Anonymous sources: Starship will need a major rebuild after two consecutive failures
Starship just before loss of signal on March 6, 2025
According to information at this tweet from anonymous sources, parts of Starship will likely to require a major redesign due to the spacecraft’s break-up shortly after stage separation on its last two test flights.
These are the key take-aways, most of which focus on the redesign of the first version of Starship (V1) to create the V2 that flew unsuccessfully on those flights:
- Hot separation also aggravates the situation in the compartment.
- Not related to the flames from the Super Heavy during the booster turn.
- This is a fundamental miscalculation in the design of the Starship V2 and the engine section.
- The fuel lines, wiring for the engines and the power unit will be urgently redone.
- The fate of S35 and S36 is still unclear. Either revision or scrap.
- For the next ships, some processes may be paused in production until a decision on the design is made.
- The team was rushed with fixes for S34, hence the nervous start. There was no need to rush.
- The fixes will take much longer than 4-6 weeks.
- Comprehensive ground testing with long-term fire tests is needed. [emphasis mine]
It must be emphasized that this information comes from leaks from anonymous sources, and could be significantly incorrect. It does however fit the circumstances, and suggests that the next test flight will not occur in April but will be delayed for an unknown period beyond.
I think the tweet however is much too pessimistic. If the problems are all within the fuel lines, engine wiring, and the power unit, they are well localized. Moreover, the design of these components on version 1 of Starship apparently worked reasonably well, which gives them a good basis for that redesign. Nonetheless, if these facts are correct, my guess is the next test flight won’t occur before June.
The one saving grace is that FAA red tape is clearly no longer an additional obstacle. It is very clear now that with the change from Biden to Trump it is letting SpaceX lead all investigations, and immediately accepting its conclusions and fixes, rather than sitting on those conclusions as it retyped them for weeks or months in its own report.
Hat tip to reader Richard M.
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Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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Starship just before loss of signal on March 6, 2025
According to information at this tweet from anonymous sources, parts of Starship will likely to require a major redesign due to the spacecraft’s break-up shortly after stage separation on its last two test flights.
These are the key take-aways, most of which focus on the redesign of the first version of Starship (V1) to create the V2 that flew unsuccessfully on those flights:
- Hot separation also aggravates the situation in the compartment.
- Not related to the flames from the Super Heavy during the booster turn.
- This is a fundamental miscalculation in the design of the Starship V2 and the engine section.
- The fuel lines, wiring for the engines and the power unit will be urgently redone.
- The fate of S35 and S36 is still unclear. Either revision or scrap.
- For the next ships, some processes may be paused in production until a decision on the design is made.
- The team was rushed with fixes for S34, hence the nervous start. There was no need to rush.
- The fixes will take much longer than 4-6 weeks.
- Comprehensive ground testing with long-term fire tests is needed. [emphasis mine]
It must be emphasized that this information comes from leaks from anonymous sources, and could be significantly incorrect. It does however fit the circumstances, and suggests that the next test flight will not occur in April but will be delayed for an unknown period beyond.
I think the tweet however is much too pessimistic. If the problems are all within the fuel lines, engine wiring, and the power unit, they are well localized. Moreover, the design of these components on version 1 of Starship apparently worked reasonably well, which gives them a good basis for that redesign. Nonetheless, if these facts are correct, my guess is the next test flight won’t occur before June.
The one saving grace is that FAA red tape is clearly no longer an additional obstacle. It is very clear now that with the change from Biden to Trump it is letting SpaceX lead all investigations, and immediately accepting its conclusions and fixes, rather than sitting on those conclusions as it retyped them for weeks or months in its own report.
Hat tip to reader Richard M.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
“- The team was rushed with fixes for S34, hence the nervous start.”
What “nervous start” is being referenced?
Oh wow, I wasn’t expecting this!
I assume that anything I read about SpaceX these days is negatively amped-up by the media we have, whose job seems to be to distress the Americanpublic, and give hope to our enemies!
