Elon Musk’s creation of a rocket ship to eventually transport people to the moon and Mars was cut short on Thursday after an unmanned test flight of SpaceX’s next-generation Starship spacecraft crashed after liftoff from South Texas.
The company’s new Super Heavy rocket booster, which SpaceX has billed as the most powerful in the world, carried Starship for the first time during the test flight.
Even though the two-stage rocket ship was unable to travel more than 23 miles (37 km) in the air, the flight’s main goal of launching the new spacecraft into orbit was accomplished.
Officials at SpaceX were encouraged by the result; however, the mission missed several of its goals.
The Starship was supposed to be launched into space, reenter the atmosphere 60 miles (97 km) off the coast of Hawaii, and then plunge into the Pacific. But the mission was cut short by the explosion.
In comments made on Sunday, the creator, CEO, and chief engineer of SpaceX, Elon Musk, expressed a desire to moderate expectations and discounted the likelihood of a successful first flight. The “real goal” of the test, according to SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, is “to not blow up the launch pad,” he said at a conference in February. As a significant partner in Artemis, NASA’s recently launched human spaceflight programme, getting the newly merged Starship and booster rocket off the ground for the first time constituted a milestone in SpaceX’s desire to bring astronauts back to the moon and eventually to Mars.
NASA administrator Bill Nelson congratulated @SpaceX on Starship’s first integrated flight test in a tweet. “Throughout history, every great accomplishment has required some element of measured risk because great risk carries great reward. He is anticipating what SpaceX learns from the upcoming flight test and beyond.