SpaceX’s Starship, world’s biggest rocket, explodes during test flight
- The gigantic rocket successfully blasted off at 8.33am Central Time from Starbase, the private SpaceX spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas
- Starship’s capsule had been scheduled to separate from the rocket booster 3 minutes into the flight but it failed and the rocket blew up
SpaceX’s Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, exploded on Thursday during its first test flight. The spacecraft was designed to send astronauts to the Moon, Mars and beyond.
The gigantic rocket successfully blasted off at 8.33am Central Time from Starbase, the private SpaceX spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas.
The Starship capsule had been scheduled to separate from the first-stage rocket booster three minutes into the flight but separation failed to occur and the rocket blew up.
“As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation,” SpaceX tweeted, apparently referring to the explosion with playful language.
If successful, the flight would have marked a major step in CEO Elon Musk’s goal to send humans back to the moon and to deep-space destinations including Mars.
SpaceX had originally planned to launch the uncrewed test mission on April 17 before calling it off about 10 minutes before the scheduled take-off due to a frozen pressure valve on the rocket.