An interesting video:
Now that Starship Flight 12 is completed, how did the new V3 Booster performance compare to the older Flight 11 V2 Booster and did the redesign, higher TWR and flight path management really make a big difference?
— Joe Tegtmeyer 🚀 🤠🛸😎 (@JoeTegtmeyer) May 28, 2026
I thought we would look at one aspect of the Booster design to… pic.twitter.com/warED6lfmH
Unsurprisingly, the FAA is going to require a mishap investigation before the next flight, but SpaceX is certainly already engaged in it.
I’ll comment before I watch the video and see how I did via comparison. I think they have some significant work ahead to better understand the liquid dynamics in the new SuperHeavy booster. Not insurmountable but non-trivial. I anticipate some type of anomaly with the booster on the next flight as well. If fluid dynamics are inducing engine instablility that leads to a critical failure, the lack of protection in V3 will tend to lead to multiple engine failures to which the older version was more immune. There is also the issue with the flip manuever. Dynamics on engine start of Starship will need a closer examination. I fully expect on the SuperHeavy booster either more engines running next time or the ones that are running are doing so with a little more power.
The classification of this rocket AFAIK is still Experimental. If my experiment generates unexpected results that often is a good thing. What does a deviation from expected mean? In this case you can’t necessarily claim it is bad. You can say it was unexpected, and maybe your expectation was wrong. If my rocket were classified as Operational/Commercial then a deviation could justifiably be termed a mishap. If my experiment causes physical harm either property or people then the lack of anticipation is an issue. The mishap was an issue with planning not performance.
The booster engine lost on ascent might well have sustained some undetected damage during the aborted 33-engine static fire. Best fix – don’t have any more static fire aborts. Next best fix – improve post-abort engine inspection to catch smaller bits of damage.
The rest of the engine problems are almost certainly downstream of the seriously off-nominal booster flip at staging. Engine plumbing optimized for a nominal flip isn’t likely to behave well when the flip is seriously off-angle.
The lost Rvac was probably the engine whose plume impinged one of the grid fins at staging. All sorts of wonky acoustic effects there.
Bottom line? Fix the pad to eliminate static fire aborts. Fix the hot-staging booster flip. Those two things, once done, should yield nominal ascents.