SpaceX’s first high-altitude test flight of its next-generation Starship spacecraft ended in a massive fireball in South Texas after a mission that otherwise went smoothly until the landing, prompting an upbeat reaction from founder Elon Musk.
The nearly seven-minute flight Wednesday was stable until the landing attempt when the Starship failed to slow down enough, video images provided by SpaceX showed. The impact of the unoccupied rocket then engulfed the landing site in flames.
The Starship flight was seen as a major success within the company given that the vehicle remained aerodynamically stable during its ascent, a “belly flop” to orient for landing and its precision approach to the landing pad. Three of the company’s new Raptor engines were fired for several minutes, offering SpaceX additional data.
“Congrats SpaceX team hell yeah!!” Chief Executive Officer Musk tweeted shortly after the flight. He said pressure in a fuel tank was low on descent and caused the landing velocity to be too high.
Fuel header tank pressure was low during landing burn, causing touchdown velocity to be high & RUD, but we got all the data we needed! Congrats SpaceX team hell yeah!!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 9, 2020
Musk had predicted only about a one-third chance of success for the initial flight of SN8, Space Exploration Technologies Corp.’s futuristic design prototype that was sent on the program’s first major flight. The company has made steady progress over the past year on Starship prototypes at its factory in Boca Chica, Texas.
The Starship was attempting to reach about 41,000 feet in the test, which was also the first flight for SpaceX’s newest Raptor engine. SpaceX also collected data on how the vehicle could flip and orient for a powered landing similar to the process for the company’s workhorse Falcon 9 system. It also tested multiple control flaps during the flight.
The stainless steel Starship is designed to be a versatile, fully reusable craft that can carry 100 metric tons for deep space missions to the moon and Mars but also serve as a hypersonic, point-to-point vehicle to reduce travel times across Earth. The two-stage system is 160 feet high with a 30-foot diameter, able to carry as many as 100 passengers.
Hawthorne, California-based SpaceX has several additional Starship prototypes nearly completed. They will be used for future test flights in South Texas. Musk said in October he’s “80%-90%” confident that Starship will be ready for an orbital flight in 2021.
Beyond that development milestone, SpaceX has won a contract from NASA to devise a version of Starship that can land astronauts on the moon in 2024. It also has an agreement with a Japanese entrepreneur for a private flight around the moon in 2023.
SpaceX will be ready to launch its first Starship flight to Mars in 2026, Musk said Dec. 1 at an event in Berlin — or possibly two years sooner if it’s “lucky” with its development progress.
Staff writer Dom DiFurio contributed to this story.
