Multiple Starship test flights have failed in 2024, triggering doubts about timelines for NASA missions

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SpaceX has moved a large share of talent onto its biggest project. After a Starship vehicle caught fire during a routine fueling run in June, the company reassigned roughly 20% of engineers from the Falcon 9 team to Starship for six months, according to people familiar with the plan. The goal is to speed repairs and push faster progress on the rocket Elon Musk says could take crews to the moon and later to Mars. The approach isn’t new. SpaceX and Musk often surge staff when a problem appears. Last year, Boring Co. workers were flown to Las Vegas to revive the Prufock machine after water damage, people said. According to a report by Bloomberg, in 2018, Tesla Inc. dispatched employees from around the U.S. to California to help ramp up Model 3 production. Inside SpaceX, the additional hands are aimed at reliability work, testing of parts, and building vehicles more quickly, one person said. In August, the company said a pressurized bottle holding gaseous nitrogen had been damaged, failed, and triggered an explosion during fueling. The test-stand mishap came after a difficult run for Starship. Of three flights this year from South Texas, two vehicles broke apart early, and a third didn’t release its test satellites and spun out during descent. Those setbacks have fueled doubts about timing. SpaceX’s track record fuels confidence despite setbacks Even with the setbacks, SpaceX’s past results shape expectations. The company built the Starlink internet network and advanced reusable rockets, influencing the space sector and U.S. policy while becoming one of the most valuable private firms. Testing plays out in public, with cinematic livestreams on X, Musk’s platform. The company emphasizes learning quickly from failure, but rapid changes to machines that cost hundreds of millions can create costly chain reactions. Musk has set high…