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SpaceX claims it pulled the trigger that exploded Starship in midair on Thursday during its second attempt at orbital flight.
The massive 395-foot stack, consisting of the Super Heavy booster and Starship, launched at 9:33 a.m. ET for its first orbital launch, but burst into flames four minutes after liftoff.
As Elon Musk’s company activated the flight termination system, the massive Super Heavy craft failed to separate, sending it into an uncontrolled deadly spin.
Thousands of people lined the South Texas facility to watch as Starship ignited its 33 powerful Raptor engines and rocketed into space before experiencing a rapid unplanned teardown.
The result wasn’t ideal, but Elon Musk, NASA and the SpaceX team are celebrating success – the main goal was to get Starship off the launch pad.
DailyMail.com has broken down the path of Starship’s journey from explosion to fire.
Elon Musk’s Starship rocket took off from South Texas at 9:33 a.m. ET for the first flight that would have completed a near-circle of the Earth, but SpaceX claims it pulled the trigger that exploded Starship in midair as the two stages were separated failed
Musk had prepared the world for an explosion ahead of Thursday’s mission, stating there was a 50 percent chance the spacecraft could explode during the test flight.
But any setbacks will still be extremely costly. Musk has said the entire program will cost somewhere between $3 billion and $10 billion.
SpaceX Principal Integration Engineer John Insprucker said during the company’s live stream, “This was a development test.
“It’s Starship’s first test flight. And the goal is to collect the data and, as we said, clear the path and get it ready to go again.
So you never quite know what’s going to happen. But as we promised, thrills are guaranteed. And Starship gave us quite a spectacular ending to what has been a really incredible test so far.”
Thursday was SpaceX’s second attempt this week — its first scrubbed Monday due to a frozen pressure valve.
SpaceX started the day by filling Starship with liquid oxygen and liquid methane, followed by a cold engine.
As 9:30 a.m. ET approached, the team announced that the wind was “looking good” for launch and no problems had been observed.
The massive 395-foot stack, consisting of the Super Heavy booster and Starship, launched at 9:33 a.m. ET for its first orbital launch
The mission started promisingly as Starship traveled 1,242 miles per hour through the sky, climbing higher and higher with every second
However, the sense of hope turned sour when the countdown clock struck 40 seconds and the flight director called to make last-minute checks.
The world waited what seemed like an eternity for the team to decide the fate of the mission.
But within a few seconds, the clock was running and at zero Super Heavy’s Raptor engines ignited, releasing 16.5 million pounds of thrust at launch and the craft underway.
The mission got off to a promising start as Starship traveled 1,242 miles per hour through the sky, climbing higher and higher with every second.
The cheers in the control room grew louder and louder as Starship made its way to space.
Two minutes into launch, Insprucker said the rocket was preparing for phase separation after three minutes.
The main engine stopped as planned after two minutes and 51 seconds, but the cone of the upper stage spun back toward Earth — and the rocket went into a tailspin after three minutes and 31 seconds.
The main engine shut down as planned after two minutes and 51 seconds, but the top stage cone spun back toward Earth — and the rocket went into a tailspin after three minutes and 31 seconds
After three minutes and 59 seconds, a fireball shot out of the Super Heavy, obliterating the stack in midair
However, the SpaceX team hadn’t given up on the mission yet, noting that they were waiting for the stages to separate even though the rocket was spinning in circles.
“It looks like we’ve seen the beginning of the somersault, but we clearly see from the ground cameras that the entire Starship stack continues to spin,” Insprucker said.
“We should have broken up by now, this clearly doesn’t seem to be a nominal situation.”
And after three minutes and 59 seconds, a ball of fire shot out of the Super Heavy, obliterating the stack in midair.
The live stream spun to teams in the control room cheering for the rocket’s success, even though the orbital flight was not a success.
The mission was intended to see the craft rocket 150 miles high into the atmosphere before sailing for an hour and crashing into the Pacific Ocean.
Despite not completing the full flight test, SpaceX declared it a success.
“We cleared the tower, which was our only hope,” Kate Tice, a SpaceX quality systems engineer, said during the live-streamed event.
“With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help us improve the reliability of Starship as SpaceX tries to make life multi-planetary,” SpaceX tweeted.