Eight minutes and twenty-nine seconds after taking off from southeast Texas, the Starship 33 spacecraft exploded over the Caribbean Sea, unleashing a shocking shower of debris that has been seen from numerous islands.
“Starship suffered an unexpected rapid disassembly during its ascent,” SpaceX explained, referring to the explosion. “Teams will continue to review data from today’s test flight to better understand why. In a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will help us improve Starship’s reliability.”
X with a photo of the Starship remains re-entering the atmosphere”/>
Remains of Starship 33 re-entering the atmosphere over the Turks and Caicos Islands
The setback contrasts with the perfect landing of the Super Heavy booster, which landed shortly before the ship’s explosion in the arms of the Mechazilla tower. Another ironic contrast is that of other giant rocket that flew today, Blue Origin’s New Glenn, which managed to reach orbit this morning, but failed to land with its first stage.
We will have to wait a few days to find out what exactly happened to the ship. We have no doubt that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will require a rigorous investigation from SpaceX, which means that Elon Musk’s company will not be able to carry out new flight tests of the rocket until the investigation is closed.
The rain of debris caused by the Starship 33 explosion over the Caribbean
We can speculate, yes. In the first minutes of the rocket’s ascent we could see a kind of loose flap on the ship. And in the seconds before it exploded, we saw fire peeking through the hinges of the rear wing.
Telemetry showed a drastic drop in the methane level before the explosion. One of the six engines shut down, and four others followed. Perhaps a methane leak caused a fire that ended up triggering an explosion or the activation of the Flight Termination System (FTS) due to the sudden shutdown of the engines.
Be that as it may, the ship exploded at 21,317 kilometers per hour over the Caribbean, causing one of the most impressive meteor showers in memory. Thousands of pieces of debris burned in the atmosphere, but fear that any would survive reentry forced planes to change course to avoid the area.
“Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed,” Elon Musk wrote in a Starship re-entry video. “There are improved versions of the ship and booster0 awaiting launch.”
Starship 33 was the first Starship Block 2, a new series of ships that incorporates a whole block of improvements in its design: smaller front ailerons located further away from the heat shield, new generation thermal tiles, larger tanks, new fuel lines for the vacuum engines and a new improved avionics module.
Images | Dean Olson, Cam Tem
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