The flight test was the first for Starship mounted atop the company’s new Super Heavy rocket, and the first launch ever for that lower-stage booster, which SpaceX has touted as the most powerful launch vehicle on Earth.
Even though the two-stage rocket ship made it less than halfway to the edge of space, climbing to just under 25 miles (40 km), the flight achieved a primary objective of getting the new vehicle off the ground at liftoff despite some of its engines failing.
While SpaceX officials were heartened by the outcome, the mission fell short of reaching several objectives.
The plan was for Starship to soar into space at least 90 some miles (150 km) above Earth before it would re-enter the atmosphere and plunge into the Pacific near Hawaii.
But SpaceX said in a statement afterward that the spacecraft “experienced multiple engines out” during its ascent, then “lost altitude and began to tumble,” before the “flight termination system was commanded on both the booster and the ship.”
The two-stage rocket ship, standing taller than the Statue of Liberty at 394 feet (120 meters), blasted off from the company’s Starbase spaceport on the southern tip of Texas along the Gulf Coast east of Brownsville. SpaceX hoped, at best, to pull off a 90-minute debut flight into space but just shy of Earth orbit.
A live SpaceX webcast showed the rocket ship rising from the launch tower into the morning sky as the Super Heavy’s Raptor engines roared to life in a ball of flame and billowing clouds of exhaust and water vapor.
But less than four minutes into the flight, the upper-stage Starship failed to separate as designed from the lower-stage Super Heavy, and the combined vehicle was seen tumbling end over end before blowing apart.
The pad and surrounding area were cordoned off well in advance of the test, SpaceX said. Any debris from the explosion should have landed over the water in areas placed off-limits by the U.S. Coast Guard.
