A live audience that included President-elect Trump, plus millions more on SpaceX’s stream, watched the world’s most powerful rocket lift off but did not see it return to its origin.
The sixth launch of SpaceX’s giant Starship rocket Tuesday did not deliver a booster catch but did send a plush banana around the world.
Barely a month after the fifth flight test that featured Starship’s slowly descending first stage being snagged by massive metal arms on its launch tower, another Starship’s 33 Raptor engines lit at 4 p.m. Central at SpaceX’s Starbase facility at Boca Chica, Texas.
A live audience that included President-elect Trump, plus millions more on SpaceX’s stream, watched the world’s most powerful rocket lift off but did not see it return to its origin. Instead, a mission controller called out “booster offstage divert” soon after the second stage separated.
The booster instead splashed down softly in the Gulf of Mexico before toppling into the water. SpaceX commentator Dan Huot explained to livestream viewers that “we tripped a commit criteria” on the booster that required the diversion.
Meanwhile, the second stage continued its climb to a suborbital trajectory that would send it around the world before a reentry above the Indian Ocean.
