Washington, DC [US], March 7 : SpaceX launched the eighth test of its Starship rocket on Thursday, successfully conducting and completing the "catch" of the Super Heavy booster. However, the Starship broke apart less than ten minutes into the flight, New York Post reported.
Engineers from Space X said that the 400-foot-tall ship, launched from the company's Starbase facility near Boca Chica Beach in Texas, lost altitude control after several engines stopped working 20 seconds before the end of the ascent burn.
In a post on X, SpaceX stated, "During Starship's ascent burn, the vehicle experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly and contact was lost. Our team immediately began coordination with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency responses."
"We will review the data from today's flight test to better understand root cause. As always, success comes from what we learn, and today's flight will offer additional lessons to improve Starship's reliability," it added.
https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1897803612098900131
During the live stream of the flight, nearly 1 million viewers witnessed as the ship apparently went out of control before the cameras completely cut out. The starship was expected to splash down in the Indian Ocean. However, videos that surfaced on social media showed flaming debris of Starship 8 in the night sky over the Atlantic Ocean, with users in Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas awestruck at the glistening wreckage as it crashed towards Earth, New York Post reported.
According to the Federal Aviation Administration, flights at several Florida airports were temporarily grounded on Thursday due to "space launch debris." Elon Musk's company SpaceX lost contact with Starship 8 before it was able to deploy its test satellites, which were scheduled to occur at the 17-minute mark.
Prior to the apparent explosion, SpaceX conducted its third catch of its Super Heavy booster, equipped with 33 Raptor engines, that returned to the Texas launchpad where the so-called "chopsticks" mechanical arms caught the reusable and powerful propellant.
Earlier on Monday, SpaceX postponed its eighth test of the Starship rocket just before its scheduled launch. The launch was delayed after a flight hold was placed due to a Super Heavy booster issue that was not resolved in time for launch, New York Post reported.
The spacecraft was scheduled to take off from SpaceX's Starbase facility near Boca Chica Beach in Texas. However, computers flagged a booster issue when just 23 minutes were left in the countdown.