By T+0:00:06 at the latest, the Super Heavy carrying Starship for Integrated Flight Test 4 appears to have lost an engine (source and image). I know it's not a huge deal, as they can complete missions with engines out, but do we have any idea why this engine actually cut off? Was it an intentional test conducted by SpaceX, the computer cutting it off automatically at launch due to it not falling in normal parameters, or an actual malfunction in flight?
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4$\begingroup$ You'll need to ask spacex, they've not published anything about this, nor are they likely to based on previous flights $\endgroup$– Alan BirtlesCommented Jul 12 at 4:37
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$\begingroup$ Yes nobody knows except SpaceX. My guess is that it was just a duff engine. With 33 engines the chance of a problem with one of them is still quite high at this stage, especially as Musk has set his sights on Raptor version 3 now, which is probably where all the development, testing and tweaking effort is going currently. The v2 engine is probably good enough until V3 comes online. $\endgroup$– SlartyCommented Jul 12 at 11:36
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$\begingroup$ Frankly it could have been nearly anything. A breakdown in the plumbing itself, an ignition instability, overheating, a faulty sensor that thought there was a breakdown or instability or overheating... It's impossible to guess. The flight computer will kill any engines that don't seem to be behaving correctly, to avoid risking an explosion that might take out additional engines (or the whole ship), but it would require access to the engineering telemetry (and their books of error codes, most likely) to know precisely what issue led to the shutdown. $\endgroup$– Darth PseudonymCommented Jul 12 at 19:15
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1$\begingroup$ @StevePemberton space.stackexchange.com/q/61988/6944 $\endgroup$– Organic MarbleCommented Jul 19 at 21:24
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1$\begingroup$ @OrganicMarble - Thanks I somehow missed that discussion. $\endgroup$– Steve PembertonCommented Jul 20 at 15:51
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