Billionaire Elon Musk's Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, designed to carry astronauts to the Moon and Mars suffered a catastrophic explosion during its first test flight on Thursday. The rocket was undergoing its inaugural integrated flight test when it experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before separating from the booster.
The incident occurred at the three-minute mark, as the rocket began to flip for the separation stage. The commentators noted an issue with the test flight as the rocket continued to rotate instead of separating from the booster, before exploding in the sky.
Although the full flight test was not completed, SpaceX declared the launch a success, stating that the company had cleared the tower, which was their main hope. Kate Tice, a SpaceX quality systems engineer, emphasized that the test flight would provide valuable insights to help improve Starship's reliability, as SpaceX continues to pursue the goal of making life multi-planetary.
Elon Musk had expressed reservations about the launch, cautioning that technical difficulties were likely and downplaying expectations for the inaugural test flight. After the first attempt was called off on Monday due to a pressurization issue in the booster stage, there was great anticipation for the launch. SpaceX has indicated that the next Starship test will take place again in a few months.
