South Padre Island, Texas— SpaceX’s giant new rocket exploded minutes after takeoff on its maiden test flight Thursday and crashed into the Gulf of Mexico.
Elon Musk’s company aimed to send the largest and most powerful rocket ever built on a round-the-world trip from the southern tip of Texas, near the Mexican border. The nearly 400-foot (120-meter) Starship was carrying neither people nor satellites.
SpaceX later said that several engines in the 33-engine booster failed to fire as the rocket ascended, causing it to lose altitude and begin to fall. The rocket was intentionally destroyed by its self-destruct system, exploded, and plummeted into the water.
Instead of an hour and a half flight at best with the spaceship on top taking off and going around the world, the whole thing took four minutes. The rocket reached a top speed of about 1,300 miles per hour (2,100 kph) and a height of 24 miles (39 kilometers), before veering off course and crashing down.
Crowds of onlookers watched from South Padre Island, several miles away from the off-limits Boca Chica Beach launch site. As the Starship lifted off with a thunderous roar, the crowd chanted, “Go baby, go!”
Musk, in a tweet, called it “an exciting test launch from Starship! I learned a lot for the next test launch in a few months.” SpaceX called it an “unscheduled rapid teardown.”
In the weeks leading up to the flight, Musk gave a 50-50 chance that the spacecraft would reach orbit. He stressed that clearing the launch tower and not blowing up the platform would be a victory.
“You never know exactly what’s going to happen,” said John Insprucker, SpaceX live broadcast engineer and commentator. “But as promised, the excitement is guaranteed and Starship gave us a pretty spectacular finale.”
On liftoff, the rocket kicked up huge columns of sand and dust around the pad. In Port Isabel, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) away, the particles covered cars and other surfaces. The only other report, said John Sandoval, assistant city manager, was a broken window at a local business. “Yeah, it shook and rattled and rolled,” he said of the rocket.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it would oversee the investigation of the crash, noting that no injuries or damage to public property were reported. The agency also said that until it determines there is no threat to public safety, the Starships will be grounded.
SpaceX intends to use these ships to send people and cargo to the Moon and eventually Mars. NASA has booked a Starship for its next moonwalk team, and wealthy tourists are already booking lunar flybys.
Despite the shortened flight, congratulations poured in from NASA chief Bill Nelson and others in the space industry. Retired Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield tweeted: “Great achievement, great lessons, onto the next try.”
“It fell somewhere between a small step and its hoped-for giant leap, but it still represents significant progress toward a reusable superheavy lift rocket,” Jordan Bimm, a space historian at the University of Chicago, said in an email.
At 394 feet and nearly 17 million pounds of thrust, Starship easily outperforms NASA’s moon rockets: past, present, and future. NASA successfully launched its new 322-foot (98-meter) moon rocket last November on a test flight, sending the empty Orion capsule around the Moon.
The stainless-steel Starship rocket is designed to be fully reusable in a fast way, drastically reducing costs, similar to what SpaceX’s smaller Falcon rockets have done when lifting off from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Nothing would be salvaged from this test flight, with the spacecraft, if all had gone well, aimed at a watery grave in the Pacific near Hawaii.
The futuristic spacecraft flew several miles in the air during tests a few years ago, landing successfully only once. But this was the maiden launch of the first-stage booster with 33 methane-fuelled engines.
SpaceX has more boosters and spacecraft lined up for more test flights; the next set is almost ready to go. Musk wants to fire them off in quick succession, so he can start using the Starships to launch satellites into low-Earth orbit and then put people on board.
It was the second launch attempt. Monday’s attempt was scrapped by a frozen boost valve.
Jason and Lisa Flores came from Corpus Christi to watch the launch with their daughter and they noticed something was wrong.
Lisa Flores cried as she watched the take off and then realized: “It’s not working like it was supposed to.”
Elizabeth Trujillo, 13, dressed in a “Star Wars” T-shirt and toy binoculars, skipped school to watch the launch from the beach with her mother and other family members. The crowd cheered as Starship cleared the tower.
Despite the failed attempt, “it was worth it,” said Jessica Trujillo, Elizabeth’s mother. “Just hearing and seeing that view, the excitement of the crowd, was priceless.”
“Practice makes a master. They just have to practice a little more,” he added.
