‘Yikes’: While gaming, Musk accidentally broadcasts ‘scary’ moment of nearly aborted spacecraft landing

Elon Musk occasionally posts clips of his video games on his social media platform X, but the newest clip includes background audio of a SpaceX engineer telling Musk how the newest Starship flight test was “one second” from aborting. Clippublished on Friday, was caught by Reuters’ Joey Roulette on the X shownevertheless it is unclear whether the conversation between Musk and Starship engineers took place on the identical day.

“I want to be honest about the terrible things that happened,” an anonymous engineer said, apparently while Musk was playing Diablo IV. He went on to clarify that the misconfigured component didn’t have adequate “acceleration time to increase the spin pressure” within the amplifier.

“We were a second away from tripping and ordering the rocket to stop working and try to hit the ground next to the tower,” says the engineer.

“Wow,” Musk says in response. “Yes.”

The same engineer added that just before starting the engine in the course of the booster’s descent to Earth, the duvet on the booster skin broke off, apparently in an area that had been spot welded. “We wouldn’t have predicted the exact location, but the detached cowling was located just above several single-point emergency valves that must trip in the event of a landing burn. Fortunately, none of them or the harness were damaged, but we did rip that windshield off some really critical equipment as the landing burn was starting. We have a plan to deal with this.”

Musk was briefed on Starship’s fifth integrated test flight, called IFT-5, which took place on October 13. SpaceX has set itself essentially the most ambitious mission goals for this test, including: returning the super-heavy booster to the launch site and catching it using a pair of large baton-shaped arms extending from the launch tower.

The company managed to do that and consequently, it made history. The full context of the conversation is unclear since the clip sent to X is barely about three minutes long, nevertheless it shows that even a seemingly flawless rocket launch (and on this case, the landing of booster rockets) can come perilously near disaster. And that after each test, SpaceX receives a “final payload,” because the engineer put it, of post-flight data that forms the idea for future tests.

“We’re trying to strike a reasonable balance between speed and risk with the booster” before the following flight attempt, the engineer said. Engineers note that this shall be Starship’s first test flight, a schedule for which is just not set by the FAA. While SpaceX has typically been ahead of the regulator in terms of launch readiness in comparison with the FAA’s launch license approval schedule, the FAA actually gave approval to IFT-5 and IFT-6 at the identical time.