Elon Musk’s SpaceX blows up Starship rocket after engine mishap

SpaceX’s attempt to send its Starship system into space overnight Thursday in the US ended in a blast after an engine failure forced it to blow up the rocket shortly after liftoff.

The mishap potentially complicates chief executive Elon Musk’s goal to send humans back to the Moon and to deep-space destinations including Mars. Thursday’s test was a crucial one for Starship, the largest rocket ever built, and meant to show that the vehicle could reach space and complete a partial orbit of Earth.

It also drew attention from the US Federal Aviation Administration, which said it will look into the flawed launch.

The explosion occurred just under four minutes after Starship lifted off from the company’s facility in Boca Chica, Texas. The company said it blew up Starship and its Super Heavy booster after they failed to separate. It cited problems with some of Starship’s 33 engines.

“The vehicle experienced multiple engines out during the flight test, lost altitude, and began to tumble,” SpaceX said in a statement posted on its website. “The flight termination system was commanded on both the booster and ship.”

Shortly after the explosion, Musk tweeted that the next test launch would take place “in a few months.”

The CEO congratulated employees and said he’s optimistic about the program’s progress, according to an internal email seen by Bloomberg.

“I don’t want to jinx it, but I think we are highly likely to reach orbit this year and recover the booster and ship, if not this year, certainly next year,” Musk said in the message. “Mars, here we come!”

Starship was conceived to bring people — including NASA astronauts — and cargo such as satellites into Earth’s orbit and beyond. The rocket is more powerful than any previous crewed spacecraft and taller than the Saturn V, which took humans to the Moon. The launch vehicle system also had been designed to be fully reusable, which SpaceX promises will reduce costs.

The FAA, which regulates commercial space launches, said Thursday afternoon that it would oversee an investigation of the rocket failure. The agency is responsible for ensuring uninvolved people and property aren’t damaged during such launches.

“A return to flight of the Starship/Super Heavy vehicle is based on the FAA determining that any system, process, or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety,” it said in an emailed statement.

Musk’s company, formally Space Exploration Technologies Corp., suggested on the livestream that the attempt may still provide valuable information, and that simply blasting off could be considered a success. The CEO also had sought to temper expectations earlier in the week.

“I would like to just set expectations,” Musk said during an audio discussion on Twitter on April 16. “We get far enough away from the launchpad before something goes wrong, then I think I would consider that to be a success. Just don’t blow up the launchpad.”

The attempt Thursday came after a few stops and starts. SpaceX had originally planned to launch the uncrewed test mission April 17 before calling it off about 10 minutes before the scheduled takeoff due to a frozen pressure valve on the rocket.

Musk has long been obsessed with April 20 — also known as 4/20, commonly associated with smoking marijuana — and seemingly willed the launch date into existence. When the launch was originally set for April 17, Musk tweeted that he had “a feeling it might get delayed 3 days...” And in a reply to a meme illustrating the possibility of Starship launching on April 20th, Musk wrote that it was “Fate.”

The rocket lifted off from the Starbase facility at approximately 8.33am local time on Thursday, and climbed to a peak altitude of 39km over the Gulf of Mexico, not far from Boca Chica. There, the mishap occurred, causing the vehicle to move off course and begin to tumble, the company said. At roughly four minutes, the Starship launch system exploded at 29 kilometers.

Bloomberg