updates
Flight 8 booster catch and ship engine failure
On May 22, 2025, SpaceX said Flight 8 caught the booster a third time and lost the ship after a center Raptor failure about five and a half minutes into the ship burn.
Topics: space-civilization starship
This page is an original Muskularity summary. It does not republish SpaceX’s full post. Figures are the company’s statements on the cited date unless another primary link is named.
Summary
Flight 8 lifted off at 5:30 p.m. CT on March 6, 2025, from Starbase. All 33 booster engines finished the ascent burn. The ship lit all six engines for hot-staging. The booster then lit 11 of 13 engines for boostback, returned, and lit 12 of 13 for the landing burn, including one that had missed boostback. The three center engines flew it into the tower arms. SpaceX called this the third catch. Engines that failed to relight were traced to torch igniters in local heat; the company said later flights would add insulation.
The ship followed the planned path until about five and a half minutes into its burn, when a flash near a center sea-level Raptor was followed by loss of that engine, then shutdown of the other two center engines and one vacuum engine. Control was lost. Last telemetry was about nine and a half minutes after liftoff. SpaceX said the autonomous flight-safety system was healthy at loss of contact and was expected to have fired, and that the ship broke up on reentry. Debris, it said, stayed in the planned response area; a team worked with the Bahamian government on cleanup. No hazardous materials in the debris were reported.
The probable cause SpaceX gave is a hardware failure in one center Raptor that mixed and ignited propellant. More than 100 long-duration Raptor firings at McGregor followed. Mitigations: more preload on joints, a nitrogen purge, and a better propellant drain, with Raptor 3 named as the later fix. SpaceX said this was not the Flight 7 failure, and that the Flight 7 attic fixes had worked until this engine failed. It said the FAA had given a flight-safety determination allowing the next Starship flight. Participants named in the investigation: FAA oversight, NASA, the NTSB, and the Space Force.
Key facts
| Fact | Label |
|---|---|
| Liftoff March 6, 2025, 5:30 p.m. CT | Company flight report |
| Third Super Heavy catch | Company flight result |
| Ship lost after a center-engine failure; last data about 9.5 minutes into flight | Company investigation finding |
| More than 100 long-duration Raptor firings in the investigation | Company test claim |
Why it matters
Catch is the reuse milestone Starship is built around, and Flight 8 shows SpaceX reporting that milestone on the same flight that lost the ship. The engine-joint fixes point forward to Raptor 3.
On this site
Sources
- SpaceX update, May 22, 2025 — Grade A, company mishap report
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