The eighth flight test of the SpaceX Starship system took place today, March 6, 2025. The flight was once again to take the Ship on a suborbital trajectory. Ship 34 was the second V2 Starship to fly, and like Ship 33 it failed before finishing its burn. Meanwhile, Booster 15 flew back to Starbase and was caught by the chopsticks on the launch tower.
Liftoff of Starship! pic.twitter.com/OL7moLdZ2u
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) March 6, 2025
The stack lifted off at 23:30 UTC from Orbital Launch Mount A in Starbase, Texas. It experienced Max Q, or maximum dynamic pressure, one minute into flight. At T +02:33 thirty engines on Booster 15 shut down ahead of hot staging, which took place 10 seconds later. Ship 34 lit up its engines to accelerate to orbital speeds, while eight engines on the Super Heavy booster came back for the boostback burn. Two engines on the Booster’s inner ring did not relight.
After coming back towards Starbase, twelve engines on Booster 15 once again started up for the landing burn at T +06:34. 30 seconds later the chopsticks closed around the rocket, marking the third successful catch of a Super Heavy booster. Shortly thereafter, at T +08:44, Ship 34 shut down its engines, having reached its intended suborbital trajectory.
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A troubled leadup
The launch took place on the second attempt. A previous one took place on March 4, 2025, with the countdown reaching T -00:29, but was ultimately aborted. Flight controllers took this decision after issues arose with the Booster first and then the Ship. SpaceX had hoped to be able to launch without conducting a Wed Dress Rehearsal first, but it turned out this wasn’t the case. Starship was destacked for inspections before the following attempt.
Too many question marks about this flight and then we were 20 bar low on ground spin start pressure.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 4, 2025
Best to destack, inspect both stages and try again in a day or two. https://t.co/TekpJ0uz5y
The flight aimed at completing the objectives that Flight 7 could not fulfill, as Ship 33 succumbed to fires in the attic area — the space between the liquid oxygen tank and the aft heat shield just above the engines. The fires were likely fed by propellant leaks coming from lines that ruptured due to oscillations that turned out to be more severe in flight than observed during ground testing.
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Implementing lessons from Flight 7
To address these concerns, Ship 34 incorporated a number of changes, including improved attic venting capabilities and hardware changes to propellant feedlines. A new purge system maintained an inert nitrogen atmosphere in the attic during ascent, making a fire less likely. Ultimately SpaceX aims at simplifying plumbing in the area and reducing the volume of the attic, making a failure even less likely.
Additional data was gathered during a 60-second static fire of Ship 34. The unusually long test was conducted at various throttle levels and aimed at better simulating the vibrational environment encountered during Flight 7. The test helped validate the changes to the feedlines meant to mitigate harmonic response.
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Demise of Ship 34
At T +08:04, with just 40 seconds left in the burn, a Raptor Vacuum engine shut down. In the span of four seconds, it was followed by all three Sea Level Raptors. Smoke could be seen coming out of the engine section. Starship then quickly spun out of control. Shortly thereafter, debris was seen raining down from the sky from the Caribbean Islands. Many aircraft were diverted as a result. It is not currently known if the Ship exploded, broke up in the atmosphere, or if the Flight Termination System was activated.
We just saw the SpaceX Starship 8 blow up. 💥💥💥 Seen from Turks and Caicos. pic.twitter.com/1AyGANrBfE
— Mark O’Henly (@SeeClickFlash) March 6, 2025
Not much is currently known about the causes of the failure. Shortly before the engine shutdowns, an engine bay camera view showed possible damage to one of the Raptor Vacuums, which a few seconds later would be the first to shut down. A subsequent live stream shot of the control room showed a monitor displaying what looked like an explosion in the engine bay, although it is difficult to make out a conclusive picture.
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Unfulfilled hardware demos
Ship 34 was very different from the vehicles that flew on the first six fights. Like Ship 33, it was a V2 Starship. It featured smaller forward flaps that were mounted higher up. It was also longer, allowing for the loading of 25 % more propellant. The lengthening of the Ship brought the height of the stack to 123 m.
Ship 34 was to open the small door of its cargo bay and deploy four simulators of next-generation Starlink satellites. The simulators would have been on the same suborbital trajectory as the Ship, and they would have burned up in the atmosphere. Additionally, one Raptor engine was to relight for a brief period, as was done on Flight 6.
A further set of tests was to take place during atmospheric entry. The heat shield included some experimental metallic tiles, including one with active cooling, a portion with a tapered edge to reduce hot spots, and many instances of tiles being deliberately removed to test the limits of the vehicle.
Protruding from the front of the vehicle were two non-structural simulators of the Ship’s catch points, to demonstrate their thermal performance. Also in preparation for catching the Ship, radar sensors were fitted to the chopsticks, as already done during Flight 7. These offered an additional, more direct way to measure the distance to the Booster during the catch, which is crucial to the success of the maneuver. Since the Ship performs a more complex belly-flop maneuver during landing, this new system will be critical.
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Future plans
This flight certainly did not have the outcome that was hoped for and offered little improvement over the previous one. SpaceX will now have to once again look into the issues that plagued this flight to try and address them. While it is stressed that the purpose of these flights is to collect data, having two consecutive flights fail relatively early while introducing a new iteration of the vehicle is certainly a setback.
Ultimately the goal, of course, is creating a vehicle that can make life multiplanetary. While the near future will be mostly dedicated to fixing the problem that arose during today’s flight, subsequent flights will achieve many more milestones. These include further Raptor reflights, Booster reuse, and the introduction of Raptor 3. SpaceX also plans to have the launch tower at Kennedy Space Center LC-39A ready by the end of the year. The first launch from there is expected in the same timeframe.
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