Starship’s eighth flight test failed yesterday when the spacecraft’s upper state exploded and went spinning out of control.
It is hoped that SpaceX’s Starship will one day take people to Mars.
Starship’s eighth flight test lifted off from Starbase in Texas as planned. The Super Heavy booster successfully lit its 33 Raptor engines and propelled Starship through a nominal first-stage ascent.
About two-and-a-half minutes into flight, the Super Heavy booster shutdown all but three of its Raptor engines as planned for hot-staging separation. Starship then successfully lit its six Raptor engines and separated from the Super Heavy booster to continue its ascent to space.
The Super Heavy booster then relit 11 of 13 planned Raptor engines and performed a boost-back burn to return itself to the launch site. As Super Heavy approached the launch site, it relit 12 of the planned 13 engines at the start of its landing burn to successfully slow the booster down. The three centre engines continued running to maneuver the booster to the launch and catch tower arms, resulting in the third successful catch of a Super Heavy booster.
Starship continued its ascent to its planned trajectory. Prior to the end of the ascent burn, an energetic event in the aft portion of Starship resulted in the loss of several Raptor engines. This in turn led to a loss of attitude control and ultimately a loss of communications with Starship.
Final contact with Starship came approximately nine minutes and 30 seconds after liftoff.
Watch the launch here.