The SpaceX-Starship Launch System Missed its Test Flight on April 23rd with the Staggered Raptor Booster

SpaceX’s Starship failed its test flight this morning, when the automated flight termination system triggered following a loss of contact with the craft about 10 minutes into its flight. A 90-minute voyage around the world would have been accomplished if the company had sent a spaceship on a near-orbital flight. In April, a test flight exploded minutes after liftoff and flung debris in the surrounding area.

The craft was no longer in range of ground stations, but it is likely that its flight terminated soon after the engines shut down.

Making it to space was part of the goal for the flight test and the aim was to briefly circle the Earth and land in Hawaii. Lisa Watson-Morgan, who heads up NASA’s Human Landing System program, told Ars Technica during an interview published yesterday that whether the launch succeeded in that goal or not, it would still “be a great learning event,” giving SpaceX and NASA more information to continue iterating on Starship’s systems for future tests.

This marks the second launch attempt for the 397-foot-tall rocket, which uses a two-stage system that separates a few minutes into launch, with the booster intended to set back down.

Although the Starship launch was originally scheduled to take place on November 17th, SpaceX pushed back the flight to replace a grid fin actuator, a component that helps guide the Super Heavy booster to its destination.

As before, today’s launch took place at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas. But this time, all of the 33 Raptor engines appeared to ignite properly, and the Starship’s stage separation from the Super Heavy booster worked as planned. When the atmosphere is at its most pressure, the vehicle survived max q. About three minutes after launch, the Starship successfully separated from the Super Heavy booster, after which the booster exploded, something SpaceX officials typically refer to with the euphemism “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” or RUD.

“So far today has been incredibly successful, even with the RUD of the Super Heavy booster,” said Kate Tice, SpaceX’s quality systems engineer on the company’s webcast.

The First Starship Test Flight Off Kaai, Hawaii: SpaceX and the USFaaa – A Joint FAILURE Investigation

If Starship had successfully flown, it would have reached an altitude of about 146 miles, and was planned to splash down at around 8:30 Central time off the coast of Kauai, Hawaii.

The first, brief test flight on April 20 “provided numerous lessons learned,” SpaceX officials said in a statement posted on the company’s website on November 10. The April explosion destroyed the launch pad, causing what Musk described as a “rock tornado,” and rained debris onto the surrounding area. As a result, SpaceX and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) conducted a joint “mishap investigation.” The officials from NASA and the National Transportation Safety Board were observing. The FAA said that when the process was completed on September 8, they had to deal with 63 issues to redesign debris, redesign vehicle hardware, and redesign the launch pad before Starship could fly again.