There were also problems during the latest test of a “spaceship” rocket from tech billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX company. Although the lower rocket stage was recovered, the upper part exploded over the Atlantic Ocean.
First, the SpaceX team lost contact with the rocket’s upper stage, with the company later confirming that it was a “rapid, unplanned disassembly” — the company’s euphemism for an explosion. The mega rocket took off from the Starbase spaceport in Boca Chica, South Texas, at 4:37 PM (local time, 11:37 PM CET) for a test flight.
As seen in the video feed, the lower stage, dubbed “Super Heavy,” slowed its flight about seven minutes after launch, then slid back to the launch pad and was captured by mechanical arms on the launch tower. SpaceX had only managed to catch it once before, during the test flight in October, and it brought applause and cheers from the team on the ground.
But the triumph was short-lived: Immediately after the propulsion stage restarted, speakers on a live Internet broadcast confirmed that the upper stage had been lost due to a “propulsion anomaly.”
Musk with gallows humor: “Entertainment guaranteed”
Flight tracking website Flight Aware showed several planes changing course over the Atlantic Ocean near the Turks and Caicos Islands. Users of the online service “Success is uncertain, but entertainment is guaranteed,” Musk wrote on X, sharing one of the videos (see below).
The Tesla founder does not want to see it as a setback in the billionaires’ race for space. “Individual rocket launches are not important. What matters is the expected time when a self-sustaining civilization will exist on Mars,” Musk said on X.
The Amazon founder is hot on Musk’s heels
Also on Thursday, US space company Blue Origin’s ‘New Glenn’ rocket was launched by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on its first test flight. ‘New Glenn’ reached Earth orbit as planned, but the return of the reusable propulsion stage to Earth did not work on the first attempt. With ‘New Glenn’, Blue Origin wants to enter the lucrative orbital rocket market – and compete with SpaceX.
Source: Krone
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