OAN’s Elizabeth Volberding
10:20 AM – Sunday, November 19, 2023
Elon Musk’s space technology company, SpaceX, has launched its mega rocket Starship which exploded just minutes after reaching space.
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On Saturday, SpaceX launched a test flight for the powerful Starship rocket. However, just minutes after reaching space, both stages of the craft, including the booster and the spacecraft, were lost in explosions over the ocean.
The rocket ship managed to reach space after successfully launching from SpaceX’s private Starbase site in Boca Chica, Texas, at approximately 8:00 a.m. Eastern time.
The flight test was intended to boost as high as 90 miles above ground and was planned to last for a 90-minutes test operation to space and back.
However, just eight minutes later, flight controllers lost the ability to maintain the spacecraft’s course and communication was lost.
According to SpaceX officials, the spacecraft’s self-destruct system exploded over the Gulf of Mexico.
Even though the two stages separated as intended, the first-stage booster quickly started to tumble and burst in mid-air as opposed to landing in the Gulf of Mexico.
SpaceX engineer and livestream host John Insprucker made an announcement stating that the mission control abruptly lost contact with spacecraft.
“We have lost the data from the second stage… we think we may have lost the second stage,” Insprucker said.
Insprucker added that although the cause was unknown, engineers thought the rocket was destroyed by an automated flight termination command.
As a result, flight controllers gave the spacecraft the order to self-destruct at 92 miles above the ground.
This launch marks the second attempt to fly Starship placed atop its towering Super Heavy rocket booster.
On April 20th, Starship’s first flight test resulted in an explosion about four minutes after lift-off.
The accident “resulted in a loss of the vehicle,” according to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, which is in charge of managing commercial launch sites. It also stated that no injuries or property damage had been reported.
The agency added that it will overlook a SpaceX-led investigation into the testing accident and will need to oversee SpaceX’s initial plans to stop another failure from occurring again.
The mission’s goal was to launch Starship from Texas into space, just shy of reaching orbit, and then plunge through Earth’s atmosphere to land off the coast of Hawaii.
Due to an emergency hardware change involving the flight control system, the launch that was originally planned for Friday was postponed by one day.
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