SpaceX’s giant new rocket blasted off on its first test flight Thursday but failed minutes after rising from the launch pad.
Elon Musk’s company was aiming to send the nearly 400-foot Starship rocket on a round-the-world trip from the southern tip of Texas, near the Mexican border. It carried no people or satellites; both the booster and spacecraft on top were to be ditched into the sea.
Throngs of spectators watched from South Padre Island, several miles away from the Boca Chica Beach launch site, which was off limits. Space’s first try to launch the rocket was called off Monday because of a stuck valve in the rocket during fueling.
Previously: SpaceX scrubs launch of Starship’s first integrated test flight from Texas
Meet the SpaceX Starship: It’s larger and more powerful than Artemis SLS. But will it fly?
Here’s what to know about the launch.
What’s the plan for Starship’s test flight?
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After liftoff from Starbase, Starship and Super Heavy will fly east over the Gulf of Mexico.
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Once the booster’s job is done, it will separate and attempt a soft landing in the waters of the Gulf.
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Starship will continue on through the Straits of Florida, perform nearly one orbit, and, to ensure public safety, end in the Pacific Ocean with a controlled water landing of its own.
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Though SpaceX is perhaps most well-known for landing its Falcon 9 boosters on land and drone ships, Starship and Super Heavy will be doomed to a watery grave for this mission. SpaceX will not attempt to recover any parts of the spacecraft.
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There is no customer payload flying on this demonstration mission.
What is Starship?
Starship is SpaceX’s version of a next-generation launch system designed to take humans, cargo, and payloads to Earth orbit, the moon, and Mars.
It’s been likened to something out of science fiction thanks to its reflective, stainless steel outer shell.
The vehicle comes in two parts: Super Heavy, a massive booster outfitted with 33 Raptor engines that will lift Starship, a 164-foot-tall spacecraft that can transport humans and cargo beyond low-Earth orbit. It produces more thrust than the Saturn V rocket of the Apollo era and NASA’s current Space Launch System.
To date, SpaceX is estimated to have spent at least several billion dollars on the Starship program.
Why is Starship important?
Musk’s reason for efforting Starship and Super Heavy hinges on his belief that humanity needs to become a multi-planetary, space-faring species sooner rather than later.
Musk sees Starship as the vehicle that will help SpaceX fulfill its vision of putting human boots on Mars. He ultimately wants hundreds of people traveling to the red planet in each Starship.
NASA last year awarded SpaceX $2.9 billion specifically for Starship, which is envisioned as the lunar lander for the agency’s Artemis program. If that architecture works out, it will take the next set of American astronauts from lunar orbit down to the surface of the moon during the Artemis III mission. The astronauts will use NASA’s Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule to reach lunar orbit before docking with Starship, which will be waiting for them.
“As part of (the original) contract, SpaceX will also conduct an uncrewed demonstration mission to the moon prior to Artemis III,” NASA said late last year when it awarded a second contract to SpaceX for Starship development worth $1.15 billion.
So far, the rocket has only made short sub-orbital test flights. An orbital flight is a major step toward preparing for that moon mission which is expected sometime before 2030.
Has Starship launched before?
Previous test flights, which often ended explosively, only featured the Starship vehicle itself, but this time the combined 400-foot vehicle is launching from Texas.
SpaceX began building the first stainless steel prototype of Starship, known as “Starhopper,” in Texas, where it successfully launched on a minute-long, low-altitude test flight known as a “hop” in August 2019. A series of suborbital test flights were designed to stress systems and components to inform the production of larger prototypes.
In December 2020, the much larger Starship Serial Number 8 prototype was the first to successfully launch from Starbase. After liftoff, it sailed to a high-altitude, suborbital apogee and appeared to hover momentarily. Then, it turned around for a “belly flop” descent back to Earth. Though it exploded just short of its landing pad, all of SpaceX’s core test objectives for that flight were achieved.
In February 2021, the Starship Serial Number 9 prototype took flight. The 165-foot vehicle launched on a brief test and automatically throttled down its Raptor engines at about 33,000 feet. It then performed the “belly flop” using adjustable fins to establish a trajectory back toward the launch site. Though the test achieved SpaceX‘s primary objective, SN9 failed to fully flip from “belly-down” to an upright position, causing it to explode on impact.
SpaceX’s third high-altitude Starship flight in March 2021 saw Starship Serial Number 10 successfully complete all objectives and execute the first landing of the next-generation vehicle. But minutes after sticking the landing, the spacecraft unexpectedly exploded.
Starship Serial Number 15 was the first to launch, land, and remain intact. In May 2021, SN15 took off from a concrete pad and ascended to an altitude of 10 kilometers, or 33,000 feet, before using its “body” as an airbrake to descend back to the launch site. Just before touchdown, it rapidly flipped around and gently landed under the power of two Raptor engines – a first for the program.
Contributing: Associated Press
Contact Jamie Groh at JGroh@floridatoday.com and follow her on Twitter at @AlteredJamie.
Contact Emre Kelly at aekelly@floridatoday.com. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram at @EmreKelly.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: SpaceX launch video: Starship rocket crashes into ocean
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