SpaceX tested one of its giant, silver «Starship» prototypes Tuesday (Feb. 2). And for the second time in two months, it exploded on landing.
SpaceX tested one of its giant, silver «Starship» prototypes — with dreams of Mars and the moon — Tuesday (Feb.2). And for the second time in two months, the craft exploded in a ball of fire and smoke on landing. During a livestream of the launch over Boca Chica, Texas, the private spaceflight company was quick to emphasize that perfection was not the point of the test. John Insprucker, SpaceX’s principal integration engineer, stressed that the company had successfully lifted its giant experimental vehicle — reaching 160 feet (49 meters) tall and 30 feet (9 m) wide — to an altitude of 32,800 feet (10 kilometers), before gliding in a controlled manner to its destination, where it exploded on impact on a landing pad in Boca Chica. The same type of explosion happened during an earlier, Dec.8 test of SN8, which is the eighth Starship prototype and the first of the series to reach that altitude. (The prototype launched today was named SN9.) «Again, we’ve just got to work on that landing a little bit,» Insprucker said.
