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Here’s why SpaceX’s latest Starship rocket exploded after touchdown
In what has become a bit of a tradition, CEO Elon Musk has taken to Twitter again to explain the outcome of SpaceX’s latest Starship launch and landing attempt in more detail.
This time around, Musk’s debriefing comes after Starship serial number 10 (SN10) briefly became the first prototype of its kind to land in one piece – an extremely encouraging milestone for SpaceX. Less than 15 minutes later, though, an uncontrolled fire somehow breached the rocket’s stainless steel propellant tanks, resulting in a violent depressurization and explosion that tore Starship SN10 to pieces.
SN10’s momentarily successful landing came less than 30 days after Starship SN9’s own launch and landing attempt, which debuted a quick-fix design change meant to sidestep a different issue that caused Starship SN8 to fail shortly before touchdown last December. As it turns out, that design change – which SN9 never really had the chance to test – may have been Starship SN10’s downfall.
Starships must perform highly unusual maneuvers during their skydiver-style approach to atmospheric descent and the aggressive flip required to transition from that belly-down attitude into a propulsive vertical landing configuration. To enable those acrobatics, Starships need secondary ‘header’ tanks that permit the high-pressure storage of landing propellant.
Instead of having to maintain Starship’s building-sized main tanks at high pressures, header tanks make it far easier to safely store and feed propellant to Raptor engines. Most importantly, they help avoid prevent fuel flow interruptions or bubbles that can easily damage or destroy high-performance liquid rocket engines like Starship’s Raptors.
After Starship SN8’s last-second landing failure on December 8th, SpaceX concluded that low pressure in the liquid methane header tank was largely to blame. Normally pressurized with methane gas in a cutting-edge process called autogenous pressurization, SpaceX ultimately seemed to think that that process was the root cause and responded by adding an alternative helium pressurization workaround at the last second. Long-term, helium is not a viable solution as it’s virtually impossible to resupply in-situ (on the fly), meaning that any Starships reliant upon helium would find themselves stranded on the Moon or Mars.
Starship SN9 ultimately failed a few seconds earlier than Starship SN8 when one of its Raptor engines failed to ignite, precluding a true flight test of the helium pressurization fix. As it turns out, Musk believes that that very fix may have doomed Starship SN10.
As Starship SN10 forged ahead past the points of failure that killed SN8 and SN9, the SpaceX CEO thinks that one or more of the vehicle’s three Raptor engines began to ingest some of that helium pressurant as they emptied their methane header tank. As a result, engine thrust would have dropped below expected values, preventing Starship SN10 from slowing down for a truly soft landing. Instead, the Starship hit the ground traveling a solid 25 mph (~10 m/s), obliterating its tiny landing legs and damaging its skirt section.
It’s unclear if that hard landing was the sole cause of SN10’s subsequent explosion, as both official and unofficial webcasts of the launch appear to show a major fire starting well before touchdown and continuing to burn up to the point of failure. Regardless, Musk says that “multiple fixes” are in work for Starship SN11, which is currently speeding towards a launch attempt as early as next week. It remains to be seen if those planned “fixes” will delay SN11’s launch plans.
Tesla made a change to the Cybertruck, and nobody noticed. But to be fair, nobody could have, but it was revealed by the program’s lead engineer that it was aimed toward simplifying manufacturing through a minor change in casting.
After the Cybertruck was given a Top Safety Pick+ award by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), for its reputation as the safest pickup on the market, some wondered what had changed about the vehicle.
Tesla makes changes to its vehicles routinely through Over-the-Air software updates, but aesthetic changes are relatively rare. Vehicles go through refreshes every few years, as the Model 3 and Model Y did earlier this year. However, the Cybertruck is one of the vehicles that has not changed much since its launch in late 2023, but it has gone through some minor changes.
Most recently, Wes Morrill, the Cybertruck program’s Lead Engineer, stated that the company had made a minor change to the casting of the all-electric pickup for manufacturing purposes. This change took place in April:
We made a minor change on the casting for manufacturability in April. Our Internal testing shows no difference in crash result but IIHS only officially tested the latest version
— Wes (@wmorrill3) December 17, 2025
The change is among the most subtle that can be made, but it makes a massive difference in manufacturing efficiency, build quality, and scalability.