Eric Berger has a new story up today at Ars Technica that touches on this rumor, but aims for a broader analysis:
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/after-years-of-acceleration-has-spacex-finally-reached-its-speed-limit/
Berger makes clear that he thinks that if anything might be to blame, it’s the SpaceX org culture (as in, “too much of a good thing”) than anything Elon Musk is doing, even as it’s pretty clear that Eric doesn’t dig what Elon is up to in certain political spheres. And he also makes clear up front that at the same time these struggles are happening, SpaceX’s Falcon 9 operations have reached an “unprecedented” cadence, on which most of the Western world now relies for its space needs — a staggering achievement.
I am kind of wondering, though, how much time Elon has spent down at Starbase over the last week.
Not sure Elon’s physical presence at Starbase is required to address roadblocks. I know he likes to be the blockage-clearer, but with the comms and processes he no doubt has, I am sure he need not be on site to do so.
Remember that SpaceX has the best people in the industry, and I’m sure they know when to hold for a superior’s input, or go ahead on their best judgement.
And I’m also sure people like COO Gwynne Shotwell and VP Vehicle Engineering Mark Juncosa know how to make sure that culture keeps working smoothly.
It is more likely in my opinion that the problem lies in too few top-notch engineers being available and lack of bandwidth to integrate them into a ramping-up development and production process.
Hello from France
Nice article from Eric Berger. Well i would not be surprised that the hard work done by the people working at SpaceX , hasn’t been without injuries.
I read an article saying that Reuters has investigating working conditions at Space X, and since 2014, there have been 600 accidents, and 1 death , previously unreported.
https://next.ink/700/des-centaines-daccidents-travail-a-spacex-depuis-2014/.
The link is in french, but i think you can translate it in english.
Like it has been said, doing 150 launched a year, with the pressure for some important missions,like for aviation, you have to make your job correctly, if you do a mistake, you can’t go back once the rocket is launched, it’s a Go or No Go.
I also know that the Starship are prototypes, they are testing several combinaisons of tiles, equipments, etc…
That could lead to a fail..
Of course, like Mr Robert Zimmermann uses to write, i will say ” Hat tip to Space X people”, because they do alot of hard work, that probably drives some of them to burnout ( I’m an aircraft maintenance mechanic, and i know the pressure to finish a maintenance check in time for delivery to the customer), but for rockets production, i think there are heavier risks, like manipulating oversize and heavy weight equipments, as producing or stocking liquid hydrogen and kerozen, that requires specific qualified technicians and safety rules.
Thank you for reading me.
Keep going writing space related articles, i love that.
Well, when I want to know what is really going on in the American aerospace industry, I always rely on Reuters. /S
Ps. Knew a lady who fancied herself a top-notch PR type who always pronounced Reuters like “Rooters”.
To avoid embarrassing her, I finally made up the story that a German friend of mine had told me it is actually “Royters” – it is a German family name. She laughed at me.
The next day she wasn’t laughing, or speaking to me any more! Oh, well.
Hello Herve,
Workplace safety is important, and no company, however successful, should be above the law. But I think there’s a lot of context missing from the Reuters story that needs to be unpacked, because some of it is frankly disingenuous.
There was an unusually good treatment in this regard over at the SpaceXLounge subreddit last year:
https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/17zdeiq/how_dangerous_is_it_really_to_work_at_spacex/
Not sure Elon’s physical presence at Starbase is required to address roadblocks.
I might not have made clear what I was getting at.
It’s not so much that I am expecting him to clear roadblocks (something he has admittedly done at SpaceX during past crises), but that Starship is by far the most important development to SpaceX’s future, and it appears to have a significant hitch in its design. I’d like to think that the owner/CEO/CTO would want to at least be fully informed of what’s happening, and in the past, it *is* the sort of thing that would have had Elon camped out and sleeping on the floor until he at least fully understood what was happening.
And maybe he has been. I don’t track his movements, however, so I have no idea where he’s been the last several days.