Space

Both stages of SpaceX Starship rocket blow up on "successful" test flight

Both stages of SpaceX Starship rocket blow up on "successful" test flight
Starship lifiting off
Starship lifiting off
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Starship lifiting off
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Starship lifiting off
This mission was intended to test stage separation for the rocket
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This mission was intended to test stage separation for the rocket
The second stage hot separation in progress
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The second stage hot separation in progress
Starship is the largest, most powerful rocket ever built
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Starship is the largest, most powerful rocket ever built
Starship showing all 33 Raptor engines firing
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Starship showing all 33 Raptor engines firing
Starship showing the Super Heavy first stage and Starship second stage
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Starship showing the Super Heavy first stage and Starship second stage
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SpaceX's second launch attempt of its giant Starship rocket once again ended in destruction, though the company declared the test flight a success. Lifting off on November 18 at 1:03 pm CT from the Starbase launch site near Boca Chica, Texas, the Starship second stage reached the edge of space before contact was lost.

Saturday's launch follows on from the first attempt to fly a completely assembled Starship rocket on April 20, 2023, which ended four minutes into the flight when the second stage failed to separate and the launch vehicle exploded – or, as SpaceX likes to call such events, experienced a "rapid unscheduled disassembly."

This was followed by months of delays as the company incorporated new design elements into the rocket as well as a stinging FAA investigation that mandated new safety systems and a major upgrade of the launch pad at Starbase after the exhaust from the largest and most powerful rocket ever made blasted a giant hole in the concrete and scattered dust and debris for miles around.

Despite a last-minute hold at T Minus 40 seconds, the lift off of Starship initially went as planned as the 121-m (397-ft) vehicle rose from the pad under the thrust of 33 Raptor engines. The hot-fire stage separation (the first ever for a reusable rocket), was successful, but when the Falcon Super Heavy Booster first stage attempted to restart its engines for a return trajectory, a major malfunction occurred and the booster self-destructed at the three-minute, 20-second mark.

Meanwhile, the second stage, also called Starship, continued its flight as it maintained its orbital trajectory that was scheduled to terminate in a water landing off the Hawaiian Islands 90 minutes later. Unfortunately, an unknown error occurred and contact was lost over the Gulf of Mexico at about the six-minute mark. The flight terminated about eight minutes and 40 seconds into the flight with debris from Starship coming down somewhere northeast of the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Despite the early termination of both stages, SpaceX regards the mission a success because of the stage separation and Starship reaching the edge of space. The telemetry data returned will be used to improve designs and procedures in anticipation of the next test.

Source: SpaceX

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4 comments
4 comments
Steve7734
Nice to see coverage of this, but I think the tone was unnecessarily negative? This is a company trying to achieve something that has never been done before, a fully reusable giant rocket capable of lifting enormous payloads into orbit at < 1% of the cost of traditional systems. Nothing comes close and everything is new. The test on Saturday was a huge advance on the first attempt. All the launch systems survived intact and they very nearly made it orbit. I can't wait to see the next try.
jzj
I don't understand why populations and resources are set at risk -- by either private companies or governments. This launch was supposed to cross Mexico, and fortunately failed before it got there. Given that the planet's main vast area where harm is least likely is the southern Pacific ocean, why aren't all such experimental launches required to start at its edge and cross it as they attempt to gain orbit?
Busa10
What's with the "successful" negative connotation? Why not describe this and future SpaceX's advancements as "mostly successful" if they are? SpaceX openly acknowledges they will have many failures as they gather data and make improvements along their way to achieve their goals. Did you highlight the goals they achieved in this test? No. Yet they achieved significant improvement in launch pad survival, all 33 engines stayed operational, 33 engine throttle down to 3 engines worked, stage separation worked, second stage ignition worked. Then failures (yet to be determined what or how many) occurred which initiated self destruction, or as you negatively describe as "blow up".

Personally I feel this article was written as click-bait, not to inform. Don't be that way.
josefaber
Jzj,
The launch facilities are about five miles south of South Padre Island on the Gulf of Mexico.