As Starships crash, understand this is a “stupidly difficult” thing to do

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  Liftoff of SN9 sure looked fine on Tuesday afternoon. [credit: Trevor Mahlmann ]

Once again, on Tuesday afternoon, a Starship prototype soared into the clear skies above South Texas like something out of the pages of a science fiction novel. Once again, after reaching a high altitude, the spaceship leaned into a “belly flop” maneuver, making a controlled descent back toward the planet.

And then, once again, a problem within the last few seconds caused a Starship prototype to spectacularly crash near its launch platform.

Seven weeks have passed since the first full-scale Starship prototype, SN8, performed its high altitude flight. Now, SN9 has met a similar fate. It appeared that one of the two Raptor rocket engines intended to power the final, controlled descent failed to re-light (see a great, slow-motion view). As a result when the vehicle began reorienting itself into a vertical position it never stopped swinging. Then, BOOM!