Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, exploded during its first flight on Thursday, but Elon Musk congratulated his SpaceX team on an “exciting” test of the spacecraft designed to send astronauts to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
The uncrewed rocket disintegrated minutes after successfully blasting off at 8:33 am Central Time (1333 GMT) from Starbase, the SpaceX spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas.
The Starship spacecraft that will eventually carry crew and cargo had been scheduled to separate from the first-stage rocket booster three minutes into the flight, but separation failed to occur and the rocket blew up in a ball of fire over the Gulf of Mexico.
Meanwhile, Elon Musk earlier claimed last month that his spacecraft had a 50% chance of exploding during launch.
The Starship rocket was the tallest ever built, roughly the size of a 40-story building, and the main goal, according to staff, was simply to get it off the launch pad.
About 20 minutes after the explosion, the billionaire congratulated the SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship.
“As if the flight test wasn’t exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly prior to stage separation,” SpaceX said in a tweet.
The first orbital launch attempt was made for the second time. The mission was supposed to take place on Monday, but it was cancelled due to a glitch moments before takeoff.
Musk tweeted Monday, “A pressurant valve appears to be frozen, so unless it starts operating soon, no launch today.”
FTS abort. Well done Booster 7 (and Ship 24)! That was still a big win. Launch site is fine and got a lot of first stage data!
Next up, Booster 9!https://t.co/npUj2AHByW pic.twitter.com/KRxBwsLlKq
— Chris Bergin – NSF (@NASASpaceflight) April 20, 2023
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