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Musk blames SpaceX’s latest Starship explosion on Raptor engine leak

CEO Elon Musk says that a "small" leak on one of Starship SN11's Raptor engines led to the rocket's failed landing attempt. (SpaceX)

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4 years ago

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CEO Elon Musk says that SpaceX’s latest Starship test flight ended with a midair explosion because a “small” leak started on one of the rocket’s three Raptor engines.

As promised, the new information offers some insight into the cause of Starship SN11’s premature demise and the challenges of iteratively developing systems as complex as a fully-reusable Saturn V-class launch vehicle. On March 30th, after about a week of delays, Starship SN11 lifted off on SpaceX’s fourth high-altitude launch and landing test while all but completely obscured by a thick bank of fog.

Despite the unfortunate weather conditions, which prevented almost any kind of view of the launch outside of Starship’s own cameras, the rocket performed about as well as its three predecessors, reaching a planned apogee of 10 km (6.2 mi) before free-falling belly-first back to earth. At T+5:49, however, things went wrong.

At that point, Starship tried to ignite its three Raptor engines to flip into a tail-down landing configuration, at which point two of those engines would be shut down, leaving the healthiest of the three to attempt a soft landing. Something immediately went wrong and both telemetry, live video, and the countdown clock froze with a view of one partially ignited Raptor engine.

The engine on the left here appears to have been the leaky culprit. (SpaceX)

Notably, as pictured in the image at the top of this article, it’s possible that the “small [methane] leak” Musk has blamed for SN11’s failure was visible on Raptor engine SN52 less than 30 seconds after Starship lifted off, leaving plenty of time for a high-pressure fire to severely damage the faulty engine and its adjacent partners. The SpaceX CEO says that the resultant fire “fried part of [the] avionics” controlling one or all three Raptors, “causing [a] hard start” that damaged or destroyed one or all of the engines when they attempted to begin their landing burns.

Based on analysis of unofficial videos taken by cameras near the Starship launch site, it’s been deemed likely that SN11 exploded not because its flight termination system (FTS) triggered – but because of Raptor’s violent, explosive “hard start.” Ultimately, it’s not clear if ever SpaceX itself will ever be able to paint a truly clear picture of what exactly happened to SN11, but Musk says that the suspect Raptor leak “is getting fixed [six] ways to Sunday.” It’s possible that an upgraded Raptor engine Musk has hinted will debut on Starship SN15 has already fully or partially dealt with whatever is at the root of SN11’s engine leak and hard start(s).

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[Update: fully stacked] SpaceX speeds up work on Starship with “hundreds” of upgrades

Either way, SN15 is already expected to roll to the launch pad as early as this week – mere days after SN11’s explosion – and SpaceX wont have to wait long to test whatever fixes it implements as the upgraded vehicle works towards static fire tests and its own launch debut.

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Eric Ralph is Teslarati's senior spaceflight reporter and has been covering the industry in some capacity for almost half a decade, largely spurred in 2016 by a trip to Mexico to watch Elon Musk reveal SpaceX's plans for Mars in person. Aside from spreading interest and excitement about spaceflight far and wide, his primary goal is to cover humanity's ongoing efforts to expand beyond Earth to the Moon, Mars, and elsewhere.

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Tesla takes first step in sunsetting Model S and X with drastic move

Tesla won’t be taking custom orders of the Model S or Model X in Europe any longer.

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3 hours ago

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July 30, 2025

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Credit: @supergeek18 | X

Tesla has seemingly taken the first step in sunsetting two of its older vehicles, the Model S and Model X, by ending international orders.

The flagship sedan and SUV from Tesla are the two oldest cars in the company’s lineup. They account for a very small portion of overall sales, and several years ago, CEO Elon Musk admitted that Tesla only continues to build and sell them due to “sentimental reasons.”

