By Aaron Miller-
Elon Musk’s SpaceX has suffered a major failed test flight of its Starship rocket, which appears to have exploded during a landing attempt today.
The unscrewed prototype was successfully launched from Boca Chica in Texas this morning for its fourth major test flight.
The Starship WAS destroyed during a crash landing, though poor weather conditions mean the details are still unclear.
The livestream of the launch froze as the rocket came in to land, while thick fog made it difficult to view the landing.
“We do appear to have lost all the data from the vehicle,” SpaceX engineer John Insprucker said during the webcast video. “We’re going to have to find out from the team what happened.”
The launch of the prototype Serial Number 11 — or SN11 — had already been delayed twice, making this disastrous explosion all the more worrying.
Three previous launches of the SN8, SN9 and SN10 have also ended in explosions.
Looks like engine 2 had issues on ascent & didn’t reach operating chamber pressure during landing burn, but, in theory, it wasn’t needed.
Musk himself claimed there had been problems with the engine.
He said: “Looks like engine 2 had issues on ascent & didn’t reach operating chamber pressure during landing burn, but, in theory, it wasn’t needed,” Musk wrote in a tweet following the test flight.
“Something significant happened shortly after landing burn start. Should know what it was once we can examine the bits later today.”
Replays later showed a huge flashes of light and debris falling to the ground. Musk appeared to acknowledge the explosion, writing: “At least the crater is in the right place!”
Despite the setback, the bullish billionaire said SpaceX’s next prototype, the SN15, would be on the launch pad “in a few days”.
SpaceX’s Starship SN11 is the fourth prototype of the rocket that could one day fly to Mars to be destroyed at Boca Chica. SN11 launched at exactly 2pm BST today, carried to an altitude of 32,000ft (10km).
The 164ft-tall rocket launched under a heavy blanket of fog and many fans watching SpaceX’s live stream of the test flight had no idea what was going.
The frozen stream made it hard to see what happened when SN11 crashed into the launch pad.
A separate stream by NASA Spaceflight caught the moment a loud boom ripped across the pad and debris from the rocket was thrown into the air.
Elon Musk took to Twitter shortly after the crash landing, to speculate about what happened.
According to the Musk, one of the rocket’s engines suffered on the way up.
Mr Musk tweeted: “Looks like engine 2 had issues on ascent and didn’t reach operating chamber pressure during landing burn, but, in theory, it wasn’t needed.
“Something significant happened shortly after landing burn start.
“Should know what it was once we can examine the bits later today.”
What is clear, however, is the rocket did not miss the launch pad despite the unfortunate weather conditions..
Mr Musk said in a tweet: “At least the crater is in the right place.”
“SN15 rolls to launch pad in a few days.
“It has hundreds of design improvements across structures, avionics/software and engine.
“Hopefully, one of those improvements covers this problem. If not, then retrofit will add a few more days.”