SpaceX’s Starship – the most powerful space rocket ever built – has blown up shortly its after launch in Texas
There were tense scenes as the launch was halted with two seconds to go, before it was given the final go-ahead minutes later
It took off, but when the booster tried to separate, systems failed, and SpaceX blew it up to end its flight
Elon Musk congratulated his team on an exciting test launch – and said they would try again in a few months’ time
The rocket was initially due to launch on Monday, but it was halted with minutes to go because of a frozen valve
The rocket is being put to the test in the belief it could eventually usher in an era of interplanetary travel. Starship took off on time, it took a little while to get off the pad, it was very slow getting away.
It appeared as though when the rocket was climbing up through the sky that some of the engines on the base of the Super Heavy Booster weren’t firing. I counted six, out of 33.
Engineers may have made the decision just to shut them down.
They went through Max-Q – the moment when the aerodynamic loads on the vehicle are at their greatest – they survived that, they continued on going.
But it was at that key moment when the bottom half of the rocket — the Super Heavy Booster – is supposed to separate from the top half of the ship and go on by itself up into space.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1649052609590992901?s=20SpaceX will be thrilled with how far they got – they didn’t destroy the launch pad, they got clear and they got tonnes of data.
I think for a first go, they will be amazed at what they achieved. They already have another rocket virtually ready to go, and that rocket has a huge range of improvements on what they learned building this one. Starship to test launch again in ‘a few months’ – Musk
SpaceX owner Elon Musk has commented on today’s launch in the last few minutes, adding that another attempt will be made “in a few months”.
“Congrats SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship! Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months,” he says.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1649052609590992901?s=46&t=bC9rXNhOjvr-U1ffFr-F3gStarship exploded minutes into the flight, but as we’ve been reporting, engineers still class the launch as a success, and say they will review the data collected as they work towards the next test.