There is also a startup time for each engine, so if one fails Starship will likely hit the ground before they can light another.
There are enough engines that a failure on ascent can be handled gracefully but landing is another story.
With respect to failure on ascent, I imagine in that case they just send up another starship and transfer in orbit (coming down has always been the hard part).
But this is totally question to Raptor creators. Might be not really feasible or even meaningful.
If they decide to lift the StarShip from sea level completely full they will need to use only sea level engines (not vacuum optimized) or risk engine damage. Of course in production the booster will put the StarShip (upper stage) well above sea level.
Caveat: Did I mistake the scope here? I’ve not checked to see at what point in the trajectory the engine actually failed as I am at work.
*deal with - meaning land successfully anyway
Define "deal with". This rocket did 100% of what any rocket was ever supposed to do, before SpaceX came along and redefined what a rocket is supposed to do: go up.
Manned space flight kind of has this kind of important additional requirement that things like ICBMs don't, which is that they can't just "go up" the have to come back down and not end in a ball of fire.
It feels to me like there is no backup plan for engine failures, but they can take so many paths here that I don't think anyone knows except people within SpaceX. Example paths:
* Don't launch it with people until it has landed unmanned so frequently that everyone trusts it. * Land cargo versions like this to get max payload, while manned versions light a lot sooner, with possibly more engines, and sacrifice some fuel for increased reliability. * Catch starship just like the booster in case of failure, with a longer travel to support higher speeds and lower G's. * Add a parachute or increase the flap sizes to lower terminal speed so much that it is survivable to land without engines.
The test articles for the first stage are still being built and are expected to land similar to the falcon 9, which the big difference that Elon is talking about them being catched by a tower instead of landing on their own legs. This seems far enough away though that I would not be surprised if that changes radically.
It'll be interesting to see what exactly happened with SN9, there's some clear video footage of piece flying off the rocket right as it was doing the flip maneuver.