SpaceX officially confirms Super Heavy Booster 18 anomaly, test site remains unharmed

SpaceX has published an official statement about the Super Heavy booster 18 anomaly from earlier this morning, with some early insights about the root cause. The rocket maker said that booster 18 suffered an anomaly during gas system pressure testing.

Yesterday, SpaceX moved this giant space rocket from the high bay to Massey’s test site near Starbase. This was a brand new vehicle marked as Version 3 (v3) and comes with various upgrades for both structure and performance.

Before a new booster can be cleared for cryogenic propellant loading, static-fire engine tests, or flight, SpaceX performs a series of ground tests. The gas system pressure testing uses inert gases like nitrogen or helium to pressurize the tanks, lines, valves, and COPVs to validate leaks and structural strength.

This test, which failed, was being conducted before a more stressful structural proof testing, also known as cryo proof. This phase includes the use of ultra-cold liquid oxygen and liquid methane to simulate flight loads and temperatures.

No Propellant or Engines

It’s officially confirmed that the first stage was empty and had a missing 33 Raptor engine configuration. Therefore, the company only used pressurized gas to carry out this test. The missing engines and propellant are justified on the face of early-stage testing.

Other details

SpaceX has announced that an investigation has been opened into the anomaly to determine the root cause, which is not fully known. The engineers will inspect the vehicle and the telemetric data to know more about the wreckage. Fortunately, no one was injured in this scenario as all of the officials maintained a safe distance from the test site.

Another important aspect of the anomaly was that the test site remained unharmed, which took almost three months to fix after a major explosion caused by the Starship Flight 10’s second stage. The team is evaluating the test site to clear the debris and make a way to get the damaged booster out of the place.

SpaceX has published a statement about the recent anomaly of Super Heavy Booster 18

(source)