Ship Damage

[Malcolm_Reynalds]

did you land between taking the damage and getting blown up?

Because every time a player lands the game "saves" the player's character and his/her ship status. if your ship took damage, by any means, when you land you damage is also "saved". So if you were to take off without repairing your ship and are destroyed, again by whatever means, your ship will revert to it's last "saved" state; and if that's a damaged state, no matter how you kill yourself your ship will never be repaired upon re-spawn.