SpaceX is going back to the drawing board.
During a test flight in Texas on April 20, the company’s Starship rocket exploded minutes after its launch. “As if the flight test was not exciting enough, Starship experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation,” SpaceX said in a message posted to Twitter moments after the explosion. “Teams will continue to review data and work toward our next flight test.”
“With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multi-planetary,” the company’s note continued. “Congratulations to the entire SpaceX team on an exciting first integrated flight test of Starship!”
SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk was on site for the launch of Starship—which did not have any people onboard—and is also keeping a positive outlook, despite the explosion. “Congrats @SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship!” he tweeted. “Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months.”