Earlier this year, there were calls for Tesla to end the production of the two cars, but Lars Moravy said that the Model S and Model X were due to get some love later in 2025. That happened, but the changes were extremely minor.

Tesla launches new Model S and Model X, and the changes are slim

Some took this as an indication that Tesla has kind of moved on from the Model S and Model X. A handful of people seemed to think Tesla would overhaul the vehicles substantially, but the changes were extremely minor and included only a few real adjustments.

In Europe, customers are unable to even put a new order in on a Model S or Model X.

We noticed earlier today that Tesla pressing the ‘Order’ button on either of the flagship vehicles takes you to local inventory, and not the Design Studio where you’d configure your custom build:

Tesla simply does not make enough Model S or Model X units to justify the expensive logistics process of shipping custom orders overseas. It almost seems as if they’re that they will essentially build a bunch of random configurations, send them overseas every few months, and let them sell before replenishing inventory.

Inversely, it could also mean Tesla is truly gearing up to sunset the vehicle altogether. It seems unlikely that the company will fade them out altogether in the next couple of years, but it could absolutely think about ending international orders because volume is so low.

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Energy

Tesla inks multi-billion-dollar deal with LG Energy Solution to avoid tariff pressure

Tesla has reportedly secured a sizable partnership with LGES for LFP cells, and there’s an extra positive out of it.

Published

9 hours ago

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July 30, 2025

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has reportedly inked a multi-billion-dollar deal with LG Energy Solution in an effort to avoid tariff pressure and domesticate more of its supply chain.

Reuters is reporting that Tesla and LGES, a South Korean battery supplier of the automaker, signed a $4.3 billion deal for energy storage system batteries. The cells are going to be manufactured by LGES at its U.S. factory located in Michigan, the report indicates. The batteries will be the lithium iron phosphate, or LFP, chemistry.

Tesla delivers 384,000 vehicles in Q2 2025, deploys 9.6 GWh in energy storage

It is a move Tesla is making to avoid buying cells and parts from overseas as the Trump White House continues to use tariffs to prioritize domestic manufacturing.

LGES announced earlier today that it had signed a $4.3 billion contract to supply LFP cells over three years to a company, but it did not identify the customer, nor did the company state whether the batteries would be used in automotive or energy storage applications.

The deal is advantageous for both companies. Tesla is going to alleviate its reliance on battery cells that are built out of the country, so it’s going to be able to take some financial pressure off itself.

For LGES, the company has reported that it has experienced slowed demand for its cells in terms of automotive applications. It planned to offset this demand lag with more projects involving the cells in energy storage projects. This has been helped by the need for these systems at data centers used for AI.

During the Q1 Earnings Call, Tesla CFO Vaibhav Taneja confirmed that the company’s energy division had been impacted by the need to source cells from China-based suppliers. He went on to say that the company would work on “securing additional supply chain from non-China-based suppliers.”

It seems as if Tesla has managed to secure some of this needed domestic supply chain.

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Lifestyle

Tesla brings perhaps the coolest interior feature to cars in latest update

Tesla adds on to the “fun” aspect of its vehicles.

Published

10 hours ago

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July 30, 2025

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla has brought perhaps the coolest interior feature to its cars in a new update that is rolling out to vehicles now.

The feature will require a newer vehicle that has interior ambient lighting, which is present on the new Model S, Model X, Model 3 “Highland,” and Model Y “Juniper.” The Cybertruck also has ambient lighting strips throughout.

Tesla Model Y’s ambient lighting design changes revealed in leaked video

With the Version 2025.26+ Software Update, Tesla is rolling out a new “Sync Accent Lights w/ Music” feature, which is available on the Tesla Toybox:

To enable the feature, you’ll access the Toybox, choose “Light Sync,” and then choose “Sync Accent Lights w/ Music.”

Although it does not improve the performance of the vehicle, it is yet another example of Tesla making one of the coolest cars out there. This is truly a cool add-on that can be used to impress your friends and family.

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