Member-only story
Elon Musk’s Starship Rocket Goes Boom
I had been eagerly waiting for the launch of Elon Musk’s Starship rocket, the largest and most powerful spacecraft in history.
SpaceX had scheduled the first orbital flight for today, so as I watched the countdown, the anticipation was palpable at the company’s space base in Boca Chica, South Texas.
The super heavy booster 33 engines would provide the thrust for the rocket to leave the platform, and after launch, the spacecraft would fly up to a maximum altitude of about 145 miles (233 km), and then return to the atmosphere for a reentry test before it crashed into the Pacific Ocean.
As I watched the launch of Starship, I could feel the excitement building within me. This was the largest rocket ever built, and it was about to take its first orbital flight.
The engines roared to life, and the spacecraft lifted off the ground, soaring toward the sky. Everything seemed to go well until suddenly, a spark appeared in the sky.
At first, I thought it was just a glitch in the camera feed, but as I continued to watch, I realized something was wrong. Within seconds, there was a massive explosion, and the spacecraft disintegrated in the sky.
It was a heart-wrenching sight to witness, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of disappointment as the rocket’s mission ended so abruptly.
The explosion left us on the edge of our seats and wondering what had happened.
Initially, SpaceX did not provide any further details about what went wrong, but something had gone terribly awry.
Later, we got official confirmation of a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” The upper-stage Starship vehicle did not detach from the booster. As a result, four minutes after liftoff, the automatic flight termination system destroyed the rocket, resulting in a fiery end to the flight.
Elon Musk, as always, took to Twitter to congratulate the SpaceX team on the successful test launch.
This wasn’t totally unexpected, as this was an unmanned trial mission with several previous hindrances.
