SpaceX lost its Starship rocket during its seventh test flight, an unexpected setback after the company had made steady progress during its test flight campaign for the vehicle.
Despite the loss of the Starship upper portion, the company again showcased its ability to catch the rocket’s lower portion in mid-air using giant mechanical arms.
The largest and most powerful rocket ever built thundered off the launch pad at SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Texas at 4:37pm local time on Thursday. It was supposed to attempt to reach near orbital speeds and deploy 10 dummy spacecraft, designed to mimic the size, shape and weight of the upgraded SpaceX Starlink satellites that Starship will be launching in the future.
It was to be the first time Starship attempted to deploy cargo in space, an important milestone in readying the rocket for operational use.
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But about 15 minutes into the mission, SpaceX lost communications with Starship. Launch commentators then said the vehicle had been “lost”.
About six minutes into the flight, SpaceX used giant mechanical arms to “catch” the rocket’s Super Heavy lower portion – the same stunning engineering manoeuvre it completed during the rocket’s fifth test flight in October.
Recovering the Starship Super Heavy booster is critical to the developmental progress of the vehicle, which SpaceX chief executive Officer Elon Musk has long touted will be fully reusable.
SpaceX successfully caught a Starship rocket booster at the Starbase facility near Boca Chica Beach in Texas on October 13th.
During the rocket’s sixth test flight on November 19th, attended by US president-elect Donald Trump, SpaceX skipped the booster catch, citing technical issues. If conditions for the catch are again not met during this launch, the booster will instead land in the Gulf of Mexico.
The launch came a matter of hours after Blue Origin LLC’s new flagship rocket lifted off for the first time and successfully reached orbit in a crucial test of the Jeff Bezos-backed firm’s ability to challenge SpaceX’s ironclad grip on the launch market. Musk was quick to offer his fellow billionaire congratulations on reaching a new milestone.
In the past, some of Starship’s launches have ended with explosions and other damage to the vehicle – emblems of SpaceX’s fly-fail-fix iterative approach to engineering. SpaceX said that for this launch, it upgraded the rocket’s heat shield – designed to cushion the extreme heat and forces as it plunges through the atmosphere.
Other upgrades to the vehicle include a redesigned propulsion system, more powerful flight computer and additional cameras for flight monitoring, according to the company. – Bloomberg