Actually it is the same situation. The launch was fine. What blew it up is something nobody has attempted before.

It's totally different because only the government is allowed second chances! Everyone else has to get it right the first time. Especially if they're competing with <insert defense/aerospace contractors here>!

Never attempted what? Relight an engine? Engines are routinely re-lit, especially on upper stages, yet Space-X gets it wrong with regularity. The Russians and Arianespace do it just fine.

I'm sorry, what? SpaceX are the undisputed champions of re-lighting engines. They've landed orbital rockets 73+ times, each of which involves multiple engine re-lights while falling through the atmosphere. Let alone gets it wrong "with regularity" — the Falcon 9 Block 5 is a remarkably reliable rocket.

Anyway, landing Starship involves a bunch of things never before attempted: landing a fully-reusable second stage, landing a vehicle of this size, relighting and running engines during the belly-flop-and-flip maneuver, and flying and relighting full-flow staged-combustion engines. Probably some other firsts too.

Today's crash was due to failure of one engine to restart. Briz and Fregat Russian upper stages are routinely restarted, with ~ 98 % success, same with Ariane EPS and Chinese Yuanzheng. It's doable, just not for Space-X.

You realize the Raptor engine is different from the Merlin used in Falcon rockets, right?

You're comparing a prototype against decades-old, non-reusable rockets.

Briz and Fregat start much smaller - 20 kN - engines with no time constraints, while Starship re-lights 2200 kN engine and rocket immediately does rotation by 90+ degrees, and time is of essence.

Where do thrust and chamber pressure even come into the equation? It's not that the engine exploded, the thing failed to ignite.

> Where do thrust and chamber pressure even come into the equation?

Thrust given to show difference in engine scale. Pressure isn't shown - what do you mean? :)

The point is that re-light of Briz and Fregat is very different and so hard to compare.

Saying SpaceX gets it wrong regularly is LITERALLY false. SpaceX Falcon 9 is fully qualified for all DoD Orbits and has reached highest qualification for NASA Scientific Missions and Human mission for. All require demonstration of reliably relight with incredibly high reliability.

In fact, in over 100 flights, SpaceX did not have a single failure of a Second Stage engine not starting or not re-lighting. This is unlike Arianespace who just had a failure when they tried to start an engine on one of their upper stages.

Outside of that Merlin is easily the engine that can be re-lit more then any other on the planet and its not close.

This however is a non-commercial prototype, where they are testing new technologies. Its a completely new engine of a type that has never flown before and is not finished developing. The vehicle has been newly designed and it does things no other vehicle has done before in a way no other vehicle has done before.

You honestly just sound like an incredibly petty hater. I can grantee you that Russia and Europe have plenty of issues with engine starting on their development engine.