SpaceX’s Starship spacecraft failed in space after launch, breaking off a second test but making it further than a previous attempt that ended in an early explosion.
The two-stage rocket launched from Elon Musk’s Starbase spaceport near Boca Chica, Texas, and lifted the Starship spacecraft 148 kilometres above the ground as part of a planned 90-minute test flight to space and back.
The first stage of the Super Heavy rocket, although it performed a crucial separation manoeuvre from Starship’s main stage, exploded over the Gulf of Mexico shortly after separation, SpaceX’s webcast showed.
Meanwhile, Starship’s main stage continued its journey toward space:
We have lost the data from the second stage… we think we may have lost the second stage, SpaceX engineer and livestream host John Insprucker said.
The goal of the mission was to get the starship off the ground in Texas and into space before reaching orbit, before plunging into Earth’s atmosphere and crashing off the coast of Hawaii.
Starship’s failure to meet all of its objectives could turn out to be a setback for SpaceX.
Nevertheless, a fully successful test would be a key step toward SpaceX’s goal of building a large, multi-purpose spacecraft capable of sending people and cargo to the moon for NASA later this decade, and eventually to Mars.
