× After back-to-back explosions, SpaceX launched its mega rocket Starship again on Tuesday evening, but the spacecraft fell short of the main objectives when it tumbled out of control and broke apart. Facebook Listen now and subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Stitcher | RSS Feed | SoundStack | All Of Our Podcasts They found that limit experimentally, essentially breaking up that Super Heavy with too much wind load coming from the side, where it is nowhere near as strong. That is something very important to know for sure. It is just like knowing that pulling too many G’s that can rip the wings off an airplane. You must know your limits. The Starship upper stage spacecraft did not experience engine failures during the ascent burn from staging to orbital insertion, unlike what happened on the previous two flights. It appears that they may have fixed at least a part of what was going wrong on those two flights. However, there was a slow loss of propellant tank pressure, due a leak (or leaks) somewhere. The attitude thrusters are cold gas thrusters powered by the propellant tank pressure. And there must be at least some pressure to successfully ignite an engine. Whether this loss of propellant tank pressure had anything to do with opening the payload door is unknown to me, but not long after that door failed to open is when the vehicle went into an uncontrolled spin for lack of attitude thrusters. And they called off the engine relight test because of it, too. Not having attitude control is why the ship broke up upon reentry over the Indian Ocean. The heat shielding is only on the belly and around the nose, so if pointed in the wrong direction, it is unprotected from the extreme heating of orbital reentry. The vehicle was spinning completely out of control as it entered. SpaceX is going to have to figure out what caused the leak and the loss of tank pressure. That won’t be easy. But it has to be done, and I hope they obtained the necessary data from this test to figure out that problem. Getting reentry survival is crucial toward verifying SpaceX’s heat shield design. I would suggest that SpaceX add some independent attitude thrusters to these flight tests so that loss of tank pressure does not mean loss of attitude control. The Draco attitude thrusters on their Dragon capsules would be a good choice, with lots of real experience behind them. I do not know for sure, but had this ninth flight been equipped with independent attitude thrusters, that particular Starship might have made it through reentry successfully. That would have been a huge “plus” for this mission. Going forward, however, they will still have to find and fix the propellant tank pressure leak in order to make the final landing burn. Gary W. Johnson is a former cutting-edge aerospace defense engineer. He lives in McGregor and is a member of the Tribune-Herald Board of Contributors.