Latest SpaceX Starship prototype crashes during landing

The latest SpaceX prototype of its Starship rocket was destroyed Tuesday during a landing attempt after a clean launch.

The company’s livestream of the flight test froze as the rocket came in to land, and thick fog around SpaceX’s facility in Texas made it difficult for witnesses to see what happened.

Starship prototype Serial Number 11, or SN11, reached its target altitude of about 10 kilometers (about 32,800 feet). The rocket is built of stainless steel, representing the early versions unveiled in 2019. Elon Musk’s company is developing Starship with the goal of launching cargo and people on missions to the moon and Mars.

The Starship prototypes stand at about 150 feet tall, or about the size of a 15-story building, and each one is powered by three Raptor rocket engines.

Musk tweeted about half an hour after the test that “at least the crater is in the right place!”

“Something significant happened shortly after landing burn start. Should know what it was once we can examine the bits later today,” Musk said.

SpaceX principal integration engineer John Insprucker noted that the thick fog in the area prevented the company from showing camera views beyond those that were on the rocket itself.

“The frozen view we saw in the camera doesn’t mean that we’re waiting for the signal to come back; Starship 11 is not coming back. Don’t wait for the landing,” Insprucker said. “We do appear to have lost all the data from the vehicle, and the team of course is away from the landing pad, so we’ll be out there seeing what we had.”

SpaceX has successfully launched four Starship prototypes on high-altitude flight tests, starting with SN8 in December, then SN9 in February, and SN10 and now SN11. But while the launches have largely gone according to plan, the landing attempts have ended in a variety of explosions. SpaceX is the only large rocket builder that is attempting to land its vehicles after a launch – traditionally, large rocket boosters are discarded after launching.

Musk’s goal is for Starship to be fully reusable, envisioning a rocket that is similar to a commercial aircraft and capable of launching with minor maintenance and fuel between flights. While SpaceX has only landed prototype SN10 successfully after a high-altitude flight test – although the rocket exploded a few minutes later – the company has landed previous prototypes after short flights to about 500 feet in altitude.

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[waynewong]

Yet another successful we are still gathering data. Stay tuned for more tests and explosions. Luckily no animals were hurt in the testing.

[davidb]

SpaceX should be renamed SpaceXplosion. Everything they have launched has blown up.

[nebulasniffer__]

Why do you show falcon 9 in starship test series crash...

[lenv]

Practice makes perfect. It will soon be perfected. Go Elon🚀🚀🚀

[abdullahylmaz]

dear engineer with bar pressure acceptance does not accept the point.

[daw]

I don't think the earth wants us to run away like that. After all, it is her stardust that made us. Take care of the earth and it will take care of you, I believe there are more efficient ways to achieve this. More than likely it's some investor with bad intentions. At least this mishap can still be productive in many ways.

[SuperKawaiiChannel]

Cannot they implement some types of legs that are extending/springing on landing? Like they use those fins on falcons? Also if they cannot land it in the fog, good luck with random landings...

[brucerosner]

I literally know nothing about this stuff, but what possessed them to test on a foggy day? Especially for a test designed to collect data including video.

[berserkerkonge]

I can think of 5 billion other better things to spend 5 billion on. This is like the rich nieghbor kid playing with his bigger more expensive toys. Just to prove he can.

[THATHATSALLFOLKS]

who want a car made by a company that can't keep their rockets from exploding?

[galtbarber]

They will figure out why it failed. SN12 might do it!