SpaceX's starship destroyed in test flight

Meanwhile Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin successfully sent a rocket into orbit for first time but failed to land its booster

SpaceX's Starship spacecraft was destroyed during its seventh test flight on Thursday, after the launch of the Super Heavy-Starship mega rocket.

The first stage booster was successfully caught back at its firing stand, but the Starship upper stage failed to reach space and apparently broke up mid-flight. SpaceX later confirmed the spacecraft's destruction.

Telemetry from the Starship cut out eight minutes and 27 seconds after launch due to unexpected engine shutdowns.

SpaceX acknowledged the anomaly in a post on X, describing the event as a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" during ascent. The company stated that data from the flight would be reviewed to determine the cause of the failure.

Photo: SpaceX

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported that falling debris from the destroyed Starship delayed airline traffic at Miami International and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International airports, with flights temporarily slowed and diverted. Normal operations resumed shortly thereafter.

The rocket launched from SpaceX's Boca Chica, Texas, facility, with 33 Raptor engines generating up to 16 million pounds of thrust.

The Super Heavy booster successfully returned to Earth, using its engines to steer itself back to the launch site for capture by mechanical arms, a technique SpaceX has tested before.

Photo: SpaceX

While the flight aimed to test various upgrades, including engine restarts in space and the deployment of Starlink mockups, the loss of telemetry made it unclear what caused the failure of the upper stage.

 

 

 

 

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Meanhile Blue Origin, the space company founded by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, has successfully launched a rocket into orbit for the first time.

However, during the mission, a company spokesperson confirmed via the live feed, "We lost the booster."

The company had aimed to recover the booster used to launch the New Glenn rocket by landing it on an ocean platform, but that portion of the mission did not succeed.