A flash in a Raptor engine triggered a midair explosion during Starship F Sea-level and vacuum Raptor engines shut down, causing the vehicle to tum FAA clears SpaceX to launch Starship Flight 9 after resolving key issues Advertisement While SpaceX gears up for the highly anticipated ninth test of its Starship launch vehicle, the company, being open as always, has disclosed why Flight 8's upper stage failed, which subsequently resulted in it blowing up in midair back on March 6. The test flight, which took off from the company's Starbase site in Texas, came to a screeching halt within minutes of reaching the sky when the top stage — known as Ship — experienced a catastrophic engine failure. Although the Super Heavy booster returned safely to Starbase with the aid of “Mechazilla”, the upper-stage anomaly cut the mission short, halting its attempt to deploy simulated Starlink satellites. SpaceX Reveals Engine Flash Caused Starship Flight 8 Explosion, Flight 9 Cleared for May 27 Launch As per a SpaceX update released on May 22, the mishap was caused by a hardware failure in one of the ship's centre Raptor engines. The failure resulted in a “flash” near the sea-level Raptor, which triggered a shutdown of multiple engines, including vacuum Raptors, and initiated vehicle tumbling. Two minutes later, communications were lost and the automated flight termination software activated, leading to the vehicle's destruction. The incident closely mirrored that of Flight 7, which also ended in an upper-stage explosion, albeit from a fire in a different engine section. The flash was traced to inadvertent propellant mixing and ignition within the engine bay. SpaceX mentioned further inspection revealed overheating in the ignition system of several engines. While Super Heavy returned to Earth mostly intact, ignition issues affected 2 of its 13 engines during the boostback burn. SpaceX is reinforcing engine insulation and modifying thermal systems to prevent recurrence in future flights.