Over the weekend, SpaceX’s enormous new Starship—the widest, tallest, and most powerful rocket humanity has ever built—suffered a dramatic failure. It exploded shortly before launch during a static fire test at the Starbase launch facility. The incident occurred shortly after 11 PM local time on Wednesday, or 0400 GMT Thursday, raising concerns about the rocket’s reliability as it plays a central role in Elon Musk’s vision of colonizing Mars.
The SpaceX Starship sits at a colossal 123 meters (403 ft) tall. Over a span of 4,250 metric tonnes. With a breathtaking maximum payload capacity upwards of 150 metric tonnes, Falcon Heavy is an important cog in SpaceX’s grand ambitions. On a route to test, the very first stage Super Heavy booster blew up prior to its intended splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. Instead, it blew up in a most spectacular fashion. This test follows a string of failures leading up to this explosion. This past spring, one such prototype disintegrated over the Indian Ocean in late May, while another upper stage met its fiery demise over the Caribbean.
Cameron County officials added that there was no danger posed to people in other communities. They called on people to stay away from the site, even as fire suppression efforts were ongoing.
“There are no hazards to residents in surrounding communities, and we ask that individuals do not attempt to approach the area while safing operations continue.” – Cameron County authorities
SpaceX acknowledged the failure, noting that the rocket “experienced a major anomaly while on a test stand at Starbase.” This turn of phrase is very much indicative of the company’s iterative spirit around in-field testing and their motto of “fail fast, learn fast.”
Starbase, located near the Texas border with Mexico, serves as the headquarters for Musk’s space project and has seen several test flights of the Starship. This recent explosion is just the latest in a long line of disappointments and disasters for the rocket. With the previous two outings ending quite poorly, it was uncertain what lay ahead for SpaceX’s highly accelerated development timeline for Starship.
Elon Musk sees Starship as a new kind of fully reusable rocket that will one day allow humans to colonize Mars. All in all, SpaceX has made the most of these setbacks and continues to push hard to refine the technology needed for interplanetary travel and exploration.