The redesigned upper stage of the world’s largest rocket has now suffered four catastrophic failures in a row.
SpaceX lost another upper stage of its giant Starship rocket in an explosion—without getting it off the ground first.
This loss occurred at 11:02 p.m. Central time on Wednesday during preparations for a “static fire” test. It was a precursor to a planned tenth test flight of Starship in which that stage’s six Raptor engines would light while the rocket stayed strapped to the ground. As SpaceX was still fueling the stage on a testing stand near its Starbase, Texas, complex, the rocket exploded.
“Whoah!” NASASpaceflight commentators Sawyer Rosenstein and Max Evans blurted out together on the space news-and-commentary site’s YouTube livestream. The video feed went white for a moment before showing secondary explosions that sent Starship shrapnel into the sky and engulfed the test stand.
SpaceX posted soon after on X to report “a major anomaly” with no harm to the company’s people. The test stand, on the Rio Grande at the US-Mexico border, stands several miles apart from SpaceX’s facilities and its Starship launch tower overlooking the Gulf of Mexico.
“A safety clear area around the site was maintained throughout the operation and all personnel are safe and accounted for,” the post read in part. “Our Starbase team is actively working to safe the test site and the immediate surrounding area in conjunction with local officials.”
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk reacted with brief sarcasm in a post on X Thursday morning; “Just a scratch“, he wrote. But he provided more detail in a subsequent reply to a post from Tim Dodd, founder of the Everyday Astronaut site.
“Preliminary data suggests that a nitrogen COPV in the payload bay failed below its proof pressure,” Musk wrote. “If further investigation confirms that this is what happened, it is the first time ever for this design.