Morrill revealed Tesla’s internal testing showed no difference in crash testing results performed by the IIHS.
The 2025 Cybertruck received stellar ratings in each of the required testing scenarios and categories. The Top Safety Pick+ award is only given if it excels in rigorous crash tests. This requires ‘Good’ ratings in updated small and moderate overlap front, side, roof, and head restraints.
Additionally, it must have advanced front crash prevention in both day and night. Most importantly, the vehicle must have a ‘Good’ or ‘Acceptable’ headlights standard on all trims, with the “+ ” specifically demanding the toughest new updated moderate overlap test that checks rear-seat passenger protection alongside driver safety.
Tesla has entered an interesting situation with its Full Self-Driving suite in California, as the State’s Department of Motor Vehicles had adopted an order for a suspension of the company’s sales license, but it immediately put it on hold.
The company has been granted a reprieve as the DMV is giving Tesla an opportunity to “remedy the situation.” After the suspension was recommended for 30 days as a penalty, the DMV said it would give Tesla 90 days to allow the company to come into compliance.
The DMV is accusing Tesla of misleading consumers by using words like Autopilot and Full Self-Driving on its advanced driver assistance (ADAS) features.
The State’s DMV Director, Steve Gordon, said that he hoped “Tesla will find a way to get these misleading statements corrected.” However, Tesla responded to the story on Tuesday, stating that this was a “consumer protection” order for the company using the term Autopilot.
It said “not one single customer came forward to say there’s a problem.” It added that “sales in California will continue uninterrupted.”
This was a “consumer protection” order about the use of the term “Autopilot” in a case where not one single customer came forward to say there’s a problem.
Sales in California will continue uninterrupted.
— Tesla North America (@tesla_na) December 17, 2025
Tesla has used the terms Autopilot and Full Self-Driving for years, but has added the term “(Supervised)” to the end of the FSD suite, hoping to remedy some of the potential issues that regulators in various areas might have with the labeling of the program.
It might not be too long before Tesla stops catching flak for using the Full Self-Driving name to describe its platform.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
The Robotaxi suite has continued to improve, and this week, vehicles were spotted in Austin without any occupants. CEO Elon Musk would later confirm that Tesla had started testing driverless rides in Austin, hoping to launch rides without any supervision by the end of the year.
Tesla stock (NASDAQ: TSLA) closed at an all-time high on Tuesday, jumping over 3 percent during the day and finishing at $489.88.
The price beats the previous record close, which was $479.86.
Shares have had a crazy year, dipping more than 40 percent from the start of the year. The stock then started to recover once again around late April, when its price started to climb back up from the low $200 level.
This week, Tesla started to climb toward its highest levels ever, as it was revealed on Sunday that the company was testing driverless Robotaxis in Austin. The spike in value pushed the company’s valuation to $1.63 trillion.
Tesla Robotaxi goes driverless as Musk confirms Safety Monitor removal testing
It is the seventh-most valuable company on the market currently, trailing Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta.
Shares closed up $14.57 today, up over 3 percent.
The stock has gone through a lot this year, as previously mentioned. Shares tumbled in Q1 due to CEO Elon Musk’s involvement with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which pulled his attention away from his companies and left a major overhang on their valuations.
However, things started to rebound halfway through the year, and as the government started to phase out the $7,500 tax credit, demand spiked as consumers tried to take advantage of it.
Q3 deliveries were the highest in company history, and Tesla responded to the loss of the tax credit with the launch of the Model 3 and Model Y Standard.
Additionally, analysts have announced high expectations this week for the company on Wall Street as Robotaxi continues to be the focus. With autonomy within Tesla’s sights, things are moving in the direction of Robotaxi being a major catalyst for growth on the Street in the coming year.
Tesla made a change to the Cybertruck and nobody noticed
Tesla enters interesting situation with Full Self-Driving in California
