Miloch wrote in
:

https://gizmodo.com/spacexs-starship...n-fourth-faile
d-te-1843766989

Like everything else in 2020, the fourth prototype of SpaceX’s
next-generation rocket has gone up in flames. It’s the latest in a
series of spectacular explosions to plague the company’s Starship
program.

Shortly before 3 p.m. ET on Friday, the Starship SN4 prototype
underwent a ground-level trial of its Raptor engine known as a
static-fire test at the company’s development facility near Boca
Chica, Texas. For the last few weeks, SpaceX has been putting it
through a round of routine stress tests there after obtaining
licensing from the Federal Aviation Administration for short,
suborbital trials.

Friday was the vehicle’s fifth static-fire test, and everything
appeared to be going well at first. Though it remains unclear exactly
what caused the explosion, in a livestream of the event from LabPadre
it looks like a gas leak begins about a minute after engine shutdown,
followed by a massive fireball that quickly engulfs the prototype and
appears to damage the test site.

To be clear, the Starship SN4 prototype involved in this failed test
isn’t related to SpaceX’s historic launch scheduled for this weekend.
On Saturday, the company’s set to send two astronauts to the
International Space Station on behalf of NASA using its Falcon 9
rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft.

This prototype was the latest vehicle meant to test out the design for
SpaceX’s future Starship, a reusable rocket in development with the
aim of carrying up to 100 people and ferrying passengers and cargo to
Earth’s orbit, the Moon, and Mars.

SpaceX has lost all three of its previous Starship versions to similar
mishaps. The first two exploded under pressure tests while the third
came tumbling down in April because of an issue that CEO Elon Musk
later attributed to leaky valves. And while the Starship SN4 prototype
survived a longer battery of trials than its predecessors, it looks
like the series will have to wait on that round of flight tests until
at least SN5—which the company has purportedly already begun
assembling.



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You learn more from your failures
than your successes.........