, SpaceX had tested the first-stage Super Heavy booster and the second-stage Starship separately, but this time, they attempted the first combined full vehicle launch, successfully taking off and ascending to a maximum altitude of 37 km. They also avoided the worst-case scenario of the massive launch pad or spaceport, painstakingly built at great expense, being destroyed during or immediately after the launch.

However, it was confirmed that three of the 33 first-stage Raptor engines failed to ignite during the launch process, and subsequently, two more malfunctioned and stopped working. Particularly painful was the failure to carry out the planned shutdown of the Super Heavy engines, stage separation, and ignition of the six second-stage engines starting three minutes after launch. When stage separation did not proceed, SpaceX issued a self-destruct command, and the vehicle exploded over Texas four minutes after launch.

The strongest space launch vehicle ever, Starship, launched by the American private space development company SpaceX on the morning of the 20th (local time), exploded 4 minutes after launch. Photo by SpaceX website capture

SpaceX engineers are placing more emphasis on the achievements despite this failure. John Insprucker, SpaceX's senior integration engineer, said, "Today's test flight was part of the development process and the first of its kind, so the goal was to gather data," adding, "We will clean the launch pad and prepare for the next test launch."

Starship is the largest and highest-performance space launch vehicle ever built, developed by Musk after founding SpaceX in 2002, with the promise of Mars colonization in the 2030s to 2040s. It stands 120 meters tall with a diameter of 9 meters and has a thrust of about 7,500 tons, capable of carrying up to 100 people or 150 tons of cargo to low Earth orbit. Development began in earnest in 2016, and it is also planned to be used in NASA's lunar landing exploration missions scheduled after 2025. However, delays in development have caused concern among stakeholders. Several explosion accidents have occurred, pushing the first orbital test flight, originally scheduled for May last year, to nearly a year later, when it was conducted on this day.