SpaceX CEO Elon Musk made history today and successfully launched the most powerful rocket ever built, Starship, from a Texas launchpad.
Starship is a vehicle Musk is building to take astronauts to the moon and to Mars.
The craft consists of two parts.
One part is the Super Heavy rocket booster, a 230-foot-tall (69-meter-tall) cylinder that has 33 engines.
And the Starship spacecraft, which stands 164 feet (50 meters) tall and rides atop the rocket, makes up the other part.
The booster rocket was meant to separate from the Starship and fall into the ocean.
Starship would then fire up its engines to complete the mission.
Sadly, the booster did not separate or did not separate properly from the starcraft which caused the craft to spin and blow up over the Gulf of Mexico.
While that part of the test failed, the goal was to clear the launchpad so SpaceX considers it a smashing success.
Two years ago SpaceX won a nearly $3 billion contract from NASA to use Starship to put astronauts on the moon.
Starship will be used as part of NASA’s Artemis moon program.
Congrats @SpaceX team on an exciting test launch of Starship!
Learned a lot for next test launch in a few months. pic.twitter.com/gswdFut1dK
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 20, 2023
Congratulations @elonmusk and SpaceX team! 🚀
Truly breathtaking! ❤️ pic.twitter.com/rXsq7PA3TF
— Sir Doge of the Coin ⚔️ (@dogeofficialceo) April 20, 2023
The New York Times broke down the launch:
Starship has made it past max-q, the period of maximum dynamic pressure.
Some of the booster’s 33 engines definitely have not ignited, and some more have gone out. But there’s the first picture from space.
There are repeated cheers from the shoreline for what appears to be a successful launch.
Some of the engines are out. The rocket now appears to be spinning, although it is difficult to tell what is going on.
SpaceX: “This does not appear to be a nominal situation.”
The Starship rocket has exploded.
At SpaceX headquarters, there is loud cheering nevertheless on the video feed. That the rocket got off the launchpad was a major success.
