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A prototype SpaceX rocket crashed in a fireball on Tuesday as it attempted to land during a test fight—in an incident captured on video.
The stainless steel Starship prototype launched from SpaceX's Boca Chica facility near Brownsville, Texas, at 2:35 p.m. local time. But technical issues resulted in the rocket, dubbed SN9 or "Serial Number 9," crashing into the ground and exploding around six minutes after launch.
The incident comes just two months after the previous Starship prototype—known as SN8—met a similar fate during another test flight. Despite the crashes, SpaceX considers the past two test flights to have been partially successful, providing the company with valuable data that will help to improve its future prototypes.
The in-development "Starship" launch system consists of a lower booster stage known as "Super Heavy" and an upper stage simply called "Starship," which doubles as a long-duration mission spacecraft.
Elon Musk's company uses the term "Starship" to refer to the lower and upper stage collectively. To date, SpaceX has only tested prototypes of the Starship upper stage.
The fully reusable system, which will stand at a height of 394 feet tall, is designed to carry both crew and cargo to Earth orbit, the moon, Mars and beyond, according to SpaceX.
The company say it will be the most powerful launch vehicle ever developed, capable of transporting more than 100 metric tonnes into Earth orbit.
Tuesday's flight was the second high-altitude test of a Starship prototype, with SN8 being the first. Most of the SN9 test went smoothly with three Raptor engines, each of which shut down in sequence as intended, powering the rocket to a height of roughly six miles or 10 kilometers, SpaceX said in a statement.
The rocket then successfully conducted a series of test maneuvers, reorienting itself for reentry in a "belly flop" position.
The prototype was on course to land precisely at the target location, but as the rocket approached the ground it was not able to right itself, causing it to crash and burst into flames. (Skip to around the 11:50 mark in the YouTube video above to watch this moment.)
"During the landing flip maneuver, one of the Raptor engines did not relight and caused SN9 to land at high speed and experience a RUD," the company said in a statement.
The acronym RUD stands for "rapid unscheduled disassembly"—a euphemistic term which essentially means that the rocket blew up.
"We had again another great flight up to the 10-kilometer apogee," SpaceX announcer John Insprucker said during a live stream of the test flight. "We demonstrated the ability to transition the engines to the landing propellant tanks.
"The subsonic reentry looked very good and stable like we saw last December, so we've got a lot of good data on flap control. We've just got to work on that landing a little bit."
The crash did not appear to damage the next Starship prototype, SN10, which was lying on a nearby launchpad at the Boca Chica facility.
"These test flights are all about improving our understanding and development of a fully reusable transportation system designed to carry both crew and cargo on long-duration, interplanetary flights and help humanity return to the moon, and travel to Mars and beyond," the company said in a statement.
About the writer
Aristos is a Newsweek science and health reporter with the London, U.K., bureau. He is particularly focused on archaeology and ... Read more