On the afternoon of May 23, a SpaceX testing stand at the company’s McGregor, Texas facilities caught fire during a test of its Raptor 2 engines. According to NASASpaceflight, the engine experienced an anomaly that caused vapours to leak out, leading to a secondary explosion. The news organization’s livestream showed the engine shutting down before the fire started, eventually engulfing the stand in flames and smoke.
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SpaceX uses the Raptor engines for its Starship system’s Super Heavy booster and upper-stage spacecraft. These engines use liquid methane and liquid oxygen as fuel and are designed to be powerful enough to send Starship to the moon and Mars. As Gizmodo suggests, the explosion may have been caused by gases mixing due to a leak or a similar anomaly, although SpaceX has not yet officially addressed the incident.
The company is currently preparing for Starship’s fourth test flight, scheduled for June 5, pending regulatory approval and favourable weather conditions. This explosion is unlikely to affect the launch window. SpaceX’s main goals for the fourth test flight include ensuring a soft splashdown of the Super Heavy booster in the Gulf of Mexico and achieving a controlled re-entry of the Starship spacecraft.
The company stated that it has made several hardware and software upgrades based on lessons learned from the third flight test. During that flight, Starship’s upper stage reached space but burned up in the atmosphere upon re-entry, while the Super Heavy booster broke apart in the final phases of its descent instead of softly splashing down into the ocean.
