This statement is being published in relation to the flight of SN8 which flew on January 6th 2025 at 22:00 GMT. Yesterday's mission was expected to be the final high-altitude demonstration of a Gryphon upperstage.
We chose to push this flight hard to get data on supersonic descent, but we experienced an anomaly during the final push to reach Mach 1.5 after flipping to a horizontal attitude.
This anomaly was caused by a stuck valve in the LOX delivery pipe during a hot swap from the main tanks to the landing tanks, which resulted in the internals of one of the engines on SN8 being totally inoperable.
We did this swap because there was not enough propellant in the main tanks to fire the engines while pointing the vehicle horizontally.
After this shutdown, the vehicle struggled to descend on target as it only reached Mach 0.87 instead of Mach 1.5, but we gained excellent data on flap control as a result of the failure.
At 1km, the vehicle ignited a single Aeolus 2 engine and failed to light the second engine, which previously failed during ascent. SN8 then had a total control system failure and was not able to maintain the correct orientation for splashdown.
This anomaly was in no way the engine's fault and, as a result, the F2RE rocket which utilizes the same engine on the second stage is still cleared for launching operations and will not be affected by the SN8 investigation.
SN8 Landing Attempt
Looking towards the future, our goal is to redesign Gryphon and begin prioritizing orbit. We are currently constructing a massive Build/Test/Launch site at our Base Alpha facility to support this and the first orbital flight is scheduled for May 2025.
Base Alpha
Gryphon Factory
Pad 01A at Base Alpha under construction
We will be posting progress updates regularly as our Base Alpha site slowly enters an operational state and Gryphon begins its development campaign to reach orbit.