Starship rocket explodes minutes after launch

ALBAWABA - SpaceX’s Starship rocket, the largest and most powerful ever to launch, exploded in midair Thursday, minutes after lifting off from a launchpad in South Texas in the United States.

The New York Times said although the spacecraft failed to reach orbit, "it was not a total failure for the private spaceflight company."

It said before the launch, Elon Musk, the company’s founder, "had tamped down expectations, saying it might take several tries before Starship succeeds at this test flight, which was to reach speeds fast enough to enter orbit before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii."

According to the Times, the launch "achieved a number of important milestones, with the rocket flying for four minutes and getting well clear of the launchpad before it started to tumble, culminating in a high-altitude blast." The brief flight produced reams of data for engineers to understand how the vehicle performed, it said.

"If we get any information that allows us to improve the design of upcoming builds of Starship, then it is a success," Musk said on Sunday during an audio discussion with Twitter users about the test flight.

"It is purely, purely learning," he pointed out.

Despite the setback, "SpaceX remains the dominant company in global spaceflight," the Times said. It said SpaceX's Falcon 9 rockets have already traveled to space 25 times in 2023, with the most recent launch concluding successfully on Wednesday.

Thursday's countdown at the launch site in South Texas, near the city of Brownsville, "proceeded smoothly through the morning until the last half a minute, when it was paused for a few minutes while SpaceX engineers resolved technical issues," the New York Times and other news outlets reported. 

At 9:33 a.m. Eastern time (1:33 p.m. GMT), the 33 engines on the Super Heavy booster ignited in a huge cloud of fire, smoke and dust, and the Starship rose slowly upward. "About a minute later, the rocket passed through a period of maximum aerodynamic pressure, one of the crucial moments for the launch of any rocket," according to the New York Times.

"But video of the rocket captured flashes as several of the engines on the Super Heavy booster stage failed, and the vehicle started tumbling in a corkscrew path," the Times noted.

"This does not appear to be a nominal situation," John Insprucker, a SpaceX engineer, reported during the company’s livestream of the launch.

According to the Times, the upper-stage Starship vehicle apparently "did not separate from the booster, and four minutes after liftoff, the automatic flight termination system destroyed the rocket, ending the flight in a fireball."