SpaceX’s Starship explodes after launch of test flight — but that wasn’t unexpected

SpaceX’s Starship rocket lifted off Thursday morning from the company’s facilities in south Texas, and a few minutes into the flight, it exploded in midair. 

“What an exciting morning here at Starbase,” said Kate Tice, a quality systems engineer at SpaceX. “We had a successful liftoff, and we cleared the tower, which was really our only hope for today.” 

Thursday’s launch was SpaceX’s second attempt at Starship’s first fully-integrated test flight. The flight is a crucial step in Starship’s development, as it could one day return astronauts to the moon or Mars. 

Ahead of the test flight, CEO Elon Musk stressed that the rocket might not make it to orbit. So, when the flight ended in a midair explosion, engineers were not surprised.

“Starship gave us a spectacular end to what’s been an exciting test,” John Insprucker, an engineer at SpaceX, said on the launch broadcast.

Musk agreed, tweeting his excitement as well as an optimistic outlook that Starship would fly again soon.

Liftoff occurred a bit behind schedule as the team worked through a couple of brief issues that popped up late in the countdown. Cheers erupted as a massive cloud of smoke billowed from the rocket’s 33 first stage engines. The rocket seemed to rise slowly off the pad as views from the ground and the rocket delivered incredible images of the launch. 

As the rocket was climbing, onlookers could see that at least three of the rocket’s engines did not light. According to Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder, that should not have slowed Starship down. 

The massive rocket, which is said to be twice as powerful as the Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo moon missions, is made up of two parts: a Super Heavy booster, powered by 33 methane-fueled Raptor engines; and a Starship upper stage, which is powered by six Raptor engines.

The first launch attempt on Monday ended prematurely after a problem with a valve created pressurization issues on the rocket’s first stage. Engineers opted to switch gears and treat the remainder of the launch attempt as a wet dress rehearsal, which is essentially a practice run that takes teams through all the steps for launch minus the actual launch. 

So far, the team does not know what went wrong in Thursday’s test that caused the vehicle to explode in midair.

Regardless, Insprucker and the team say that this flight was a success that allows them to learn how to ultimately develop a better Starship.