The third time was apparently the spell for Elon Musk’s Starship rocket – until it was not.
The latest prototype of SpaceX’s heavy pilot vehicle shot flawlessly into the air in a high-altitude test blast Wednesday from Boca Chica, Texas, and then flew back to Earth for the first upright landing for a Starship. model.
But the triumph was of short duration. The spacecraft, which was listed slightly on one side as an automatic fire suppression system, trained a stream of water on flames that were still burning at the bottom of the rocket, blowing it to pieces about eight minutes after contact.
It was the third such landing attempt to end in a fireball after an otherwise successful test flight for the Starship, developed by SpaceX to transport humans and 100 tons of cargo on future missions to the moon and Mars.
For Musk, the billionaire SpaceX founder, who also heads electric car maker Tesla, the result was mixed news.
The Starship SN10 came much closer to a safe, vertical touch than two previous models – SN8 in December and SN9 in February. In a tweet in response to moderate congratulations from an admirer of his work, Musk replies: “RIP SN10, honorable dismissal.”
The video stream hosted by SpaceX on the company’s YouTube channel was cut off moments after landing. But separate fans streaming across the same platform on social media showed that an explosion suddenly erupted at the bottom of the rocket and the SN10 hurled into the air before crashing to the ground and engulfing in flames.
The full Starship rocket, which will stand 120 meters long when paired with its super-heavy first-phase booster, is SpaceX’s next-generation fully reusable launch vehicle – at the heart of Musk’s ambitions to make human space travel affordable. . and routine.
A first Star Ship flight is planned for the year-end. Musk said he plans to fly Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa with the Starship around the moon in 2023.