Starship test ends in disintegration, but booster lands safely
The Starship spacecraft lost contact with the base on Thursday and disintegrated in the air during its seventh test flight. However, for the second time, the landing of the first stage of the Super Heavy booster rocket was successful, being captured again by mechanical arms.
Starship launched just after 10:30 PM Greenwich Time from SpaceX's spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas. After successfully detaching from the Super Heavy booster and approximately 8 minutes into the flight, at an altitude of 147 kilometres above the Earth and flying at a speed of over 16,900 km/h, the spacecraft stopped transmitting data and was "considered lost."
We lost telemetry with the spacecraft, which means we had no contact with it. At this point, we assume the spacecraft has been lost, announced SpaceX transmission host Dan Huot.
"Rapid unscheduled disassembly"
SpaceX later confirmed that Starship experienced a "rapid unscheduled disassembly," which, in industry jargon, means it broke apart.
"Teams will continue to review data from today’s flight test to better understand root cause. With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s flight will help us improve Starship’s reliability," the company stated.
The failure occurred before the detachment of the rocket's engines and the main phase of Thursday's mission, which was intended to involve deploying payloads simulating Starlink satellites into orbit. According to the plan, the spacecraft was then supposed to return to Earth and crash into the waters of the Indian Ocean.
The landing was successful nevertheless
Despite the failure of the Starship mission, for the second time in history, the company successfully landed the first stage of the Super Heavy rocket, which returned to the launch site and was caught in the air by mechanical arms.
Starship is a two-stage mega-rocket measuring 123 metres. Its first stage is the booster (or launch module) Super Heavy, powered by 33 Raptor methane-oxygen engines, and the second is the Starship, which is the actual spacecraft with 6 similar engines. The rocket is intended to carry the largest payloads into orbit and significantly reduce the costs of such transport. One version of the spacecraft is also planned to be used for landing on the Moon as part of the Artemis III mission.
SpaceX emphasises that the rocket tested on Thursday was an experimental vehicle into which new elements were introduced after the November test, which was also partially unsuccessful.
The propulsion system was redesigned, including increasing the volume of fuel tanks by 25%, using vacuum insulation for fuel lines, introducing a new engine power supply system, and improving the propulsion avionics module.
