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SpaceX’s shiny bullet-shaped spacecraft exploded during landing after a six-and-a-half-minute test flight in a remote corner of Texas.
It was the highest and most elaborate flight yet for the rocket that, according to Elon Musk, could take people to Mars in just six years. Despite the catastrophic ending, Musk was excited.
“Mars, here we go!” he tweeted.
The SN8 prototype, the first to be equipped with a nose cone, body flaps and three engines, fired at an altitude of up to eight miles (12.5 km). That’s almost 100 times higher than previous jumps and skimming the stratosphere.
Starship seemed to hit the mark or at least get closer. There was no immediate word from SpaceX on how high it was.
The large-scale stainless steel model, 160 feet (50 m) high and 30 feet (9 m) in diameter, rose over the Gulf of Mexico. After about five minutes, it rolled onto its side as planned and descended in free fall toward the southeastern tip of Texas, near the Mexican border. The Raptor engines came back on to brake and the rocket tipped back. However, when it made landfall, the rocket was engulfed in flames and broke apart, and the parts scattered.
The entire flight, as dramatic and eye-catching as it sounds, even by SpaceX standards, lasted six minutes and 42 seconds and was streamed live on its website. Repeated delays over the past week and an aborted last-second engine Tuesday added to excitement among space fans.
Musk called it a “successful climb” and said the body’s flaps precisely guided the rocket to the landing point. However, the fuel tank pressure was low when the engines were turned back on for landing, causing Starship to go down too fast.
“But we got all the data we needed!” tweeted.
Musk had kept expectations low, warning earlier this week that there was “probably” a one-in-three chance of total success.
Jeff Bezos of Amazon, who founded the rocket company Blue Origin, offered quick congratulations. “Anyone who knows how difficult this is is blown away by today’s Starship test.”
Two shorter and shorter SpaceX test flights earlier this year from Boca Chica, Texas, a sleepy coastal town before SpaceX moved in, used more rudimentary versions of Starship. Essentially cylindrical cans and individual Raptor engines, these early vehicles reached altitudes of 490 feet (150 m). An even earlier model, the short and chubby Starhopper, made a small tied jump in 2019, followed by two increasingly higher climbs.
Wednesday’s test comes days after the last supply of SpaceX’s space station to NASA, and less than a month after the company’s second flight of astronauts from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center.
Starship is actually the top stage of Musk’s lunar and mars ships. It will launch on a still-in-development mega drive known as the Super Heavy. The entire vehicle will soar 394 feet (120 m), or 31 feet (9.4 m) higher than NASA’s Saturn V rocket that sent men to the moon half a century ago.
SpaceX intends to use Starship to put massive satellites into orbit around Earth, as well as to transport people and cargo to the Moon and Mars. Earlier this year, SpaceX was one of three major contractors chosen by NASA to develop lunar landers capable of getting astronauts to the moon by 2024.
Just before Wednesday’s launch, NASA unveiled the 18 American astronauts who will train for the Artemis lunar landing program.
While accepting an award in Berlin last week, Musk said he is “very confident” in a human flight to Mars in six years or “if we’re lucky, maybe four years.” But Musk is the first to admit that his schedules may be too optimistic.
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