Image: © JHVEPhoto/Stock.adobe.com
The rocket exploded minutes after taking off from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas.
On Thursday (6 March), only minutes after taking off for its eighth test flight, SpaceX’s Starship exploded, with falling debris disrupting flights in Miami, Orlando and other parts of Florida.
The 403ft spacecraft took off from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas and is the second failure for Elon Musk’s space programme this year.
In January, SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft was destroyed during its seventh test flight when the craft’s engines shut down one by one before all contact was lost. This led to a rapid unscheduled disassembly.
In yesterday’s incident, it seemed as though all was going to plan, with the Super Heavy first stage booster falling back to Earth and grabbed midair by the launch tower’s giant mechanical arms, nicknamed ‘chopsticks’. However, in events mirroring the previous failure, SpaceX’s livestream indicated that the upper stage had begun to spin, the rocket’s engineers were shutting down and contact with the spacecraft had been lost.
In a statement, SpaceX said, “an energetic event in the aft portion of Starship resulted in the loss of several Raptor engines. This in turn led to a loss of attitude control and ultimately a loss of communications with Starship. Final contact with Starship came approximately 9 minutes and 30 seconds after liftoff.
“Starship flew within a designated launch corridor to safeguard the public both on the ground, on water and in the air. Following the anomaly, SpaceX teams immediately began coordination with the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration], ATO (air traffic control) and other safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency responses.”
Had the mission gone as planned, the craft would have completed one full revolution of the Earth and re-entered over the Indian Ocean.
SpaceX has claimed that any debris “would have fallen within the designated Debris Response Area” and that there will be “no significant impacts” on marine species or water quality as a result.
“With a test like this, success comes from what we learn and today’s flight will help us improve Starship’s reliability. We will conduct a thorough investigation, in coordination with the FAA and implement corrective actions to make improvements on future Starship flight tests.”
In early March, there was success for Firefly Aerospace, which saw the Blue Ghost lunar lander touchdown on the moon’s surface, after travelling more than 2.8m miles in 45 days. The spacecraft was launched from the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
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