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18-01-2025
WASHINGTON/ NEW YORK: The latest test of Space X’s giant Starship rocket has failed, minutes after launch.
Officials at Elon Musk’s company said the upper stage was lost after problems developed after lift-off from Texas on Thursday.
The mission came hours after the first flight of the Blue Origin New Glenn rocket system, backed by Amazon boss Jeff Bezos.
The two tech billionaires both want to dominate the space vehicle market.
“Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly during its ascent burn. Teams will continue to review data from today’s flight test to better understand root cause,” SpaceX posted on X.
“With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will help us improve Starship’s reliability.”
Unverified footage on social media shows what appears to be the rocket breaking up in flames.
“Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!” Musk posted on X, sharing footage of the launch’s aftermath.
He also said “improved versions” of the ship and booster were “already waiting for launch”.
Footage of the launch clocked up 7.2m views, according to a SpaceX livestream.
The Starship system had lifted off from Boca Chica, Texas, at 17:38 EST (22:38 GMT) in the company’s seventh test mission.
The Starship upper stage separated from its Super Heavy booster nearly four minutes into flight as planned but then SpaceX Communications Manager Dan Huot reported on a live stream that mission teams had lost contact with the ship.
The Super Heavy booster managed to return to its launchpad roughly seven minutes after lift-off as planned, prompting an eruption of applause from ground control teams.
It comes a day after a SpaceX rocket blasted off from Florida carrying two privately constructed lunar landers and a micro rover to the Moon.
The un-crewed Falcon 9 launched from the Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday and Bezos’ Blue Origin Company successfully launched a rocket into orbit for the first time. It was a huge step forward for Bezos and his company that has spent years getting to the point of sending a rocket into orbit.
In March, last year SpaceX’s Starship rocket, designed to eventually send astronauts to the moon and beyond, completed nearly an entire test flight through space on its third try on Thursday, getting farther than ever before, but disintegrated on its return to Earth.
During a webcast of the flight, SpaceX commentators said mission control lost communication with Starship from two satellite systems simultaneously while the spacecraft was re-entering the planet’s atmosphere at hypersonic speed.
The spacecraft at that point was nearing a planned splashdown in the Indian Ocean, about an hour after launch from south Texas.
Contact with Starship cut out moments after a live video feed from a camera mounted on the vehicle showed high-definition images of a reddish glow enveloping the silvery spacecraft from the heat of re-entry friction as it plunged earthward.
A few minutes later, SpaceX confirmed that the spacecraft had been “lost” meaning incinerated or broken apart during the stress of re-entry.
For reasons that were left unclear, SpaceX opted to skip one of the test flight’s core objectives – an attempt to re-ignite one of Starship’s Raptor engines while it coasted in a shallow orbit. That milestone is considered key to its future success. (Int’l News Desk)
