New Delhi (NVI): SpaceX’s Starship rocket prototype exploded in flames as it made a vertical landing, minutes after what seemed to be an uneventful test launch from the company’s testing site on the coast of Texas.
The self-guided rocket blew up as it touched down on a landing pad following a controlled descent. The test flight had been intended to reach an altitude of 41,000 feet (12,500 metres), propelled by three of SpaceX’s newly developed Raptor engines for the first time.
The Starship rocket destroyed was the prototype for a heavy-lift launch vehicle that Elon Musk’s private space company hopes will carry people – and cargo – on future missions to the Moon and Mars.
Musk said in a tweet immediately following the accident that the rocket’s “fuel header tank pressure was low” during descent, which caused “touchdown velocity to be high.”
Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD, but we got all the data we needed! Congrats SpaceX team hell yeah!!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2020
The billionaire founder of Tesla added that SpaceX had obtained all the data it needed from the test. “Mars, here we come!!” he tweeted.
The test launch took off and ascended in a seemingly straight line, before one and then another of its engines stopped. After four minutes and 45 seconds of flight, its third engine extinguished and the rocket began its descent in its expected position.
The engines were restarted just seconds before landing in an effort to slow the ship, but it crashed hard into the Earth.
The latest flight was livestreamed on the @SpaceX Twitter account and aimed to check the metal body of SN8 (Starship number 8) and its three engines for their aerodynamism, including during the ship’s return to Earth – which takes place vertically, in the same vein as SpaceX’s pioneering Falcon 9 rocket.
-CHK
