• Source:JND
Add as a preferred

The Elon Musk-led SpaceX on Thursday launched its Starship, but fell short of reaching space after suffering a mid-flight failure.


According to news agency AFP, the gigantic rocket blasted off at 8:33 a.m. Central Time (1333 GMT) from Starbase, the private SpaceX spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas. 

Standing taller than the Statue of Liberty at 394 feet (120 metres) high, the two-stage rocket ship blasted off from the company's Starbase spaceport east of Brownsville, Texas, for what SpaceX hoped, at best, would be a 90-minute debut flight into space but just shy of Earth orbit.

The live webcast from SpaceX showed the rocket ship rising from the launch tower into the morning sky as the Super Heavy's Raptor engines roared to life in a ball of flame and billowing clouds of exhaust and water vapor.

But less than four minutes into the flight, the upper-stage Starship failed to separate as designed from the lower-stage Super Heavy, and the combined vehicle was seen flipping end over end before exploding.

SpaceX principal integration engineer John Insprucker, serving as one of the webcast commentators, said the test flight would provide a wealth of important data, paving the way for the company to move ahead with additional tests.

Musk, the founder and chief executive of SpaceX, said on Twitter that the next Starship test launch would be "in a few months."

"Congrats @SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship! Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months," he tweeted.

Also In News