Perfect landing for SpaceX but ends in flames
Print Edition
THE third time appeared to be the charm for Elon Musk’s Starship rocket — until it wasn’t.
The latest heavy-duty launch vehicle prototype from SpaceX soared more than 10 kilometers after lifting off from the southern tip of Texas on Wednesday. It descended horizontally over the Gulf of Mexico and then flipped upright just in time to land.
The shiny bullet-shaped rocketship remained intact this time at touchdown, prompting SpaceX commentator John Insprucker to declare, “third time’s a charm as the saying goes.”
But the triumph was short-lived. Listing slightly to one side as an automated fire-suppression system trained a stream of water on flames still burning at the base of the rocket, the spacecraft blew itself to pieces about eight minutes after touchdown.
“As if the flight test was not exciting enough, SN10 experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly shortly after landing,” SpaceX joked on its website, without giving an explanation for the explosion.
It was the third such landing attempt to end in a fireball after an otherwise successful test flight for the Starship, being developed by SpaceX to carry humans and 100 tons of cargo on future missions to the moon and Mars.
For Musk, the billionaire SpaceX founder who also heads the electric carmaker Tesla Inc, the outcome was mixed news.
The Starship SN10 came far closer to achieving a safe, vertical touchdown than two previous models — SN8 in December and SN9 in February. In a tweet responding to tempered congratulations from an admirer of his work, Musk replied, “RIP SN10, honorable discharge.”
The video feed provided by SpaceX on the company’s YouTube channel cut off moments after the landing. But separate fan feeds streamed over the same social media platform showed an explosion suddenly erupting at the base of the rocket, hurling the SN10 into the air before it crashed to the ground and became engulfed in flames.
The tests take place in a nearly deserted area leased by SpaceX in South Texas near the border with Mexico and Gulf of Mexico — the area is vast and empty enough that an accident or explosion would not likely cause damage or fatalities.
The complete Starship rocket, which will stand 120 meters tall when mated with its super-heavy first-stage booster, is SpaceX’s next-generation fully reusable launch vehicle — the center of Musk’s ambitions to make human space travel more affordable and routine.
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