SpaceX Mars rocket prototype explodes
A prototype of SpaceX’s Starship rocket
exploded during a landing attempt minutes after an experimental launch in Texas on Tuesday, in a repeat of an accident that destroyed a previous test rocket. The Starship SN9 that blew up on its final descent, like the SN8 before it, was a test model of the heavylift rocket being developed by Elon Musk’s private space company for future missions to the moon and Mars. The self-guided rocket initially soared on what appeared to be a flawless liftoff. Reaching its peak altitude of 10km, it then hovered momentarily in midair, shut off its engines and executed a planned “belly-flop” manoeuvre to descend back. The trouble came when it tried to reactivate two of its three thrusters, but one failed to ignite. The rocket then fell rapidly, exploding in a roaring ball of flames.
WASHINGTON: A prototype of a SpaceX rocket that the company hopes will one day journey to Mars crashed in a fireball as it tried to land upright after a test flight on Tuesday. It was the second such accident after the last prototype of Starship met a similar fate in December.
“We had again another great flight,” said SpaceX announcer John Insprucker. “We’ve just got to work on that landing a little bit,” he added. The company’s founder Elon Musk was quiet on social media, having announced the night before he was “off Twitter for a while”.
The steel rocket, dubbed SN9 or Serial Number 9, was cleared for lift-off from Boca Chica, Texas by the US Federal Aviation Administration less than a day earlier. The rocket launched smoothly around 2.35pm and shut down its engines as it reached a height of 10km, then performed a series of test manoeuvres in a horizontal “belly flop” position.
It was when the rocket attempted to return to a vertical position for landing that the problems began, with the footage showing it came in too fast and at a bad angle. It landed with a deafening crash, and exploded into orange flames and a dust cloud, but the fire did not spread.
The company’s next prototype rocket, dubbed SN10, appeared to be not damaged on a nearby launchpad.
Tuesday’s launch was delayed by several days over problems stemming from SpaceX’s last Starship test carried out on December 9, which had gone up in flames.