SpaceX’s latest test flight of its Starship rocket on Thursday failed when the spacecraft blew up a few minutes into the mission. This follows a similar end in a previous test two months ago, during which debris rained down on the Turks and Caicos. The debris this time was spotted over Florida but was unclear if the self-destruct system of the spacecraft had been activated.
The 403-foot Starship rocket lifted off from Texas and appeared to be proceeding on course initially. The booster successfully returned to the launch pad on the first stage, using SpaceX’s massive mechanical arms. However, only minutes into the launch, problems began with the upper stage of the spacecraft. The engines began shutting down as Starship flew east to a controlled reentry over the Indian Ocean. The spacecraft became out of control and tumbled before communication was lost, ultimately breaking up.
Starship flew almost 90 miles high before encountering technical problems, which stopped it from deploying four dummy satellites as intended. Although the exact crash site is still unknown, photos of the burning wreckage were taken near Cape Canaveral and widely circulated on social media.
The aborted one-hour journey. SpaceX commentator Dan Huot owned up to the failure, citing, “Unfortunately, this did happen last time too, so we have some practice at this now.” Space Exploration Technologies informed that following the mishap, the rocket performed “a rapid unscheduled disassembly” upon ascent, a pre-programmed emergency shutdown, which was orchestrated by the SpaceX crew in synchronization with safety agencies.
This was the eighth test flight of SpaceX Starship, which is central to NASA’s approach to sending astronauts to the moon later this decade. Elon Musk envisions Starship going to Mars in the far future, and it will be the most powerful and largest rocket in the world. The test flights, such as mock satellites of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites, are dress rehearsals for upcoming missions.
Despite the failure to launch, SpaceX continues to push forward with the development of its Starship program and is poised to keep testing and refining its technology for its upcoming space exploration missions.
