On Thursday, SpaceX’s powerful new Super Heavy rocket successfully launched the company’s next-generation Starship cruise ship for the first time. But, in a sudden turn of events, the unmanned test mission ended minutes later with the spacecraft burning in the atmosphere.
SpaceX officials applauded the outcome for accomplishing the test flight’s primary goal of getting the new spacecraft off the ground in what seemed to be an otherwise flawless liftoff, even if the two-stage rocket ship could only ascend to an altitude of 20 miles (32 km).
Congratulations to @SpaceX on Starship’s first integrated flight test. Every great accomplishment in history has required a certain amount of measured risk because tremendous risk brings great reward. anticipating what SpaceX learns, the next flight test, and beyond,” NASA Chief Bill Nelson tweeted.
The two-stage rocket ship, which is 394 feet (120 meters) tall and taller than the Statue of Liberty, launched from SpaceX’s Starbase spaceport east of Brownsville, Texas, for what the firm believed would be a 90-minute test voyage into space but just short of Earth orbit.
As the Super Heavy’s Raptor engines roared to life in a ball of flame and billowing clouds of exhaust and water vapor, the rocket ship was shown ascending from the Gulf Coast launch tower into the morning sky above the southern point of Texas in a live webcast of the launch.
The combined spacecraft was spotted starting to tumble end over end before exploding less than four minutes into the flight because the upper-stage Starship was unable to separate as intended from the lower-stage Super Heavy.
Before its catastrophic explosion, the spacecraft ascended to over 20 miles (32 km).
This unfortunate incident is set to majorly affect Elon Musk and his company’s reputation as well as share. On the other hand, the world of science will have a lot to learn from this event.
