Aircraft have to change course Starship" mega rocket exploded
Thursday's test flight of the Starship mega-rocket did not go according to plan. The US space company SpaceX managed to recover the lower stage of the rocket again, but the upper stage exploded over the Atlantic.
17.01.2025, 05:44
17.01.2025, 07:27
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- Thursday's test flight of the Starship mega-rocket did not go according to plan.
- Elon Musk's US aerospace company SpaceX once again managed to recover the lower stage of the rocket, but the upper stage exploded over the Atlantic.
- Like SpaceX, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' company Blue Origin also wants to launch payloads such as satellites into space for numerous customers.
- Its new rocket "New Glenn" took off on its first test flight into space on Thursday.
- It reached the planned Earth orbit - but the reusable propulsion stage did not return to Earth on the first attempt.
First the SpaceX team lost contact with the upper rocket stage, later the company confirmed that there had been a "rapid unscheduled disassembly" - the company's euphemism for an explosion. The Starship mega-rocket from tech billionaire Elon Musk's company had taken off on a test flight from the Starbase spaceport in Boca Chica, South Texas, at 4.37pm (local time, 11.37pm CET).
Video footage showed the lower stage, named Super Heavy, slowed its flight about seven minutes after liftoff, then glided back to the launch pad and was caught by mechanical arms on the launch tower. SpaceX had only succeeded in catching it again once before, during the test flight in October, and it drew applause and cheers from the team on the ground.
But the triumph was short-lived: shortly after the recovery of the propulsion stage, the speakers confirmed in a live internet broadcast that the upper stage had been lost due to a propulsion anomaly.
Aircraft change course
"The teams will continue to analyze the data from today's flight to better understand the cause," said SpaceX, the aerospace company founded by Musk, on Platform X, which is also owned by the tech billionaire. "In a test like this, success is in what we learn, and today's flight will help us improve the reliability of Starship."
The flight tracking website Flight Aware showed several planes over the Atlantic changing course near the Turks and Caicos Islands. "Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed," Musk wrote on X, sharing one of the videos.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) stated that it was aware of the "anomaly" that occurred during the Starship's test flight. It is "reviewing the incident and will provide an updated statement", it said.
Vision of a reusable rocket
With Starship, SpaceX is pursuing the goal of building a fully reusable and therefore more cost-effective rocket for future space missions.
Starship consists of the approximately 70-metre-long "Super Heavy" booster and the upper stage, also called "Starship", which measures around 50 meters - in total, the system is larger than the Statue of Liberty. Both parts, the booster and the spaceship, are designed in such a way that they can be reused after returning to Earth. The US space agency NASA wants to use the Starship to send astronauts to the moon, while SpaceX is pursuing the goal of one day reaching Mars.
Competitors are also launching into space
Similar to SpaceX, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' company Blue Origin also wants to launch payloads such as satellites into space for numerous customers. Its new rocket "New Glenn" took off on its first test flight into space on Thursday. It reached the planned orbit. However, the reusable propulsion stage failed to return to Earth on the first attempt.
After the test flight, Musk congratulated Bezos on having "reached Earth orbit on the first attempt". The new orbital rocket from Blue Origin intensifies the rivalry between Musk, the richest person in the world, and Bezos, the second richest. So far, commercial space travel has been dominated by Musk's company SpaceX: commercial satellite operators as well as the Pentagon and the US space agency NASA use SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets to launch astronauts to the International Space Station ISS or satellites into space.