On April 20, 2023, the fully assembled Starship took off for the first time. It was supposed to prove the latest SpaceX contraption can reach orbit and then safely come back to Earth. Instead, it “experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly before stage separation,” which was SpaceX’s fancy way of saying the thing exploded.
Whereas the explosion in itself does not spell the end of the Starship program (if anything, failures such as these are the only way for engineers to learn), it does put a dent in the development plans the company must have had in place.
Even before launch, SpaceX said that just clearing the tower would mean a success for the Starship booster and spacecraft. And for all intents and purposes, the rocket did just that, as the explosion did not occur until four minutes into the flight, and was a little over 24 miles high (38 km).
The launch itself was a spectacular sight, not only because it involved the most powerful rocket ever made (even if not all of its 33 Raptor engines ignited), but also because it was captured on cameras located at angles and in places we’re not used to.
This weekend, for instance, Elon Musk published a slow-motion video of the launch as seen from very close by. As far as we can tell, the video was shot with a launch tower-mounted camera that was obliterated as the burning engines reached its level.
Photo: Elon Musk
Separately, and a couple of days apart, SpaceX itself released three new pics of the launch, revealing the true scale of the mess the Starship did to its surroundings while going up. We don’t get to see debris and destruction all around as we did before, but with such a large amount of smoke it’s like witnessing the end of days (check out the gallery above and the Tweet below to see what I mean).
As for the cause of the rocket’s disintegration, that’s yet to be determined. We know both the rocket’s and spaceship’s self-destruct systems kicked in, but the cause for that is not known.
The most likely cause is the lack of sufficient thrust to climb. Since not all Raptor engines worked, the rocket’s software must have decided it was safer for everyone on the ground for it to blow itself up, and the termination system was commanded.
In the purest SpaceX fashion, we have no info on when we’ll learn more about the cause of the orbital flight’s failure. It’s also unclear how soon the company will attempt to do it again. We do expect, however, a lot more images and details about the mission in the weeks to come, so stay tuned if you want more info on the most high-profile space launch of the spring.
Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies. Full profile
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