SpaceX's Starship, the ambitious spacecraft designed to carry astronauts to the moon and beyond, is presumed to have encountered another failure just minutes after successfully reaching space on November 18. This setback follows a similar incident during its first attempt, which ended in a catastrophic explosion.
The two-stage rocket, launched from SpaceX's Starbase launch site near Boca Chica in Texas, soared approximately 55 miles (90 km) above the ground, marking a planned 90-minute flight into space. The Super Heavy first stage booster, responsible for propelling the Starship into orbit, appeared to achieve a crucial maneuver to separate from its core stage. However, moments after detaching, the first stage booster exploded over the Gulf of Mexico.
Simultaneously, the core Starship booster continued its trajectory toward space. Approximately 10 minutes into the flight, SpaceX mission control reported a loss of contact with the vehicle.
"We have lost the data from the second stage... we think we may have lost the second stage," SpaceX's livestream host, John Insprucker, stated.
This launch represented SpaceX's second attempt to send Starship, mounted atop its towering Super Heavy rocket booster, into space. The initial test in April ended in failure about four minutes after liftoff.
The primary objective of this test flight was to successfully propel Starship into space, just shy of Earth's orbit. Achieving this milestone was crucial for SpaceX's broader ambitions, aiming to develop a large, multi-purpose spacecraft capable of facilitating human missions to the moon and Mars. Elon Musk, SpaceX's founder and chief engineer, envisions Starship eventually replacing the Falcon 9 rocket, currently the cornerstone of the company's launch business.
NASA, SpaceX's primary customer, has a vested interest in the success of Starship, relying on it for the Artemis program, the successor to the Apollo missions. The Artemis program aims to return humans to the moon later this decade.
The mission's original plan involved launching Starship in Texas and guiding it into space, just shy of reaching orbit, before a controlled descent through Earth's atmosphere for a splashdown off the coast of Hawaii. The launch, initially scheduled for November 17, faced a one-day delay due to a last-minute swap of flight-control hardware.
During the April 20 test flight, the spacecraft self-destructed less than four minutes into the planned 90-minute flight. SpaceX attributed the failure to malfunctions in some of the Super Heavy's 33 Raptor engines and the lower-stage booster rocket's failure to separate from the upper-stage Starship as intended.
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