SpaceX’s Starship rocket suffered another ‘rapid unscheduled disassembly’ just minutes into its latest test flight.
Elon Musk’s company said the 400ft rocket’s six engines appeared to shut down one-by-one during lift-off, with contact lost eight-and-a-half minutes into the flight.
The spacecraft — a new and upgraded model making its debut — was supposed to soar across the Gulf of Mexico from Texas on a near loop around the world similar to previous test flights.
But video footage shows orange balls of light streaking across the sky over the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, leaving trails of smoke behind as it broke apart.
‘We did lose all communications with the ship – that is essentially telling us we had an anomaly with the upper stage,’ SpaceX Communications Manager Dan Huot said, confirming minutes later that the ship was lost.
Airlines were forced to divert flights scheduled over the Gulf of Mexico to avoid falling debris.
SpaceX CEO Musk posted a video on X showing the debris field and said: ‘Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed!’
The failure came a day after Blue Origin, billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ space company, successfully launched its giant New Glenn rocket into orbit for the first time.
It was the first flight of this new and upgraded spacecraft.
A minute it was lost, SpaceX used the launch tower’s giant mechanical arms to catch the returning booster, a feat achieved only once before.
The descending booster hovered over the launch pad before being gripped by the pair of arms dubbed chopsticks.
The thrill of the catch quickly turned into disappointment for not only the company, but the crowds gathered along the southern tip of Texas.
‘It was great to see a booster come down, but we are obviously bummed out about the ship,’ Huot said, adding it would take time to analyse the data and figure out what happened.
‘It’s a flight test. It’s an experimental vehicle.’
The last data received from the spacecraft indicated an altitude of 90 miles and a velocity of 13,245mph.
The gigantic rocket had thundered away in the late afternoon from Boca Chica Beach near the Mexican border.
The late hour ensured a daylight entry halfway around the world in the Indian Ocean. But the shiny retro-looking spacecraft never got nearly that far.
SpaceX had upgraded the spacecraft for the latest demo. The test satellites were the same size as SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites and, like the spacecraft, were meant to be destroyed upon entry.
Musk plans to launch actual Starlinks on Starships before moving on to other satellites and, eventually, crews.
It was the seventh test flight for the world’s biggest and most powerful rocket.
Nasa has reserved a pair of Starships to land astronauts on the moon later this decade. Musk’s goal is Mars.
Hours earlier in Florida, another billionaire’s rocket company – Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin – launched the newest supersized rocket, New Glenn.
The rocket reached orbit on its first flight, placing an experimental satellite thousands of miles above Earth.
But the first-stage booster was destroyed, missing its targeted landing on a floating platform in the Atlantic.
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