SpaceX’s starship explosion results in setback
A SpaceX starship exploded during its launch from Boca Chica, Texas for its eighth test flight on March 6. The 403 foot rocket has a 232 foot tall Super Heavy booster and is the largest rocket system ever built. The starship was aimed to make a full orbit around Earth and enter over the Indian Ocean for a splashdown, cloning a landing sequence that SpaceX is planning on executing as a next phase for the airship’s development.
However, less than 10 minutes after lifting off, the spaceship began to experience issues when four of its six upper stage engines prematurely shut down. The rocket then proceeded to spin out of control and break apart into a shower of debris before completely losing contact with SpaceX. SpaceX claims that the debris should have fallen within pre-planned areas and that the airship did not contain any toxic materials. No injuries or damages from the explosion have been reported. The rocket’s booster was successfully grabbed in mid-air by a SpaceX crane and returned to Earth safely.
Planes entering Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Palm Beach and Orlando airports were temporarily stopped due to concerns over flaming debris. As a result, there were 171 departure delays with an average delay time of 28 minutes and 28 diverted flights.
The accident marks the rocket’s second consecutive failure this year. It followed another test in January, where a starship rocket blew up minutes after launching from the same facility in Texas. Similarly, the Federal Aviation Administration [FAA], which regulates private rocket launches, also briefly closed airports due to the same worries about debris. Following the January incident, the FAA grounded starship launches after its damages to properties in the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean. The latest launch was conducted before the FAA finished investigations regarding January’s explosion.
The FAA’s present investigation calls for SpaceX to examine the causes for the failures and receive the agency’s sign-off before allowing starships to fly again. Although these back-to-back conflicts have interfered with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s plans for the rocket, he expects to have the next ship ready in April.
SpaceX’s current starship launches cost around 100 million dollars each, funded by various private investments from the company itself and government contracts such as NASA and the U.S. military. However, SpaceX aims to eventually bring down the costs to as low as 10 million dollars per launch, since the starship system is designed to be fully reusable.
