SpaceX’s massive Starship rocket just took off shortly after 8AM ET from the corporate’s Starbase launch facility in Boca Chica, Texas.
A number of minutes after the launch and a planned “hot stage” separation, the Super Heavy booster exploded as a substitute of continuous its planned descent and water landing, but Starship itself continued into space. Minutes later, the SpaceX team said it had not received any signal from the booster and that they might have lost the ship.
That far into its flight, the craft was likely not in range of ground stations, but it surely appears the craft’s flight termination system engaged soon after its Raptor engines shut down.
This marks the second launch attempt for the 397-foot-tall rocket, which uses a two-stage system that separates a couple of minutes into launch, with the booster intended to set back down.
Although the Starship launch was originally scheduled to happen on November seventeenth, SpaceX pushed back the flight to replace a grid fin actuator, a component that helps guide the Super Heavy booster to its destination.
This launch test made it much farther along than the previous attempt. Starship’s first test flight in April resulted in failure. The rocket burst into flames shortly after its launch and fired detonators to self-destruct. SpaceX blamed the failure on leaking propellant from the Super Heavy booster, stating it “severed reference to the vehicle’s primary flight computer.” The corporate couldn’t conduct one other launch until it addressed the Federal Aviation Administration’s 63 corrective actions.