SpaceX’s Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, lifted off for a second test flight today, but was presumed to have failed minutes later. The two-stage rocketship blasted off from the Elon Musk-owned company’s Starbase launch site near Boca Chica in Texas, on a planned 90-minute flight into space, reported news agency Reuters.
But the contact was lost roughly 10 minutes after lift-off, a company broadcaster told Reuters.
“We have lost the data from the second stage… we think we may have lost the second stage,” SpaceX’s livestream host John Insprucker said.
The booster successfully separated from the ship, but blew up shortly after, while the ship continued on track, AFP reported.
“As you could see, the super heavy booster has just experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly however, our ship is still underway,” an announcer said.
SpaceX hailed today’s rocket launch as incredibly successful by SpaceX engineers, despite the super heavy booster experiencing what is known as “a rapid unscheduled disassembly”.
SpaceX has insisted that explosions during the early stages of rocket development are welcome and help inform design choices faster than ground tests.
The second launch was more successful than the company’s first attempt in April, and any data gathered from today will be used to influence future modifications to the rocket, it said.
The first launch also caused massive damage to the company’s launchpad at Starbase.
(With Inputs from Agencies)
