Starship, the world’s largest and most powerful rocket, exploded during its first test flight on Thursday. At 8:33 a.m. Central Time (1333 GMT), the unmanned rocket lifted off from Starbase, SpaceX’s spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas. After experiencing multiple engine failures and losing altitude, the rocket disintegrated into a ball of fire over the Gulf of Mexico four minutes later.
Despite the explosion, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk congratulated the team on an “exciting” test and declared it a success, saying they learned a tremendous amount about the vehicle and ground systems that will help improve future Starship flights. NASA, which chose Starship to ferry astronauts to the Moon in late 2025 for the first time since the Apollo programme ended in 1972, also congratulated SpaceX.
Three minutes into the flight, the Starship spacecraft, which will eventually carry crew and cargo, was supposed to separate from the first-stage rocket booster. Separation, however, did not occur, and the rocket exploded in what SpaceX euphemistically referred to as a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” It is standard procedure to destroy a stray rocket in order to prevent damage to people or property below.
Starship is a complex and massive rocket that consists of a 164-foot (50-meter) tall crew vehicle atop a 230-foot tall first-stage Super Heavy booster rocket. It has a thrust of 17 million pounds, which is more than double that of the Saturn V rockets used to launch Apollo astronauts to the Moon. The purpose of the integrated test flight was to evaluate the performance of both the Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy rocket in tandem. SpaceX successfully tested the 33 massive Raptor engines on the booster in February, but this was the first time the Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy rocket were flown together.
The launch had been scheduled for Monday but was pushed back to Thursday due to a frozen pressure valve on the first-stage booster. Musk had warned ahead of the test that technical issues were likely and had attempted to temper expectations for the inaugural flight. “There are a million ways this rocket could fail,” he said.
The plan for the integrated test flight was for the Super Heavy booster to separate from the Starship after launch and splash down in the Gulf of Mexico. However, they were unable to separate, and the booster rocket and Starship spacecraft spun out of control before exploding four minutes into the test flight.
The Starship is both larger and more powerful than NASA’s own heavy rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), which has been in development for more than a decade. The Starship is capable of lifting a payload of more than 100 metric tonnes into orbit. NASA will take astronauts to lunar orbit itself in November 2024 using the SLS.
According to Musk, the ultimate goal of Starship is to establish bases on the Moon and Mars, putting humans on the “path to becoming a multi-planet civilization.” SpaceX envisions eventually putting a starship into orbit and then refuelling it with another starship so that it can continue on its journey to Mars or beyond.
Despite the setback of the failed test flight, SpaceX and Musk remain committed to achieving their long-term goals of space exploration and colonisation. They believe that the starship will be the key to unlocking the universe’s secrets and allowing humans to become a multi-planetary species. The explosion of Starship during its first test flight serves as a reminder that space exploration is dangerous and difficult, but it also emphasises the importance of taking calculated risks in order to reap large rewards.
